A NATO Strategy for Security in the Black Sea Region

Atlantic Council BRENT SCOWCROFT CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE BRIEF A NATO Strategy for Security in the Black Sea Region SEPTEMBER 2016 STEVEN HORRELL he Black Sea region is a crossroads, an intersection between Europe and the Middle East, from the eastern Balkans to the South Caucasus. Like many such points of intersection, it is often a friction point. This is very much the case in the current Tgeopolitical environment of growing confrontation between Russia and the West. Any friction there will almost certainly involve NATO nations and the Alliance’s interests, with three NATO states on the Black Sea and several NATO partners on the Black Sea and throughout the region. Maintaining a dominant role in the Black Sea region forms an important element of Russian strategy; however, Western policymakers have been deficient in giving strategic attention to the Black Sea region in recent years. That may be changing. In addition to emphasizing collective defense and deterrence, the final communiqué of the NATO Warsaw Summit highlighted the importance of the Black Sea region: “We condemn Russia’s ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea, and are concerned by Russia’s efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region.”1 NATO has the opportunity and responsibility to move forward from the statements of the Warsaw Summit. The Black Sea region needs The Brent Scowcroft Center’s NATO as a steadying influence, and NATO needs to address the Transatlantic Security Alliance’s interests in the region. This issue brief offers the framework Initiative brings together top of a NATO strategy to ensure stability in this critical area; it expands policymakers, government and military officials, business on the communiqué’s objectives for security in that region, posits an leaders, and experts from Europe approach, and recommends actions to improve stability and security in and North America to share the Black Sea region. insights, strengthen cooperation, and develop common approaches to key transatlantic The Geopolitical Environment security challenges. This issue The strategic environment has transformed globally in recent years— brief is part of the Transatlantic the challenges to policymakers are as complex and dangerous as at any Security Initiative’s focus on time in memory. One of the largest factors in these growing challenges NATO’s friction zones and what has been the re-emergence of an aggressive Russia, increasingly willing steps the Alliance must take to ensure defense and deterrence in a turbulent twenty-first century. 1 NATO, “Warsaw Summit Communiqué,” July 9, 2016, article 17, http://www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/official_texts_133169.htm. ISSUE BRIEF A NATO Strategy for Security in the Black Sea Region to challenge the West in order to achieve President prisoners being exchanged. In the Transnistria and Vladimir Putin’s strategic objectives of Russian great Gagauz regions of Moldova, Russia continues to exert power status, with the states of the near abroad political, informational, and economic leverage, stalling returning to Russia’s sphere of influence. In the words any resolution of the status of these autonomous of the Warsaw Summit communiqué, “Russia’s recent regions. This exemplifies the utility of frozen conflicts activities and policies have reduced stability and to Russia’s geopolitical interests: any pro-European security, increased unpredictability, and changed the path is shut off to the regions but overt Russian control security environment.”2 is minimized (thus blunting criticism), as Moscow maintains de facto control in these areas. The Black Sea region is one of the key areas in which this shifting power balance plays out. NATO nations border Russia’s actions in Ukraine since the Maidan revolution the former Soviet states that Russia claims are within have brought a level of aggression to the region not its orbit, and the international water and airspace of the seen since the 2008 war with Georgia. In 2014, Russia Black Sea is a stage on which Russian annexed Crimea, first by deniable and Western militaries interact.3 but now clear Russian military Moreover, these conditions ready- Within the action, then by referendum and made for friction overlay a region geopolitical security political action in Moscow. The that was already distinguished annexation of Crimea was followed by numerous frozen conflicts. environment in by ongoing Russian-led separatist These separatist disputes, such the Black Sea fighting in eastern Ukraine. Again, as Transnistria in eastern Moldova Moscow has denied the presence and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in region, and in of Russian military forces in the Georgia have been “frozen” as areas conjunction with conflict, but international reporting of contested