by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
Crimea is essential to Russia strategically and economically, but speculation over Ankara helping to boost the US presence in the Black Sea is far-fetched given Turkey’s energy deals with Moscow.
A power struggle over the Black Sea between Russia and the US plus NATO has the potential to develop as a seminal plot of the 21st century New Great Game – alongside the current jostling for re-positioning in the Eastern Mediterranean.
By now it’s established the US and NATO are stepping up military pressure from Poland to Romania and Bulgaria all the way to Ukraine and east of the Black Sea, which seems, at least for the moment, relatively peaceful, just as Crimea’s return to Russia starts to be regarded, in realpolitik terms, as a fait accompli.
After a recent series of conversations with top analysts from Istanbul to Moscow, it’s possible to identify the main trends ahead.
Just as independent Turkish analysts like Professor Hasan Unal are alarmed at Ankara’s isolation in the Eastern Mediterranean energy sphere by an alliance of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, Washington’s military buildup in both Romania and Bulgaria is also identified as posing a threat to Turkey.
It’s under this perspective that Ankara’s obstinance in establishing a security “corridor” in northern Syria, east of the Euphrates river, and free from the YPG Kurds, should be examined. It’s a matter of policing at least one sensitive border.
Still, in the chessboard from Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Crimea, the specter of “foreign intervention” setting fire to the Intermarium – from the Baltics to the Black Sea – simply refuses to die.
‘Russian lake’?
By the end of the last glacial era, around 20,000 years ago, the Black Sea – separated from the Mediterranean by an isthmus – was just a shallow lake, much smaller in size than it is today.
The legendary journey of Jason and the Argonauts, before the Trojan war, followed the Argo ship to the farther shore of Pontus Euxinus (the ‘Black Sea’) to recover the Golden Fleece – the cure for all evils – from its location in Colchis (currently in Georgia).
In Ancient Greece, steeped in mythology, the Black Sea was routinely depicted as the boundary between the known world and terra incognita. But then it was “discovered” – like America many centuries later – to the point where it was configured as a “string of pearls” of Greek trading colonies linked to the Mediterranean.
The Black Sea is more than strategic, it’s crucial geopolitically. There has been a constant drive in modern Russian history to be active across maritime trade routes through the strategic straits – the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and Kerch in Crimea – to warmer waters further south.
As I observed early last month in Sevastopol, Crimea is now a seriously built fortress – incorporating S-400 and Iskander-M missiles – capable of ensuring total Russian primacy all across the eastern Black Sea.
A visit to Crimea reveals how its genes are Russian, not Ukrainian. A case can be made that the very concept of Ukraine is relatively spurious, propelled by the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the 19th century and especially before World War I to weaken Russia. Ukraine was part of Russia for 400 years, far longer than California and New Mexico have been part of the US.
Now compare the reconquest of Crimea by Russia, without firing a shot and validated by a democratic referendum, to the US “conquests” of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Moreover, I saw Crimea being rebuilt and on the way to prosperity, complete with Tatars voting with their feet to return; compare it to Ukraine, which is an IMF basket case.
Crimea is essential to Russia not only from a geostrategic but also an economic point of view, as it solidifies the Black Sea as a virtual “Russian lake”.
It’s immaterial that Turkish strategists may vehemently disagree, as well as US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker who, trying to seduce Turkey, dreams about increasing the US presence in the Black Sea, “whether on a bilateral basis or under EU auspices.”
Under this context, the building of the Turk Stream pipeline should be read as Ankara’s sharp response to the rampant Russophobia in Brussels.
Ankara has, in tandem, consistently shown it won’t shelve the acquisition of Russian S-400 missile systems because of American pressure. This has nothing to do with pretentions of neo-Ottomanism; it’s about Turkey’s energy and security priorities. Ankara now seems more than ready to live with a powerful Russian presence across the Black Sea.
It all comes down to Montreux
Not by accident the comings and goings on NATO’s eastern flank was a key theme at last summer’s biennial Atlanticist summit. After all, Russia, in the wake of reincorporating Crimea, denied access over the eastern Black Sea.
NATO, though, is a large mixed bag of geopolitical agendas. So, in the end, there’s no cohesive strategy to deal with the Black Sea, apart from a vague, rhetorical “support for Ukraine” and also vague exhortations for Turkey to assume its responsibilities.
