Marshall Auerback — Russia’s Perpetual Battle For A Warm Water Port

Because of Russia’s geographical disadvantage and its necessity for access to warm waters, the Black Sea matters much more to Moscow than the Caribbean Sea to Washington or the South China Sea to Beijing. The United States had the Monroe Doctrine to protect its hemispheric waters, while today China defines its sea as “blue national soil.” Russia has never articulated its Black Sea doctrine, but make no mistake: it has one. Any attempt — real or perceived — to challenge Russia’s maritime interests in the Black Sea will face a stark response. 

This absence of a stated Russian doctrine may explain the West’s interpretation of the takeover of Crimea as the beginning of an attempt to restore a bygone empire. But as European and American leaders contemplate what to do next with Russia, it is worth remembering that Putin’s takeover of Crimea has much more in common with Tsar Nicholas’s concerns in the Black Sea in 1914 than Leonid Brezhnev’s in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Putin’s takeover was an act in defense of Russia’s national interest, fully consistent with the country’s geopolitical DNA, rather than one of sheer, blind aggression.

Macrobits by Marshall Auerback

Russia’s Perpetual Battle For A Warm Water Port
Marshall Auerback