Note from Jon Solomon: My Systems Planning and Analysis colleague Jonathan Altman has long been interested in the Mahanian aspects of Russia’s foreign policy initiatives in the Eastern Mediterranean. Overshadowed by the ongoing Russian ground intervention in Ukraine or the headline-grabbing bomber sorties into the North Atlantic and Arctic, Russia’s cultivation of “places” and potential bases for its forces in that region over the past few years simply has not received much public attention from the security studies community. This needs to change, as the Mediterranean not only remains central to U.S. and European defense strategies, but is also a vital market as well as thoroughfare for Western economies. Jonathan has generously taken the time to outline his thoughts below on this overlooked topic.
Much has been written about the
challenges posed by the Chinese adoption of what the U.S. military calls
“A2/AD” (anti access area denial) in the Western Pacific. Accordingly, the
Pacific remains a key focus area for both the U.S. Navy and Air Force, with the
Navy promising to put 60% of its forces in that theater as part of the so-called
“Pacific pivot.” Yet as focus remains on PACOM, the rest of the world is not
standing still. This is exemplified in the Eastern Mediterranean, as the
Russians have already begun laying the seeds to create an A2/AD zone in the
region against the U.S. and its allies. If fully realized, an A2/AD envelope
could put Western access to the Suez Canal, the Black Sea and the resource-rich
Eastern Mediterranean at the mercy of Vladimir Putin.
There are three interrelated
elements that make the development of an A2/AD zone in the Eastern
Mediterranean possible for the Russians. The first of these is the prospect of a
credible military presence, which in this case would most likely be provided by
forward deployments from the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Armed with three (six by 2016) new
enhanced Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, 11,000 marines and a surface
flotilla of 42 ships[1]
as of last year,
the Russian Black Sea Fleet is probably the most capable maritime force in the region.
By contrast, the U.S. Sixth Fleet has a single command ship and four DDGs that
will be permanently assigned to it from 2015 onward (though those DDGs are
based on the other end of the Mediterranean in Spain), with only occasional
rotational presence from ships passing through its area of regard on the way to
or back from the Middle East. Though the U.S. does have allies in the region
with credible maritime combat power, the Russians are working to drive wedges
into these relationships; which not coincidentally is the second pillar of
regional Russian strategy.
The Russian effort to decouple
longstanding allies such as Turkey, Greece, and Egypt from political and
military alignment with the U.S. is helped by policy choices the U.S. has made,
as well as favorable circumstances the Russians can exploit. In the case of
Greece, the formation of a coalition government by far-left and right wing parties
that are deeply resentful of the European
Union (and its American allies), committed to breaking out of the fiscal
austerity “straitjacket” imposed as terms for European Union loans, and ideologically
aligned with Russian
“Eurasianist” geopolitical theory has opened new opportunities for extending
Russian influence. The Russians have waded into this fray, supporting the Greek
government politically and entertaining the possibility of assisting Greece
with its debt issues.
Greco-Russian relations have unsurprisingly warmed considerably. In the case of
Turkey, Russia has taken advantage of a decade-long trend by the Erdogan
government away from democracy toward authoritarianism.
As the West has criticized Erdogan for imprisoning journalists, fabricating
charges against political opponents, and repressing civil dissent, the Russians
have remained supportive to the point that Erdogan is now praising
Putin directly. The other Russian charm offensive in the region has been
focused on Egypt. Faced with a virulent insurgency in the Sinai, and a U.S. Administration
that until recently was withholding military aid as punishment for the suspension
of democracy,
Egypt's repressive military junta has instead turned towards the Russians for
military equipment procurement for the first time since the mid-Cold
War. The sum total of these actions is to cultivate Russian goodwill with three
countries that control chokepoint access to and freedom of maneuver within the
Eastern Mediterranean, not to mention use of the Eastern Mediterranean to
access the Black and Red Seas. Neutrality by these countries in the event of a
Russian-American crisis or conflict could be devastating to U.S. strategy.
With access for their credible maritime
combat power vastly improved, the final aspect of Russian regional strategy is
to secure and expand basing agreements. Limited by geography, the Russians have
no port on the Mediterranean; anything they want to put in the region would likely
come via the Black Sea (though assets could be deployed from there other fleets
as well assuming they could pass through Gibraltar or Suez). Even though Turkey
may be friendly with Russia now, basing agreements hedge against a risk of
change in the political winds that could bottle the Black Sea Fleet up.
Additionally, as Admiral Greenert states again and again, forward basing allows
a Navy to keep more assets in theater, multiplying the impact of a smaller
force. Russia's only base outside of the former Soviet Union is in Tartus,
Syria, which of course is in the Eastern Mediterranean. Recently the Cypriots,
long prone to Russian sympathies, agreed to an expansion of Russian port calls and even
potentially an air base, giving the Russians an additional strategic location
to use in the region. Current deployment of land based Russian-supplied
Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles in Syria provides an additional boon to the
area denial aspect of their approach, which could be augmented by further sales
or deployments of Russian forces equipped with ASCMs to friendly countries.