But because Ankara’s priorities are in fact the Eastern Mediterranean and the Turkish-Syrian border, east of the Euphrates river, there’s no realistic horizon for NATO to come up with permanent Black Sea patrols disguised as a “freedom of navigation” scheme – as much as Kiev may beg for it.
What does remain very much in place is the guarantee of freedom of navigation in the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits controlled by Turkey, as sanctioned by the 1936 Montreux Convention.
The key vector, once again, is that the Black Sea links Europe with the Caucasus and allows Russia trade access to southern warm waters. We always need to go back to Catherine the Great, who incorporated Crimea into the empire in the 18th century after half a millennium of Tatar and then Ottoman rule, and then ordered the construction of a huge naval base for the Black Sea fleet.
By now some facts on the ground are more than established.
Next year the Black Sea fleet will be upgraded with an array of anti-ship missiles; protected by S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems; and supported by a new “permanent deployment” of Sukhoi SU-27s and SU-30s.
Far-fetched scenarios of the Turkish navy fighting the Russian Black Sea fleet will continue to be peddled by misinformed think tanks, oblivious to the inevitability of the Russia-Turkey energy partnership. Without Turkey, NATO is a cripple in the Black Sea region.
Intriguing developments such as a Viking Silk Road across the Intermarium won’t alter the fact that Poland, the Baltics and Romania will continue to clamor for “more NATO” in their areas to fight “Russian aggression”.
And it will be up to a new government in Kiev after the upcoming March elections to realize that any provocation designed to drag NATO into a Kerch Strait entanglement is doomed to failure.
Ancient Greek sailors had a deep fear of the Black Sea’s howling winds. As it now stands, call it the calm before a (Black Sea) storm.
https://sputniknews.com/military/201901191071638000-usa-russia-black-sea-navy/
The USS Cook, back for another tour of the Black Sea, is closely monitored by Russian defense forces.
These ventures by US Navy are to bolster the spines of the “allies” in NATO.
Of course, the US vessels are impotent should anyone decide to attack Russia.
Each vessel is actually a sitting duck, defenseless against EW and missiles.
More importantly, Turkey will soon have another channel cut for ships to move to and from the Mediterranean.
This makes any thought of tactically blocking the Bosphorus by means less than war.
Russia is now a ME and NA superpower. Its naval base at Tartus has linked with Sevastopol for co-development in many ways. The human element is linked by shed blood. Russia is not intimidated by US power projection.
In fact, when cruising the Black Sea, the US is projecting weakness. Showing the impotence of its ships and weapons in what is a real shooting gallery is stupid. They can’t even get impressive photos and videos in such operations. The Russians entertain them with low-flying flights of jets that demonstrate impunity to America’s power.
The USS Cook, infamous for being totally impacted by EW two years ago, is back on a morale-building cruise, hoping the ‘Professionals’ of the Southern Military District of the RF will not embarrass them a second time.
Coming to the Black Sea as if it were a NATO sphere of influence (as the British and others have done) is whistling past the graveyard. Buttock clinching must have been at its tightest. The Black Sea is a gauntlet in which nothing in the air or on the surface (or subsea) will survive for more than minutes if conflict broke out (as Kiev and other deranged Russophobes dream of.)
_ …” US vessels are impotent ” _…
as example , few words of usa icebreakers.
US coast guard ( US navy ) , have two twin icebreakers.
One is 50 % potent , other is 100 % impotent.
( other is used for scavinging spare part for 50 % operstional one )
US can not let 50% able vessel to enter deep frozen north seas.
So , if they would like to travel north seas route , they would have to ask rusian icebreaker to clear path before us navy destroyers , frigates or so vessels.
But they are shy to ask rusians for help , so they ships stay in harbour.
But why is it so ?
US navy has no money to build new icebreaker.
Strange , with 750 bil $ yearly budget , there is no money for such ship.
That leaves us with question were does that huge pile of money go ?
To whom ? To where ?
So far Kanal Istanbul is Erdogon hot air. He made it as a campaign promise back in 2011. He then promised construction to begin in 2013. I then saw an article that they had announced that they had finally figured out the route the Kanal Istanbul would take in 2017. They then promised a ground breaking for construction in 2018. A search on “Kanal Istanbul Groundbreaking” found no mention of it actually happening, in fact none of the searches on Kanal Istanbul found anything other than announcements of big plans.
Tactically, the only way of blocking it today would be a war. Unless you count a long traffic jam of oil tankers as blocking it, which is the normal state of the Bosporus.
