In the Navy: A former Naval officer weighs in on the Black Sea Fleet

In response to a recent post on Jalopnik's Foxtrot Alpha blog, I asked a friend who had served in the Navy for over a decade to weigh in on the conflict. He'd spent significant amounts of time in Georgia and in the Crimea on joint exercises, so I felt that he'd give a perspective missing from the news. Here are his responses, edited by me.

I spent a good deal of time in the Crimea - including a port visit at the base in Sevastopol described in the article. I was there in 2010 when things were a bit different, but the difficulties of the completely enclosed Black Sea and mass of anti-surface missiles that could be brought to bear are accurately described. I do think the article downplays the fact that if there was a shooting war between us and Russia, the tactical difficulties of the Black Sea would be the least of our problems. The issue here is that those difficulties do create a credible threat of access denial and aversion to warfare and further involvement in the region.

When I was there, our concern was not so much Russia as an energy but rather tackling narcotics trafficking that provided most of the Taliban's revenue. Our mission focused on cooperative training to bolster the ability of Black Sea states to combat said trafficking. That said, if Russia also has concerns about revenue/capabilities of Central Asian terrorist elements, a strong Russian Black Sea fleet might actually help in that respect.

While the news is focusing on naval competition between the US and Russia, we also have some recent examples of cooperation, notably between US/Russian naval units conducting anti-piracy in East Africa. While Putin has the capability to shut down the Black Sea, and as alluded, we have the capacity for preemptive strike by air assets against an aging fleet. Neither side could do those things without starting a war that in all likelihood would escalate very quickly and very badly. Additionally, anti-surface cruise missiles, especially in restricted and heavily trafficked areas, have a tendency to track on background shipping (as seen in Lebanon 2006). In the strategic seaway of the Bosporus and Black Sea in general, based purely on numbers/flags/locations of merchant vessels these days, that means a strong probability that any massive missile attack in the Black Sea would sink Chinese or Indian merchant vessels - putting Russia in a very awkward position.

Long and convoluted response, but it's a complicated issue - the main point being Russia has the advantage of a strong position but the disadvantage of being unable to use it without large scale warfare or economic ruin.

Lastly, going back to why I was there, I realize it's not politically feasible now, but given that our interests in the region (maritime security, counter narcotics/human trafficking) may actually align with Russia's own, the way ahead would be sending out feelers about Black Sea security exercises and training with all Black Sea naval powers INCLUDING Russia, stressing that our recent collaboration (Somali Pirate Ops) makes us both logical exercise planners - sounds bizarre, but there's actually more Naval Diplomacy between us and Russia than it might seem.

I do believe firmly though that all the talk of issues on US/Russian naval balance ignore that open warfare between the US and Russia anywhere would be unwinnable by either side (but both would lose big).

Guest Post for Anthropoliteia: the anthropology of policing

A guest blog post for Anthropoliteia

Text below, for all the funky pictures go to the original post.

Much of what has been fascinating in Ukraine has been how perceptions of public order have framed interpretations of this conflict. The Maidan protesters certainly wrote another chapter in the ‘how to topple a corrupt government’ handbook that is, from the Russian perspective, far more dangerous than any particular nationalist regime might be. If unrest rises in Russia and a viable protest movement emerges (think motorcycle helmets and molotovs, not signs and chants), they will look to the experience of Maidan. The escalation of the conflict was, from the Russian perspective, something that should never have had to happen. Like in Kazakhstan (google Zhanaozen ) or Uzbekistan (Andijan), autocrats tend to stomp open dissent out before it can morph into something autonomous like Maidan. These suppressions as a rule occur off the books and without further inquiry. Yet it is precisely this idea of accountability that drove Yanukovch from Ukraine (that, along with an awkward telephone call from Putin).

The crucial factor in Ukraine was the sudden “disappearance” of the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, which created a perceived power vacuum that Russia acted on. Youtube is filled with videos of Russian politicians and unnamed agitators handing out wads of cash, and evidence exists that a core group of pro-Russian “victims” have been bussed around the country and performed the same skit for the cameras. (*editor’s note: you can find a clearinghouse for fake information here)

I don’t want to get into geopolitics, so I’ll try to keep as close to the ground as possible. In situations in which Russia military or irregular forces (armed volunteers, Cossacks, etc.) intervenes, it does so not to achieve a decisive victory but to keep the de jure sovereign at bay. This happened in Moldova during the 1992 war between Transnistria/Russia and Moldova. The conflict began when locals loyal to separatists began taking over the tangible instruments of Moldovan state power — police stations and government buildings. This is happening in Crimiea too, except instead of the police it is Ukrainian military/naval installations. Next, the ill-defined borders of the emerging polity will be fortified and later codified to some degree through negotiations. There is a reason that bunkers and checkpoints suddenly proliferated, and that airports and the ferry terminal at Kerch were taken over. These facilitate not only the movement of troops and arms, but serve to filter unwanted individuals from entering. The new Ukrainian government has no means of entering, much less controlling Crimea. Its only loyal forces are in a standoff with local irregulars and the Russian army. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that violence will occur and the response will be swift. Ukraine has a long history of guerrilla warfare against outsiders perceived as threatening to the nation (Poles, Germans, Russians), and ethnic cleansing.

