The shift of dominance in the Black Sea

A Russian naval parade of Black Sea Fleet ships. Russian’s annexation of Crimea is a clear signal that the Black Sea is gradually becoming a Russian lake. Photo: Website of the President of Russia (CC) http://en.kremlin.ru

Thus, the Black Sea regional security is difficult to examine and oftentimes becomes the combination of security perspectives of two main regional powers – Turkey and Russia – assessed within the context of the transatlantic security architecture.

Balancing power

Reflection on the historical background of present day politics oftentimes plays a role of a good prologue, advancing our understanding of political, economic and military strategies animated by key regional and international players within a particular context. For centuries, starting from the conquering of the city of Constantinople in 1453 up to 1809, the Black Sea was regarded as an Ottoman lake and had gained the status of an inner sea of Turkey. The Black Sea regional dynamics started to change in the 18th century though, when, after the six-year-long conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires, the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca provided Russia with direct access to the Black Sea via the Kerch and Azov ports. The creation of the Crimean city of Sevastopol further strengthened the image of Russia as an emerging Black Sea power while the Ottoman Empire was slowly on the decline. And yet, despite all those victories, Russia has never managed to successfully materialise one of its primary aspirations (which served as one of the motives to enter the First Wold War) connected to the Black Sea region – to gain control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles, known as the Turkish Straits, known for their extreme military and economic strategic importance.

After the First World War, when the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne created the foundation of Turkey’s statehood, Turkey gradually regained its status as a regional power. It not only managed the growing conflict of European states in the region, but also brokered the 1936 Montreux Convention, which secured its sovereign right to control the Straits, granting free movement of vessels belonging to Black Sea states that were not at war with Turkey. Non–Black Sea powers could only send their warships of 15,000 tonnes per vessel (45,000 in aggregate) and could only stay in the Black Sea for 21 days.

The Montreux Convention had set up a particular power balance in the Black Sea region which Russia unsuccessfully tried to change one more time during the Second World War, forcing Turkey to revise the agreement over the Turkish Straits in 1946. The event known as the crisis of Turkish Straits soon paved the way for the United States to include them in its containment policy towards the Soviet Union following by Turkey’s membership of NATO in 1952.

While the Cold War was characterised by some sort of a power balance among Turkey, the Soviet Union, NATO and the US, the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union saw a post-Soviet power vacuum. Only after the peaceful revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine, complemented by Romania’s and Bulgaria’s NATO membership in 2004 and European Union membership in 2007, had transatlantic powers found themselves on the doorstep of the Black Sea region. The local dynamics started to change with new roles for Ankara and Moscow. All those shifts had implications on the Black Sea security architecture, making other Black Sea littoral states and their neighbours more vulnerable and dependent on the ups and downs of Russia-Turkey relations.

Russia returns

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s perspectives towards the Black Sea can be clustered into several different phases, each one having its own specific features and implications for regional security. Phase one covers the period between 1991 and 1994 and is characterised by the emergence of ethnic conflict, and the establishment of a totally new post-Soviet status quo; at that time the so-called regional outlook was shaped by ethnic conflict and was marked with Russia searching for a new role or niche in the world. The second phase covers the period of 1995-2002. This period was mainly dominated by the Chechen war which was also used as a prism through which the Black Sea region was perceived.

Phase three lasted from 2003 through to 2008 – with the final year becoming a turning point with regards to Russia’s role in the Black Sea. During this period, the Azov-Black Sea zone started to be considered a zone of strategic interest for the Russian Federation. Phase four started with the Russia-Georgia war in 2008, while phase five began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and regained the attention of western powers towards the Black Sea region and its security. Phase six is directly connected to Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015 where the Kremlin clearly demonstrated the might of its Black Sea fleet by deploying both offensive and defensive systems.

Depending on the phase, Russia’s engagement in regional affairs altered from nominal to active. However, one of the key foundations of the Russian strategic vision that remained unchanged during all this time is that it believed it had more right to play a leading role in the region (and beyond) than any other side. One has to admit that Putin’s statement “to turn Crimea into a fortress” has been gradually becoming reality, thus upsetting the regional balance of power between Turkey and Russia (that is, shifting it in favour of Moscow). With the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s de facto coastline grew from 475 kilometres to 1,200 km (about 25 per cent of the sea’s total shorefront) which is almost as much as Turkey’s 1,785 km coastline (around 35 per cent). It has been constantly advancing its military advantage both on the sea and in the air without being counter balanced by any other power, including NATO, or its member state Turkey.

In principle, major strategic factors in the Black Sea and its surroundings have not changed much for Russia since the 19th century. The Kremlin still perceives Crimea as it military source, aspires for its possible control over the Turkish Straits with an overall intention to maintain and expand its sphere of influence and military presence – sort of a rollback policy of the 21st century, but this time applied by the Russian Federation against the western powers and in some cases Turkey.

Turkey’s Black Sea tango

In the current “Perspectives and Policies on Security Issues,” published on the website of the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs, we read that “the security of the Republic of Turkey has been dictated by two main elements: geography and longstanding ties with the neighbouring countries. These two determinants make Turkey a key regional security player in Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions and beyond. In the last couple of years, Turkey has also demonstrated its capacity to act as a global actor beyond these regions.” While the above statement carries a large portion of truth, it is not certain on how much prestige and influence Turkey has today to be a key player in its own neighbourhood, let alone on a global level.

