The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has largely played out on land and within the air. It is a bitterly contested, grueling ground war, accompanied by brutal Russian airstrikes on civilian infrastructure and a slow but increasing response from Ukraine.
But a less appreciated but essential focus of the war is on the water. There, a Competition for control of the Black Sea saw Russia amazingly defeated.
And this loss has potentially far-reaching consequences. Not only does this limit Moscow's ability to increase its power through naval forces across the globe, but it surely has also resulted in Russia being compromised growing cooperation with Chinawhere Moscow is becoming one Junior party on the high seas to Beijing.
Battle of the Black Sea
The tradition of geopolitical theory tends to oversimplify world politics. Theories dating back to the late nineteenth century categorized countries as either land powers or sea powers.
Thinkers just like the British geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder or the US theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan characterised maritime powers as countries that possessed characteristics of democratic liberalism and free trade. In contrast, land powers were often portrayed as despotic and militaristic.
While such generalizations have served to demonize enemies previously, there remains to be a man-made tendency to divide the world into land and sea powers. The associated view that naval and military warfare were one way or the other separate has continued.
And this division gives us a misunderstanding of Russia's progress within the war with Ukraine. While Moscow has definitely seen a number of Successes on land And within the airThis shouldn’t distract from the stunning Russian defeat within the Black Sea that occurred Russia must withdraw from the Ukrainian coast and keep his ships away from the front.
As I describe in my most up-to-date book: “Waters Near and Far: The Geopolitics of Sea Power“Maritime countries have two concerns: they must seek to control the parts of the sea relatively close to their shorelines or their “near waters”; Meanwhile, those with the power and desire to achieve this are trying to project power and influence into “far waters” across the oceans, that are the near waters of other countries.
The Black Sea is a tightly enclosed and comparatively small sea that features the near waters of the countries surrounding it: Turkey to the south, Bulgaria and Romania to the west, Georgia to the east, and Ukraine and Russia to the north.
Control over the nearby waters of the Black Sea has been disputed over the centuries and played a task in the present Russo-Ukrainian war.
of Russia Capture of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 allowed him to regulate the naval port of Sevastopol. What was near waters of Ukraine became de facto waters near Russia for Russia.
Control of those nearby waters allowed Russia to disrupt Ukraine's trade, particularly grain exports to distant African waters.
But Russia's move was thwarted through the cooperation of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey to permit the passage of cargo ships through their nearby waters after which through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean.
Ukraine's use of the nearby waters of those other countries allowed export Ukraine's exports amounted to between 5.2 and 5.8 million tons of grain per 30 days in the primary quarter of 2024. However, this was a decrease from Ukraine's exports of about 6.5 million tons per 30 days before the war, which then fell to only 2 million tons in the summertime of 2023 due to Russian attacks and threats.
But efforts to limit Russia's control over Ukraine's nearby waters within the Black Sea, and Russia's unwillingness to face the implications of an attack on ships in NATO countries' nearby waters, left Ukraine still within the capable of access distant waters to generate economic profit and keep the Ukrainian economy afloat.
For Putin, this depressing feeling
Not only is Russia prevented from disrupting Ukrainian exports, but it’s also exposed to direct naval attack from Ukraine. Since February 2022, Ukraine has successfully sunk or damaged Russian ships and dismembered the Russian Black Sea Fleet using unmanned attack drones. decreases by 15 Its pre-war fleet of around 36 warships was destroyed and lots of others damaged.
Russia was forced to limit the usage of Sevastopol and station its ships within the eastern a part of the Black Sea. It cannot function effectively within the nearby waters it gained by occupying Crimea.
Russia's maritime setbacks against Ukraine are only the newest in its historic difficulties projecting naval power and its resulting tendency to focus totally on defending nearby waters.
In 1905, Russia was shocked by one dramatic naval loss against Japan. However, even in cases where it was not completely defeated, Russian naval power has historically been limited. During World War I, Russia worked with the British Royal Navy to limit German industrial activities within the Baltic Sea and Turkish trade and military reach within the Black Sea.
In World War II, Russia was depending on material support from the Allies and was largely blockaded in its Baltic and Black Sea ports. Many ships were brought near home or stripped of their cannons as artillery or offshore support for the territorial battle with Germany.
Although the Soviet Union built fast missile boats and a few aircraft carriers through the Cold War, their range prolonged into wide waters depending on submarines. The principal purpose of the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet was to forestall NATO from entering the Black Sea.
And now Russia has lost control of the Black Sea. It cannot operate in these once protected waters. These losses reduce its ability to project naval power from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
Cessation of captaincy to China
Therefore, faced with a glaring loss in its backyard and a weak position in its near waters, Russia can only bring its power to distant waters through cooperation with China, which itself is investing heavily in a distant waters naval capability.
Together Naval exercises within the South China Sea in July 2024 bear witness to this collaboration. Wang Guangzheng of the Southern Theater of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy said the driller that “the China-Russia joint patrol has promoted the deepening and practical cooperation between the two in various directions and fields.” And I stay up for he claimed The exercise “effectively enhanced the ability of both sides to jointly respond to threats to maritime security.”
Li Yun/Xinhua via Getty Images
This cooperation makes purely military sense for Russia, a mutually helpful sea power projection project. But it mainly advantages China.
Russia may help China defend its northern waters and secure access to distant waters across the Arctic Sea – on increasingly essential arena as global climate change reduces barriers attributable to sea ice. But Russia largely stays the junior partner.
Moscow's strategic interests will only be supported in the event that they coincide with Chinese interests. More specifically, sea power is concerning the projection of power for economic gain. China will likely use Russia to guard its continued economic reach in African, Pacific, European and South American waters. However, these interests are unlikely to be compromised for Russian objectives.
Russia definitely has economic interests within the Far East particularly within the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. And securing Russian interests in Africa complements China's growing naval presence within the Indian Ocean to secure its own and broader global economic interests. But cooperation will proceed to be at China's behest.
Russia is bogged down within the waters off the Black Sea as a result of its war in Ukraine, and the one way it could currently display its naval power is by accessing the waters off Africa and the Indian Ocean as China's junior partner, which agrees to the terms and conditions will dictate. Even if Russia achieves a victory in its land war against Ukraine, it’s going to not compensate for its continued inability to project its power across the oceans alone.
Editor's Note: This article was updated on October 3, 2024 to correct a geographic error that occurred within the editing phase.
image credit : theconversation.com