According to the Defense
Intelligence Agency, the presence of Yakhont ASCMs in Syria alone has been
enough to create a surface naval A2/AD zone in the northeastern corner of the
Mediterranean. Furthermore, rolling the three Russian thrusts together, it
becomes clear how an expanded Eastern Mediterranean A2/AD envelope could be
enacted in the very near future. As Mahan famously wrote, the land features of
a region can play a large role in determining maritime influence
and access. For example, consider the military implications of a Russian
deployment of advanced long-range SAMs alongside its existing Yakhonts in
Syria, or perhaps a deployment of those SAMs in notional locations in Cyprus. Much
has been written about the capabilities of Russian “triple digit” SAMs (in
service S-300s and S-400s and the developmental S-500). S-500s will have up to
a 600
km anti-air range according to some Russian sources - enough to blanket the
region from Crete east assuming they are based in Cyprus (the same sources
cite S-400 range at 400km and newer S-300 variants at a more modest 200km). The
Russians may also seek to adapt these systems to enable integration
aboard surface ships beyond the existing S-300F integration in Russian cruisers;
further increasing deployment flexibility. A Russian deployment of Kilo-class
submarines to the region would insert a further threat into the undersea domain
at a time when more advanced but already overtasked U.S. nuclear submarines
continue to decline
in force structure. The degree to which U.S. and allied surface and air access
in the Eastern Mediterranean would be imperiled by any single one of these
potentialities, and especially by combinations of them, should be clear.
Fortunately there are options available
to mitigate the risks of such an outcome. Beyond political, economic and
diplomatic solutions, of which there are a great many possibilities, there are
three broad Navy-focused options that could be pursued. The first of these, and
the least desirable, would be transferring forces from other theaters to
increase our capability in the Eastern Mediterranean. The issues in the Eastern
Mediterranean are fundamentally a symptom of a U.S. Navy that is undersized for
the global tasks assigned it and a NATO maritime force that no longer provides sufficient
deterrent effect. To redeploy existing U.S. forces to the Mediterranean would
simply exacerbate these symptoms in another part of the world. The second
option, which is from a navalist's perspective the most desirable but
simultaneously the most politically challenging, is to grow the size of the
U.S. Navy. During the Cold War, carrier and amphibious group deployments to the
Eastern Mediterranean were routine and kept the Soviet fleet in check. By
contrast, the Navy’s current supply of day to day deterrence through credible
combat power and presence is far outstripped by demand the world over.
Acknowledging this issue, and taking
the fiscal policy conflict between Congress and the Administration into account,
reinvigorating NATO Standing Maritime Groups may be the quickest and most
feasible way to push back on the Russian A2/AD threat. Currently NATO operates
two Standing Maritime Groups, though between them both only seven ships are combatants (and
three of those were recently augmented above normal force structure). Given
that no allied submarines and only a handful of helicopters exist within both
combined groups, this force is highly vulnerable to Russian submarine attack or
coercion. This could be addressed by augmenting the standing group assigned to
the Mediterranean with allied undersea forces. Furthermore, with the allocation
of dedicated land-based air power and additional surface combatants, NATO maritime
forces’ credibility in the region would be greatly increased. To be maximally effective,
this Standing Group should field electronic warfare capabilities and be trained
to employ counter-surveillance techniques that can together defeat the over-the-horizon
targeting systems supporting the Syria-based Yakhonts. Additionally, Standing
Groups have the deterrent benefit of tying nations together as an attack on the
group would affect at least a half-dozen different countries. To add further
effect, NATO leadership should work to ensure Greek and Turkish participation
(though perhaps not concurrently for historical reasons) in the Mediterranean
Standing Group and cycle it through the Eastern Mediterranean regularly.
Whatever course of action the U.S.
and NATO ultimately pursue, it is important for policymakers and strategists
alike to recognize the gross implications of a Russian A2/AD envelope in the
Eastern Mediterranean. Such an envelope would present grave challenges to U.S.
influence in the region, and would imperil the free flow of commerce that is
essential to U.S. (and global) prosperity.
Jonathan Altman is a Program Analyst with
Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. who holds a Master’s Degree in
International Security from the Korbel School at the University of Denver. The
views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his
personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems
Planning and Analysis Inc., and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the
policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed
service, or any other U.S. Government agency.
[1]
Though not all of these ships can be assumed to be self-deployable. Counting
only principal combatants and amphibious ships, the Black Sea Fleet has 14
self-deployable ships; though it should be assumed that any deployment of these
ships would be accompanied by some number of smaller combatants (missile boats
or patrol craft), of which the Black Sea Fleet has 19.
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