Posted on 07/02/2021 8:53:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
In late April, after amassing 40,000 troops on the border of eastern Ukraine and another 40,000 in the disputed Crimean peninsula, Russia removed most of its forces and walked back its naval presence in some areas of the surrounding Black Sea where it concentrated.
Many Western commentators read this as ‘saber rattling,’ a popular phrase in the press, on behalf of Putin to remind a new U.S. administration of Russia’s strength, part of the routine cycle of provocation and de-escalation Putin uses to conduct diplomacy. The conventional thinking is that these patterns tend to ‘flare up,’ another popular phrase, but that in the end there’s little change in the broader strategic picture. Similarly, we are to understand Russia’s naval aggression in the last 10 days against Dutch, British, and other vessels as a response to NATO drills in the region that kicked off on Monday.
Media coverage in the U.S. tends to echo that sort of milquetoast tone, and one can be forgiven for thinking these sorts of details are only for dedicated foreign policy adherents or worth only a few minutes at the end of a newscast. But this conventional viewpoint fails us in three important ways, and that failure obscures a broader picture of Russian aggression.
First, it disregards the cumulative impact of Western powers acceptance of these provocations with little effective response. Temporary ejections of diplomatic personnel and even biting sanctions do not alter the long-term trajectory of Russian policy. Russia has brought political assassination back to the capitals of Europe, directly attacked the democratic institutions of those very countries, and engaged in or allowed precedent-setting cyberattacks with effects that were well beyond cyber.
Secondly, we are underestimating the extent of Russian aggression in these waters. Russia has de facto annexed the Azov Sea, which connects to the Black Sea, harassing Ukrainian commercial ships operating there in violation of a 2003 treaty agreement and basically every international law that governs naval conduct. Those international laws also guarantee passage of other nations’ crafts – commercial and military – through a critical passage called the Kerch Strait. That strait links the otherwise landlocked Azov Sea to the Black Sea, allowing access to the ports of other neighbors such as Turkey and Georgia, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.
After the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Russia announced it also considered Black Sea waters around the Crimean peninsula as its own. If that becomes a functioning reality – if international ships eventually defer to Russian maritime instructions there – Russia will have essentially cut off Ukraine from access to about half of its natural southern sea border. Couple that with Russia’s presence on the eastern land border and Belarus’ movement of military equipment to its southern border with Ukraine, and the strategy of encirclement comes into starker relief.
Here’s why I’m spending so much time on this: lack of deterrence here by the West is cementing Russian control in the Azov Sea. That in turn encourages their illegitimate claims to the waters of the Black Sea surrounding the Crimean peninsula. And that in turn may serve as the springboard for Russian dictates rejecting international freedom of navigation in greater and greater parts of the Black Sea.
We’ve now seen these patterns come to fruition. Once with the blockade around the Crimean peninsula during this Spring’s troop buildup, executed under the thin pretense of major military drills. And then as the blockade ended with an unprecedented announcement that three areas of the Black Sea would be “closed” to certain types of international vessels for six months. So, each of the recent headlines about skirmishes with Western flagged ships comes laden with that existing intent and tension. In particular, false claims about the location of a British vessel very near a Russian base in the Crimean peninsula – dangerously accompanied by Russian location spoofing – are likely meant to deter other countries from transiting through the broader waters Russia now claims as its own.
Third and most importantly, the current consensus ignores the facts-on-the-ground gains that Putin has made over the past 15 years. On pace for an invasion per decade, since 2008 Putin has extended de facto or nominal control over an additional 2.3 million people. In addition to these new subjects acquired via land invasion, Putin is now extending his area of control in the sea. He does so in a mirror of China’s successful expansion of its sphere of influence in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
We have accepted a fractured Ukraine as part of the current global order, and comfort ourselves with the fact that no new large-scale invasion has taken place since 2014. But in historical terms that is barely the blink of an eye. It’s time to replace words like provocation, incursion, and harassment with attack, invasion, and blockade. By the time the rhetoric finally shifts, we’re going to wish we’d acted sooner.
Mark
Not an issue the USA needs to be involved with.
Europe doesn’t give a damn, or the Germans wouldn’t be building and putting the Nordstream pipeline into service. They don’t care about what the Russians do in their own back yard. Why should we?
That headline seems like it could be racist.
This article reads like a lot of DC deep state neocon garbage.
