Russia’s Black Sea Dominance Strategy—A Blend of Military and Civilian Assets
What is significant is that Russia needs to have a strategy to dominate what under the USSR was a Russian lake. This is progress, people.
The Russian strategy becomes downright hilarious when you consider that NATO didn't even pay that much attention to the Black Sea until Russia invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea, in particular.
And talk of Russian anti-access/area denial weapons shouldn't frighten us too much. I don't see why NATO would want to fight to control the Black Sea. Littoral objectives are too remote from critical fronts in the north. And we have overland supply lines to Ukraine.
All I want to do is use regional NATO assets to tie down Russian forces in the Black Sea away from more at risk areas around the Baltic Sea.
Really, the fact that Russia can use AA/AD weapons just highlights that NATO AA/AD weapons based in the Balkans and possibly Turkey (the Erdogan crisis could affect that) could deny Russia free use of the Black Sea in wartime. Let the Russians batter their forces trying to break free of our restraints on their use of the Black Sea.
Denying Russia free use of the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean Sea is more than sufficient to hamper Russian aggression in the region.
