Saturday, November 08, 2008

Black Sea Proxies

We cannot maintain a naval presence in the Black Sea under the constraints of the treaties that govern the sea and the Turkish straits that provide access.

At best, we can support Black Sea bordering nations who are friendly to us to have sufficient naval forces to contain the Russian fleet.

So this request seems like a no-brainer:

Ukraine has asked the United States for some surplus Perry class frigates. The U.S. said they would think about it, as Russia has become very testy about Ukrainian attempts to join NATO. Getting American warships would not, everyone agrees, please the Russians.


What doesn't make the Russians testy? Honestly, as time goes on I'm less and less interested in pleasing the Russians. We need to keep them honest until they realize that we are not their enemy and they had best start thinking about the Chinese threat to Russia.