Due to the historical conception of the Black Sea as its own inner lake and partially because of the fear among Turkish officials that the United States had a desire to become more active in the region, Ankara has been trying its best to make sure that that no other regional or international power could penetrate into the region and threaten its dominant role. For decades Turkey believed the best way to serve its interests in the Black Sea region would be to keep the US and other European countries at arm’s length.

Led by a strong desire to maintain its sovereign right over the Turkish Straits, Ankara prioritised the Black Sea maritime security while separating it from other issues in the region. For years Turkey, in partnership with Russia, promoted several maritime security initiatives like the Black Sea Harmony and the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group (Blackseafor). Interestingly enough this was done not only with the intention of responding to the changing security challenges of the littoral states, but also to keep NATO out of the region. Despite a strong lobby from Romania and Bulgaria – both EU and NATO member states with direct access to the Black Sea – to expand NATO’s role on issues like smuggling and terrorism in the region, Turkey favoured an alternative approach called Black Sea Harmony – a UN initiative. Furthermore, during the August 2008 war in Georgia, Turkey did not allow two US hospital vessels (the USNS Comfort and Mercy) to cross the Bosporus into the Black Sea.

Gradual shift of power

Turkey’s policy, which aimed to deter NATO’s growing presence in the Black Sea region, in reality diminishes its influence by dragging Ankara further away from transatlantic institutions and making it more vulnerable to Russia’s growing influence. Russian’s annexation of Crimea was a clear signal that the Black Sea is gradually becoming a Russian lake. And Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015 further complemented that shaping by unveiling Moscow’s interests to treat Turkey as a platform for its military ambitions – gaining access to Egypt via its current military basis of Lakatia and Tartus in Syria for which naval support through the Turkish Straits would be of crucial importance.

As Moscow and Ankara found each other on the opposite sides during the war in Syria, this further contributed to the changing balance of power in the Black Sea in favour of the Kremlin. While the US and other western powers unified their forces with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that Turkey considers a terrorist organisation – during their fight against ISIS and Bashar al Assad, for Turkey it became an inevitable preventive measure to strengthen its ties with Moscow, the only realistic player able to contain the YPG and thus pacify some fears. However this only strengthened Turkey’s dependency on Russia and raised the concerns of NATO and its allies. Of course, there were some clashes between Turkey and Russia as well. One clear example was Turkey’s downing of a Russian Su-24 in 2015. However Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s apology a year later followed by several summits between himself and Vladimir Putin further demonstrated how much Turkey needed Russia’s support with containing the YPG in Syria.

Overall, the growing connections between Turkey and Russia do have some positive implications for both of the countries, their citizens, as well as other littoral states. Closer co-operation might be perceived as a foundation for greater stability in the Black Sea. However, it would be safe to assume the Kremlin’s medium and long-term objectives, related to its political and military dominance, are not limited only to the Black Sea region, but also the wider Mediterranean. Turkey might want to reflect on and rethink its Black Sea policy and welcome a more active and engaged NATO. This would hopefully contribute to the revival of equilibrium between Turkey and Russia.

Regional power dynamics – meaning for Georgia?

Even a short glance at the power dynamic within the Black Sea region makes it clear that Georgia needs to be very smart in how, and with whom, it will preposition itself and pursue its foreign policy within and outside the region. Russia clearly perceived it as a part of its near abroad – calling it its own under-belly – and its direct sphere of its influence. Various applications of hard power (e.g. the war in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, crawling occupation, etc.) and soft power (e.g. connections with religious groups, close ties with certain political parties like Patriots’ Alliance, etc.) against Georgia would be further proof that the country needs to stay committed to its transatlantic aspirations for its own security and prosperity. One question, however, arises: Would closer ties with Turkey be the solution?

Even though Ankara and Tbilisi have been strengthening ties – with Turkey supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity and even calling upon NATO during the 2018 Brussels Summit to extend its membership to Georgia (along with Bosnia and Herzegovina) – Ankara’s increasing dependency on the Kremlin and Russia’s growing power and influence in the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions makes the overall context in the region less favourable for Georgia. Furthermore, taking into consideration the complexity of the regional issues that Turkey might be willing to address, Georgian interests might not be the top priority. In the hierarchy of preferences, Turkey would probably prioritise the issue of Crimean Tatars (supporting Muslims in the region has been its historic mission since the times of the Ottoman Empire) or Azerbaijan’s interest in Nagorno-Karabakh over those of Georgia. This puts Georgia in a challenging position, requiring wisdom to navigate the complex regional dynamics, reminding Turkey and other European powers that it also matters and can actually play a positive role in counter balancing the growing Russian influence.

The observed changes in the power balance of the region and the greater influence of Russia with its increasing military ambition will represent a growing threat not only for intra-regional states but for the transatlantic parties. Turkey, while maintaining mutually beneficial economic ties with the Kremlin, needs to understand that it has to change its tactic of keeping NATO out of the picture – where giving it a more active engagement and presence should be welcomed. At the same time, NATO and the EU should rethink their previous approach towards the Black Sea region, becoming more pragmatic and realistic. Otherwise growing Russian power, which is already at the doorstep of not only the Black Sea but also the Mediterranean regions, will become harder to contain.

Sophia Petriashvili is an associate professor at the faculty of Social and Political Sciences, the department of International Relations at Tbilisi State University.

Black Sea, NATO, Russia, security, turkey