Maybe Putin can get some of his “American” IC deep state Biden puppet masters (i.e. Obama, VJ, Brennan, HRC, etc), to pull out Trump’s large scale EUCOM build-up from Constanta on the coast, and from about 18 other sites in Romania and Bulgaria.
Of course, Putin will also need the plug pulled from “Aegis On Shore” as well.
Trump also took a very strong approach in building up Poland (and the Baltics).
In reality, like WJC, Obama served Putin’s interest and goals, while Trump took the hardest line on Russia since Reagan, and in all subject matter.
Putin (and to an important extent Xi) wants and needs liberty loving American’s to be indifferent, and even better, favorable toward re-subjugating and rebuilding a “Warsaw Pact like” Eastern Europe defense and energy zone.
He truly is doing a masterful job.
The rantings of another deluded neocon, anxious for a fight.
“Maybe Putin can get some of his “American” IC deep state Biden puppet masters (i.e. Obama, VJ, Brennan, HRC, etc), to pull out Trump’s large scale EUCOM build-up from Constanta on the coast, and from about 18 other sites in Romania and Bulgaria.”
That would be sound US policy.
When the smoke and mirror bravado is removed, anti-American left administration’s have a long and consistent history of supporting Kremlin objectives on economy (energy), finance, US foreign policy, and turning over cyber and military tech.
Now, recapping your pro Kremlin, “Warsaw Pact like” architecture/reconstruction position and response —
“That would be sound US policy.”
From your “about” page —
“For the record, I announced my support for Trump on this site in May of 2015.
And have not wavered since.”
By your own admission, you are fine with the current corrupt, hard left, Biden puppet taking a permissive posture toward Moscow re-subjugating Eastern Europe, while being diametrically opposed to Trump’s effort to keep Eastern Europe free, and his truly hardline policy toward the Kremlin.
Hmmm...
Invasions, illegal annexation...threats...
When Germany illegally annexed Sudetenland and Austria, the same, “peace in our time”, crowd reacted as our useful idiots do no.
“By your own admission, you are fine with the current corrupt, hard left, Biden puppet taking a permissive posture toward Moscow re-subjugating Eastern Europe, while being diametrically opposed to Trump’s effort to keep Eastern Europe free, and his truly hardline policy toward the Kremlin.”
Absolutely correct.
And I will be happy to argue the point with any neocon scumbag on this forum. After I return from errands.
Because I have yet to see a single core US interest at stake for membership in NATO, or the defense of those who will not defend themselves.
Crimea was Russia before Ohio was America. Khrushchev’s border changes (internal Soviet borders) were not eternal.
Russia will annihilate us if we try to fight them over Crimea, which voted 97% to be Russian.
Period, end of story.
Russia will annhilate nobody, and there obsolete navy would be dispatched fairly quickly.
The Russian vote was illegal and not relevant to the constitution of the Ukraine.
Ukraine was ceded Crimea by the valid government in Russian/USSR. The sovereign government of Ukraine has never ceded it back. It was stolen, illegally.
European governments do not recognize the illegal annexation to this day.
Do a little research regarding Kosovo precedent.
UN Court concluded that the right of the people to self-determination is supreme to national legislation.
The UN has said that the Kosovar situation was unique and not to be used as a precedent. Due to aggression against Kosavar populations.
The ignorant think going all Billy Badass is a solution to getting Russia to leave Ukraine.
Where they have a million men buried.
It’s theirs. It’s always been theirs.
And it will continue to be theirs.
Hell, we have no business or interests in the Black Sea at all.
The decision on Ukraine sovereignty was decided when they gave up Soviet nuclear weapons. Relying instead on UK & US guarantees instead of possession of those weapons. Some say they couldn’t have used them because there were “safety locks” on them. I am not so sure, Russia certainly wanted them back. They got them back and Ukraine got a piece of paper.
First step for Russia in recovering their old borders.
Who sares who said what afterwards?
I said what was the legal basis of the Kosovar independence.
It worth mentioning that Kosovo is a historical Serbian territory and the Albanians were fresh immigrants escaped from Albania after WWII.
It is reasonable to assume that basic rights are ahead of national legislation indeed.
If you want to keep playing this game, according to the Soviet constitution, Crimea as an autonomous Oblast had a say on its status when Ukraine declared independence from USSR.
They were denied this right unless you consider their vote in all around referendum on the Ukrainian independence, where Crimeans predominately voted to stay a part of USSR.
Let’s say that they finally used their right in 2014.
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