They will never build the crazy Panama or Suez Canals either.
It’s all hype.
Larchmonter445
You will have noticed that the US is usually sending single ships into the Black Sea, destroyers, which to the US are expendable and are obviously used as sacrificial lambs. There is nothing better the US would like than if one of these destroyers was sunk, having a cause for “cassus beli”.
As for the USS Donald Cook, known as the USS Donald Duck, that incident happened in the Black Sea in 2014. The destroyer sailed into the Black Sea and was met with one Russian SU-24 light bomber. The SU-24 permitted the destroyer to see it on it’s radar, after which it switched on it’s “Khibiny” jamming system. All the electronic systems on the destroyer were blocked, inluding the “Aegis” electronic system. The ships crew went into a wild panic, the destroyer turned around and fled back to Romania, where 27 sailors deserted. Nobody understood what happened. US electronic specialists arrived in Romania to inspect the ship. They found nothing wrong with the electronic systems. It was only then that the grasped that the destroyer was jammed with Russian electronics, which must have been a nasty shock. The “Khibiny” jamming system was also used in Syria with great effect against Tomahawk cruise missiles. I am now reading that the “Khibiny” has been upgraded.
The one good thing about seeing a US ship in the Black Sea is that it says the world is not going to end this week.
If the US was serious about starting a war, they wouldn’t have a ship anywhere near the Black Sea. Same goes for US carrier groups in the Persian Gulf. If the Americans have a carrier group there, that says very plainly that they are not starting a war until they can get it the heck out of there and back to someplace safe. In fact, its been very noticeable during the last couple of Syrian Missile Crises that the Americans pull their carrier groups completely out of the Med before even risking a fight. Thus, if there is an American ship in the Black Sea right now, that means I can rest easy and get a good night’s sleep knowing the nuts won’t blow up the world while I’m asleep.
A lesson from Gulf of Tonkin may serve as an argument to your optimism.
Remember the Maine!
There is nothing new about Western intervention in the Black Sea. The Crimean War of 1853-1856 was fought over Sevastopol and control of the Black Sea. When Hruschov ceded Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, he knew what he was doing, leading one Western analyst to label him a British asset. When Yanukovich was overthrown in Kiev in 2014, the intention was not only for Ukraine to be dragged into the EU and NATO, but for NATO to grab Sevastopol. The efficiency of the Russian reunification of Crimea must have been a nasty shock to NATO, including the Russian performance in Syria and it’s introductions of high tech.
There is nothing NATO can do in the Black Sea, except stage provocations. As far as I can see, days are numbered for both NATO and the EU. The world debt has passed the 244 trillion dollar mark. It cannot be sustained for too long. After that we shall see tremendous changes on the world scene. The Western elites can be thanked for this situation. Back in 1989, when the Warsaw Pact collapsed, NATO should have been disbanded and money directed into Western infrastructure. It was not. The greed of Western elites got the better of them. They were planning to drive both the EU and NATO towards Russian borders, hoping to destablize Russia, after which NATO could pour into the country and break it up in the name of “democracy”, so that Western corporations and banks could plunder it. As political economist Lyndon LaRouche has stated, the only thing which can save the US dollar is the plunder of Siberia and the Caspian region. Too late for that. The clock has made a full circle. The question now is if the US will survive in it’s present political and geographic form, or if it will break up due to a variety of reasons, economic, ethnic, financial and historical. The US has one civil war behind it, when it broke up into two parts. Those memories are still fresh. Personally I don’t see the US lasting in its present form.
@B.F.
_ ” … world debt has passed 244 trilion $mark “…
I think that there were some data mentioning
that 244 trilion $ debt , as internal debt in USA ONLY, not world debt,
and 21 trillion $ , as debt of USA govermnent budget …
So probably world debt could be much larger figure in $
, if internal debt and government debt ase summed together , and added for world.
But statistic data may be adjusted not to horrify peaceful citizens, and economists.
Also probably there some close data as of total amount of $ circling around world
, and that would probably be close figure , as total world debt.
I think ammount of some 7.000 trilion $ was mentioned.
But those data are known probably only to FED , printing manufacture of $…
бели орао збг
You could well be right. In 2014 American university professors stated that the combined US foreign and domestic debt was 222 trillion dollars. I have also read different figures. It’s questionable who knows what the real debt of the US is, with the exception of banking centers of power.
