The Strategic Importance of the Black Sea
The Strategic Importance of the Black Sea
By Stratfor
Stratfor, short for Strategic Forecasting Inc., is the world’s leading private intelligence company. Founded in 1996, Stratfor delivers to its clients real-time intelligence, analysis and forecasts on geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues.Recent events in Georgia have brought into sharp focus the strategic value of the Black Sea, a vital body of water in the middle of a resource-rich area. This region is particularly strategic from the Russian perspective, meaning any fight flaring up between the West and Russia would likely see the Black Sea as a major point of conflict. A review of the strategic importance of the Black Sea for the various interested powers is therefore in order.
The Black Sea forms roughly the southern and the eastern boundaries of Europe with the Middle East and Asia respectively, and it is the major body of water between the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean. It is connected to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, two straits that form a maritime bottleneck separating Europe from Asia. The Turkish coast forms the southern coastline of the Black Sea, while the northern coast of the sea is split almost equally between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian-populated, but Ukrainian-owned, Crimean Peninsula juts into the middle of the sea, affording whoever controls it crucial access to the Russian and Ukrainian plains. To the sea’s east are the Georgian coast and the Caucasus, while in the west lie the Balkan states of Bulgaria, Romania and landlocked Moldova.
The Black Sea is essential to any attempt at force projection in the region because the Carpathian Mountains in Romania and the Caucasus Mountains constrain any land-based moves against Russia from the south. The Black Sea is therefore the only path through which a potential enemy could threaten Russia’s core without, of course, driving across Poland and the North European plain straight to Moscow — a path Napoleon and Hitler found was not so direct after all. Because the Black Sea is close to the Caucasus and directly below Russia’s oil-producing regions of Tatarstan and Bashkorostan, it also affords any Russian enemy a direct line toward the energy lifeline of the Russian military.
For Europe, the Black Sea has never been a major military route of invasion and has often, in fact, acted as a buffer against land-based armies. As a trade route, however, the Black Sea is vital for the Europeans. During the Cold War, Black Sea shipping was minimal, as the lower Danube River fell into the Soviet sphere. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the cessation of hostilities in former Yugoslavia, the Danube has returned as a key transportation route, particularly for Germany. Now, Central European manufacturing exports can be floated down the river to the Black Sea, which is much cheaper than transporting them to the Baltic Sea by land. Any renewed closure of this transportation route would certainly be a big problem for Europe.
The Black Sea is vital for Georgia, whose only access to Europe is via the sea, due to the rugged terrain of the Caucasus and through Russian hostility.
For Russia, the key strategic value of the Black Sea lies in controlling the energy resources in the Caucasus and around the Caspian Sea. If a naval operation were to project power from the Black Sea toward the Don River corridor between Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd (better known by its former name, Stalingrad), Moscow would be cut off from the Russian Caucasus and the region’s immense energy resources.
French and British expeditionary forces tried to do just that during the Crimean War, first invading Crimea and taking Sevastopol and then trying to get to Rostov-on-Don through the Sea of Azov. In the nuclear age, a similar land invasion of Russia would of course be out of the question, but the trajectory of possible power projections still stands: through the Black Sea to Crimea and into the Rostov-on-Don/Volgograd Don River corridor. By attacking Moscow’s control over the Don River corridor, an enemy essentially would cut off the Caucasus from the Kremlin, setting the stage for further force projection inland.
Contemporary politico-military arrangements in Europe dictate that the Black Sea is essentially a NATO-controlled lake. The bottleneck of the Dardanelles/Bosporus is, for all intents and purposes (nuances of current international treaties such as the Montreux Convention aside), fully under the control of NATO member Turkey. Just south of the crucial straits lies the Aegean Sea — also NATO-controlled — a confining body of water that further entrenches NATO’s power in the region. Even if Russia were to miraculously break through the Dardanelles, the maze that is the Aegean would prove impossible to escape. Also, the entire Mediterranean is a NATO lake, given the predominance of its navies there along with the fact that the entire sea is in range of land-based airpower.
The extent of Russian naval and military power today lies in its ability to conduct precisely the sort of power projection witnessed in Georgia. Russia can play on its side of the Black Sea, particularly in Georgia and Ukraine; the strategic Crimean Peninsula and the naval base of Sevastopol act as a cockpit from which Russia controls the northern shores of the sea. Combined with air superiority on its side, Russia can certainly dominate the Caucasus and Ukraine. Russia also dominates these regions by virtue of its land power and contiguous territory. Doctrinally, Russia rolls in on the ground, maintaining direct land links to its home territory.
But this cuts both ways, and the Black Sea is the perfect platform through which to project military power into the very heart of Russia. Oceans and seas, in general, are the modern highways of war that a powerful state can use to project its power to any point on the planet. Without the Black Sea, the closest anyone could get to the Russian underbelly would entail marching through the North European Plain or the Balkans, prospects with a historically very low rate of success — and brutally high human and military costs. Alternatively, a modern navy, such as those possessed by the United States and some of its NATO allies, could easily park its fleet in the Black Sea, thanks to Turkish control of the Dardanelles. This would put the fleet within easy striking distance of Moscow’s energy-rich Caucasus region, all without the need to invade Russia proper as during the Crimean War. This option has only appeared with the advent of modern -guided missiles and carrier-launched aircraft, which perhaps accounts for the increased importance of the Black Sea Fleet, nominally the Kremlin’s least-favored fleet.
At present, the West also has overall superior military power in the Black Sea. By controlling the Dardanelles, the formidable U.S. and Turkish navies control the sea’s entrance as well as its waters. Turkish and U.S. air forces also have presence in the region. The U.S. air force has a hub in the southern Turkish air base at Incirlik, and airfields in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania could easily host decisive airpower from any number of NATO member countries, which could be used to establish air superiority over the entire sea and devastate the Russian naval presence. Turkey’s air force is also well-drilled and well-equipped. Modern weapons systems such as submarine- and ship-launched cruise missiles and carrier-launched jets would be able to target the very heart of Russia once the supremacy of the Black Sea was assured. (It should be pointed out, however, that when it comes to U.S. ship-, submarine- and air-launched cruise missiles, the Black Sea presents an additional vector of attack but is not decisive for attacking Russia’s European core, given U.S. access to the Barents, Baltic, Mediterranean and Aegean seas.)
The Black Sea could become an advantage for Russia only if Moscow somehow managed to neutralize Turkey and its control of the straits. Thus far, Russia has never been able to do this, either militarily or diplomatically. Moscow’s geography has always hindered its naval development, and despite trying on and off for more than a century, it has never been able to secure the Black Sea, instead living with it as a buffer, just as it uses Ukraine as a buffer. Today, more than ever, Turkey holds decisive military control over the only sea access to the Black Sea, and as such is the absolute arbiter of outside naval intervention. Turkish alliance with the West is therefore the key to NATO’s — and thus the West’s — continued denial of the Black Sea to Russia as anything more than a buffer, a reality that has not changed much throughout the centuries.