This situation in which the de jure sovereign is kept at bay emboldens locals and otherwise marginal politicians who now take the stage as true leaders. The leader of the Crimean separatists, Sergey Aksyonov, led a party that received only 4% of votes in the last elections. His only biography of note is his criminal one. By diminishing Ukraine’s sovereignty, Crimean separatists and their patrons in the Kremlin will be able to create a prolonged period of uncertainty in which their original claims of discrimination and violence will shift from fantasy to reality. Ukraine’s fledgling government will be increasingly forced to look at declaring martial law (the Russian term is Военное положение, which roughly translated as war situation) and further creating uncertainty insofar as their legal claims to be the rightful successor government have already been questioned and undermined by Russia. The Russian state has shown that provocations and conflict are integral to domestic legitimacy (witness the two wars in Chechnya).

What I find most interesting aspect of Crimea is the performative nature of the incursion. At first, soldiers operated without insignia and, ipso facto, unofficially. Yet now that they have been surprisingly unmasked as Russian forces, their presence enables the new Crimean authorities to perform the constituent actions of any sovereign — a people must be created around which the institutions of government can cluster. This will happen later in March when a referendum is scheduled, after which point the people will have spoken – there will be a constituent holder of sovereignty, screened and vetted by the Russian Federation. Yet after this happens, the performance cannot stop — they will have to begin performing the core functions of government, most of which were done by Ukrainian civil servants and bureaucrats. Practically, public order and policing functions will be outsourced to irregulars, soldiers, and Cossacks. Yet each of these is largely unskilled in doing any actual policing. Furthermore, if they alienate Crimea’s Turkic-speaking Tatar population, who collectively have a far worse victimization at the hands of Russia than perhaps any other constituency in Ukraine, Turkey might get involved. One only needs to look at the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to understand that the Russians are by no means the only ones capable of playing the separatist card.

Ukraine is a country of over 45 million people. It has a long history of being oppressed by outsiders. It will not go down easily (listen to its national anthem if you have any doubts). Trotsky’s thoughts on Ukraine are perhaps more relevant than many of the talking heads dominating the airwaves now (Trotsky on ‘The Ukrainian Question’ in Socialist Appeal, 22 April 1939):

The Ukrainian question, which many governments and many “socialists” and even “communists” have tried to forget or to relegate to the deep strongbox of history, has once again been placed on the order of the day and this time with redoubled force…. We are dealing with a people that has proved its viability, that is numerically equal to the population of France and occupies an exceptionally rich territory which, moreover, is of the highest strategical importance. The question of the fate of the Ukraine has been posed in its full scope. A clear and definite slogan is necessary that corresponds to the new situation. In my opinion there can be at the present time only one such slogan: A united, free and independent workers’ and peasants’ Soviet Ukraine.

Post-Soviet separatism (again)

I am no expert on Ukraine, or on the Crimea, but I have spent a significant amount of time in another separatist state, Transnistria (PMR). There are quite a few parallels, and although my first instinct was to brush off the initial events in the Crimea as occurring for a show, the past few days have left me with an ominous sense of dread.

As was the case in Transnistria, Russia has vocally spoken of protecting its citizens in the Crimea. This takes the form of the rapid issuance of Russian passports. This has already occurred in the Crimea, and in particular, reports indicate that the Russian consulate in Simferopol has been giving Russian passports to Berkut police officials. Next, Russian military forces will vaguely intervene (i.e., patrol alongside local irregulars, Cossack forces, agitators). Due to the buildup of these foreign forces, the de jure state will be provoked into responding (as was the case in Georgia and Moldova) which will in turn bring down the full force and fury of the Russian army. The particulars are not important, what is important is that a response occurs, and this entails at least some small degree of bloodshed.

The rhetoric is the same -- this is a Russian city/Russian land, we are Russians -- which arises in response to an enemy that is allegedly fascist in nature (in Transnistria, this took the form of a demonization of Moldovans and the Moldovan state as Romanian fascists intent on turning Transnistria back into a bloody WWII era concentration camp), in Crimea the Maidan activists become fascists intent of unleashing pogroms against ethnic Russians.

Ukraine is a lot larger and arguably more important than Georgia. I can't see this escalation ending well for either side. Any attempt to install Yanukovych under a Russian-dominated military rule would be doomed to fail. On the other hand, the Ukrainian economy is on the brink of default, and Russia shows no signs of relenting. I think more than anything these recent events show the insecurity of Putin as a leader.

The power of Ukraine now is not that it might be divided, invaded, federalized, or all of the above -- it shows how, rightly or wrongly, the people can and will take matters into their own hands. Ukrainians, both Russian and Ukrainian speakers, can now see Russia for the punitive bully that it is. The key to creating a separatist polity is in keeping the de jure political forces at bay. This already seems well under way in Ukraine.

Crimeans might want to think long and hard about what a Russian occupation might bring, given that its economy is almost exclusively based on tourism. But then again, Russian tourists seem to enjoy warzones.

Or they can always to go Sochi.