sovereignty. However, overwhelmingly reveals the Russian Russia has recently demonstrated Russia’s increasing presence. This blatant aggression a willingness to heat them up. For willingness to is an ongoing challenge to the example, in South Ossetia, Russian challenge the West, international rules-based order actions of “borderization”—seizing and even to the Westphalian ground and establishing physical Russia has increased concept of sovereignty.4 The border controls (and labelling them its capabilities and current marginalization of Crimean as such) along what is legally only minorities, in particular the Tatars, an administrative boundary line— operations of air, sea, is a potential human rights crisis were first noted and protested by and land forces in and the continuing destruction in the Georgian government and the the region. eastern Ukraine sets the conditions international community in 2010. for a humanitarian crisis.5 After an initial pause, Russia stepped up borderization in 2013, then again In addition to the military challenges in 2015—pushing the boundaries to such an extent that and geopolitical disruption, energy is a key factor in the US government protested it. As recently as March describing the strategic environment in the region. 2016, new borderization actions included moving The Black Sea is an important transit route for energy barbed wire fences thirty-five meters forward thus resources, especially natural gas. This network involves encroaching on a village, then building a new road in the Russia, producers in the Caucasus like Azerbaijan, boundary area. This borderization came at almost the and the wider European market for gas and other same time that the Geneva International Discussions hydrocarbon resources. The resultant dependencies (talks begun after the 2008 war with participants can be reflected as vulnerabilities or exploited as from Georgia, Russia, the United States, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia) were showing some progress with 4 The Treaty (or Peace) of Westphalia, 1648, ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe and enshrined the concept of state sovereignty in the international system. 5 See Andrii Klymenko, “The Militarization of Crimea under Rus- 2 NATO, “Warsaw Summit Communiqué,” July 9, 2016, op. cit., sian Occupation,” Atlantic Council, October 2015, http://www. article 9. atlanticcouncil.org/publications/issue-briefs/the-militariza- 3 Ibid., article 10. tion-of-crimea-under-russian-occupation. 2 ATLANTIC COUNCIL ISSUE BRIEF A NATO Strategy for Security in the Black Sea Region Romania Navy ships NMS Contraamiral Horia Macellariu (F-265) and NMS Lastaunul (F-190) steaming alongside USS Porter in the Black Sea 13 June 2016. Photo credit: US Navy. leverage, as energy becomes a critical economic issue. have specifically said: “We condemn Russia’s ongoing Energy, as well as the existing and prospective routes and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea, and are for distribution of gas and oil, are probably the most concerned by Russia’s efforts and stated plans for significant transnational issues and impact almost further military build-up in the Black Sea region.”7 every bilateral relationship in the region. At the same time, the Black Sea Fleet, which was The Black Sea Region Military Environment scheduled for modernization before the conflict even began, is now delivering on the new, modernized Within the geopolitical security environment in the Black Sea region, and in conjunction with Russia’s increasing willingness to challenge the West, Russia deployment of weapons systems, most often with long-range has increased its capabilities and operations of air, sea, capabilities, in order to deny US and allied forces freedom of maneuver in the battlespace. Land-based surface-to-air missiles, and land forces in the region. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet anti-ship missiles, and surface-to-surface ballistic/cruise missiles was based in Sevastopol by treaty arrangement with are frequently cited capabilities. Additional elements of emerging Ukraine. Following annexation, Russia quickly moved A2/AD systems include aircraft, surface ships, and submarines and their air superiority/sea control capabilities. Enhanced air advanced, long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) defense, communications and surveillance systems, and cyber- and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) to the peninsula. war systems also contribute to comprehensive A2/AD networks. These SAMS and ASCMs expand Russia’s anti-access/ A2/AD networks will also attempt to impact US and allied use of the electro-magnetic spectrum, cyber, and space. To be sure, area denial (A2/AD) capability from the eastern half the United States and other nations’ militaries are working on of the Black Sea to nearly

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