Crimea Isn't the End of Russia's Black Sea Ambitions

Russia forces just wrapped up their highly publicized Zapad military exercise, their largest since the end of the Cold War. It involved more than 100,000 troops, front-line offensive tank and armored personnel carrier formations, vast close-air support, and significant naval operations in the Baltic Sea. Having successfully concluded this real world “object lesson” in Eastern Europe largely for NATO’s benefit, look for the Russians to shift their attention to the south and the most strategically important sea on their periphery: the Black Sea.

In terms of geopolitical competition, the Black Sea has been of key value since ancient times, stretching back to the voyages of the ancient Greeks along its shores. (It was reputedly the location of the voyage of the Argonauts searching for the Golden Fleece.) Over the centuries, the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Georgians, Armenians, Romanians, Bulgarians and other kingdoms large and small populated its shores and competed over its rich sea lanes of communication. For Russia in particular, old ghosts rattle through the Black Sea, especially on the Crimean Peninsula. In the mid-19 century, the forces of the Ottoman Empire, Britain, France and other allied European powers fought the Czar’s Russia there, resulting in half a million Russian dead -- mostly from disease and wounds.