Unrest Is Growing in the Black Sea Region Again

Sergiu CEBAN

The increased intensity of military exercise, along with the non-recognition of the actual territorial waters’ division, is a great challenge for all states of the Black Sea region, including Moldova

In recent weeks, the issue of the Black Sea region security has again come to the forefront of international attention. Amid another escalation between Moscow and NATO, the growth of tension in this important geostrategic space makes total sense. It all started with the fact that on October 6, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that the organization had decided to reduce the number of employees of the Permanent Mission of Russia to Brussels, citing the fact that Russian diplomats were engaged in intelligence activities against NATO. In response, Moscow suspended the work of the bloc’s military mission and information bureau in the Russian capital and froze the activities of its Permanent Mission from November 1. Another standoff between Brussels and Moscow was largely inevitable, primarily due to the global shift in the focus of attention of Washington and several allies to the Indo-Pacific region, as well as due to the preparation of a new strategic military doctrine of the North Atlantic bloc “NATO-2030”. It is planned to be approved during the next summit in 2022. According to NATO analysts, in order to give the alliance its former cohesion and clear prospective, it is necessary to introduce new major threats from Russia and China into the program documents. Thus, European allies will be able to show solidarity with Washington in its confrontation with Beijing. Therefore, the Black Sea region, which is a place of direct contact with the “Russian military threat”, has acquired a special status in the strategic planning of the alliance and, apparently, under certain circumstances, it may well become a zone of frontal collision. In order to confirm the increased interest and dispel doubts that the Black Sea has fallen out of sight of the military-political leadership of the United States and NATO, in October, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin made his Black Sea tour, visiting Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, and talking there about the current situation and security problems. The final point was Brussels and the meeting of NATO defense ministers. It is obvious that Austin's visit was a formal occasion to approve a new plan to protect Europe from Russia and China following the talks of the defense ministers of the Alliance member countries. According to the head of the Pentagon, the North Atlantic bloc is on the path of its active transformation, and his visit opens a “new chapter” in transatlantic ties. The tightening of the “Black Sea knot” continued with the exercise launched recently by the US Navy and a number of NATO states in the Black Sea to work out interaction between the command and staff structures of the alliance member countries. The next visit of American ships did not go unnoticed by Russia, but this time the comments were less moderate and sounded even at the Kremlin level. Experts believe that Moscow's nervousness may be related not only to the military maneuvers that have become more frequent in recent years. So far, all actions are mainly of a demonstration and reconnaissance nature, however, in conditions of increased tension, the risk of incidents with a catastrophic outcome is extremely high, as evidenced by the situation with the British destroyer Defender off the Crimean coast. A separate episode that fits into the current atmosphere of regional security was the use by Ukraine of Turkish Bayraktar combat drones on the line of confrontation in the Donbass. As a result, there were reports that the Russian leadership instructed its defense department to analyze the situation with unmanned strike systems and make appropriate proposals. Thus, if Moscow decides to supply the self-proclaimed republics with additional means of air defense, the intensity of the conflict in eastern Ukraine may multiply. The concentration of very dangerous factors seriously hampers the possibility of finding consensus on at least some key issues. Moreover, American experts, on the contrary, urge the government and Congress to develop a comprehensive strategy to boost security in the Black Sea region, which will include responding to Russia’s "aggression" in the military, information and economic dimensions. To that end, it is proposed to increase intelligence capabilities, strengthen the potential of allies and partners, identify clearer prospects for Kiev and Tbilisi to integrate into the alliance, as well as enhance NATO’s stable military presence in the region. I would like to believe that the key international players have no desire to provoke a local armed conflict in our region. However, amid the freezing of NATO-Russia communication channels and the lack of constant contacts between the military of the parties, literally one careless action can lead to an irreparably hazardous situation. The increased intensity of military exercises, coupled with the non-recognition of the actual division of territorial waters, is a great challenge for all states of the Black Sea region. Therefore, according to experts, the Black Sea water area has become one of the most high-risk regions today, unlike the Baltic Sea, where it was possible to collectively agree on measures to maintain regional stability. Paradoxically, the failed gas crisis in Moldova fits well into the increased “temperature regime” of our regional space, since it could also become a trigger and provoke an extremely complicated chain reaction. Most likely, Moscow also took this fact into account and therefore chose to somewhat soften its position to enable the parties’ eventual agreement. Our politicians and society tend to think that our country is almost always outside the large regional processes, and the level of threat to national security is within controllable limits. However, it is time to realize that the lines of global confrontation with a regional projection also run through the territory of our state, to which, as we recall, direct supplies of American weapons and equipment were launched not long ago. Therefore, what seems unthinkable today may become reality tomorrow.