Erdoğan is (was?) an American puppet. Don’t forget kanal istanbul will not be subject to montreux limitations on warships and I believe that is the reason it is considered. There is no commercial or other reason for it to be built
Erdoğan is not good puppet material… He serves only his ambitions and Turkey’s interests as he conceives them. He can be misled, but not controlled.
Pepe, excellent article. Problems around Black Sea for Russia are not new.
Couple of Russian videos about Crimea (sorry all in Russian):
Путин напомнил крымским татарам, что греки в Крыму были раньше
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5hEkRT3S0
Problems with Tatars (Зверства татар: крымская хатынь – греческая деревня Лаки (консул Андреев был прав) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKSQFML1iyM
Греки Крыма (Putins speaks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQoyCe9JODQ
Greek media talks about the renewed possibility of Turkey blocking Russia from Aegean Sea. I say let them try and we will see how long will Turkey last.
I believe your map is incorrect. Crimea was never “annexed by Russia”. Crimean citizens, most of them ethnic russians, choose to secede from the Ukraina (which government was illegally taken over by Nazis by that time) and to become russian citizens.
The source of the map is AFP, French Press. Ergo, the designation of Crimea is biased and wrong.
An accurate, legal designation would be lengthy, including the unConstitutional removal of Crimea from Russia by 1954 Khrushchev decision, and then the post-USSR referenda by which the citizens indicated they did not want to stay attached to Ukraine, but were ignored.
2014 Rectification by Referendum corrected the transgression and returned Crimea to its rightful owner.
That would be hard to label a map with.
“Returned” should be the short label. “Returned by Referendum” would be a bit larger label.
I agree. This is what you get when you look at Western information about Crimea. The correct word is “Crimeans decided to return to Russia”
Will the internal contradictions in NATO rip it apart? eg, members such as Germany and Turkey want energy and resource flow security, while US and UK want control point/choke point control of same, to be masters over Germany and Turkey (blockade control). US/UK want mastery over the NATO countries. Turkey and Germany want resource security and so go with Russia, as Russia does not want to cut off the resource flows, and Russia wants a market from ‘Lisbon to Vladivostok’, and south and east into Asia. Energy from middle east or via Ukraine to Turkey would be under US/UK/France control, blockade control, a threat to Turkey. Turkey and Germany want the streams of gas and resources from Russia, while US/UK want not happen.
Russia has natural hold/sway inside some NATO countries, that want protection from the big dogs in NATO. The more the big dogs try to force the issue, the more power Russia has as an ally of the threatened NATO countries, to prevent blockade power.
Slightly off topic, but wouldn’t it have been better for Russia to secure its Black Sea ports by liberating all of Eastern Ukraine up to the Dniper? I am aware of the various arguments:
*“Putin is Stalinist tyrant” ==>Who cares about Western narrative? Anglo-Zionists can never be made happy, therefore they would still demonise Putin & Russian people.
*Eastern Ukraine is an economic basket case==>Russia declares Eastern Ukraine a special economic zone to attract large foreign investment. Combined with Russian investment, Eastern Ukraine can once again become a world-class manufacturing centre.
So NATO nations (i.e., the Anglo Americans) are looking to foment conflict in the Black Sea by perhaps using their “Freedom of Navigation” pretexts via the Turks?
LOL.
That loud sucking sound you hear is that of the collective sphincters of the USS Donald Cook and other America naval personnel contracting in fear, as they hide behind the skirts of the Turks, while awaiting their turn to be interdicted by the Russian Navy in the Black Sea.
What spooked the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea?
https://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html
How about a “security corridor” 32 km wide inside TURKEY instead of everyone carving up Syria. If the Kurds will simply live in peace with the rest of the people in Syria and sit at the government table among all the other provincial representatives, so be it. It seems to me Assad is in favor of peace.
Instead of ‘Crimeans decided to return to Russia’, more appropriate would be Krimu and Sevastopol went home to Mother.
Auslander
‘Intervention’ on the scale of actual naval engagements between NATO ships and Russia in that region is only good for click-bait sensationalism. However, awkward engagements between Russia and NATO’s willing fools, ie the recent Kerch strait incident involving the Ukrainian ships, are convenient sources for political pressure. And unfortunately it only takes 1 or 2 fanatical zealots involved in such incidents to escalate situations far beyond their original purpose. Russia has handled a variety of instigation’s with professionalism. The same cannot be said for other players involved.