Part 2. Maritime security: Redefining regional order in a new security environment

Defense Policy Eastern Europe Europe & Eurasia Maritime Security Security & Defense Southern & Southeastern Europe The Balkans The Caucasus Turkey Ukraine

Report September 13, 2024

Part 2. Maritime security: Redefining regional order in a new security environment

By Serhat Güvenç

This chapter is part of a report on the prospects for enhanced cooperation between Turkey and Western countries in the Black Sea region in the new geopolitical setting following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Toward a regional security arrangement

This summer, three NATO members from the Black Sea activated the Black Sea Mine Countermeasures Task Group (MCM Black Sea) in Istanbul. The July 1 activation can be viewed as a milestone for maritime security in the region—with sole reliance, at least initially, on littoral states (Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey) for force generation.¹ In that regard, it may be considered a reincarnation of the Turkish idea of regional ownership in addressing maritime security issues in the Black Sea.

The task group represents a regional response to the growing threat of mines. It is aimed at ensuring the safe passage of ships in the Black Sea both in general and especially in the new grain-export corridor established by Ukraine after Russia’s withdrawal from the UN Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023.

Arguably, this task force represents a compromise position for littoral and nonlittoral stakeholders. First, its NATO aspect is much less pronounced than Bulgaria and Romania would have preferred, but more than Turkey would have welcomed in a perfect world. Ultimately, it is a task force assembled by NATO members outside the institutional framework of the Alliance to enhance maritime security in the Black Sea and maritime situational awareness of NATO in the region. In the activation ceremony, there was a marked absence of NATO insignia and language, yet it was also stated that this regional collaborative effort could be extended to include nonlittoral members of the Alliance in the future. It was the prospect of that inclusion that made the Turkish initiative acceptable to Bulgaria and Romania.

MCM Black Sea is the most recent security arrangement reflecting a compromise within NATO regarding the extent of involvement for the Alliance as a whole and its nonlittoral members in the regional maritime domain. As such, it perfectly captures the dilemma of crafting security practices and institutions in a region that faces the unraveling of the rules-based international order. The weakening of international norms and institutions have inevitably determined regional actors’ approaches to maritime security.

This section argues that the structure and processes of the international system have defined security dynamics in general, and maritime security dynamics in particular, in the Black Sea since the end of the Cold War: for regional actors, geographical, historical, and legal factors have driven or constrained alliance and collaboration approaches and practices. The section begins with a discussion of maritime security institutions and practices attempted in the region before Russia turned into a revisionist actor. The period between 2014 and 2022 merits particular attention, as this was when all the post-Cold War regional security arrangements collapsed. This situation has given rise to competing visions of maritime security in the Black Sea. Consequently, the section discusses such visions. Finally, it closes with several predictions regarding the future configuration of security arrangements and respective roles of international organizations such as NATO and the European Union, as well individual actors including Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. The fluidity of regional geopolitics complicates the situation, and it is probably safe to conclude that a lasting maritime security arrangement will be closely linked to the eventual redefinition of the relationship between the EU and Turkey, as two rival maritime security providers.

Maritime security in the Black Sea

Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 made the Black Sea a policy concern for the EU, NATO, and the United States,² but the region has always been a major security consideration for both Turkey and Russia, particularly in the context of managing their regional competition. Their competition management practices have resulted in a convergence of Turkish and Russian views on the undesirability of nonlittoral states’ involvement in the region.

This convergence has led some to conclude that the Black Sea has become a Russian-Turkish condominium.³ By narrowly focusing on the pragmatic and practical cooperation, this approach misses or disregards the reality that the essence of interactions between these two regional heavyweights is competition. Their relations have waxed and waned between outright confrontation to reconciliation and collaboration even in the last decade. The two countries are involved in fierce rivalries in other parts of the world, such as Libya and Syria. Transactional foreign policies have served their core-interests. Russia’s exclusion from, and Turkey’s marginalization in, the rules-based international order has acted as a catalyst for bringing these two major players in the Black Sea closer.

In terms of cycles of hostility and collaboration between Ankara and Moscow, it is worth recalling the situation after a Russian SU-24 Fencer bomber was shot down by Turkish F-16s on November 24, 2015 near the Turkish-Syrian border. In the months following the downing, the military and naval situation between Russia and Turkey resembled that of the World War II era,⁴ with one difference: Turkey is a member of NATO. But for eleven months in 2016, that membership was of little help to Turkey. Russian A2/AD bastions in the north and south rendered Turkish air and naval activity beyond its borders risky ventures, for fear of Russian revenge-seeking. Meanwhile, US warships that patrolled the Black Sea as part NATO’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) were harassed by Russian aircraft. At the height of the Turkish-Russian crisis, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called NATO to the rescue. Otherwise, he warned, the Black Sea would soon turn into a “Russian lake.”⁵

The November 2015 bomber incident proved that from a purely material capabilities perspective, Turkey lacks the means to “balance” Russia on its own.⁶ It has always needed partners and allies, regional or extraregional, depending on the distribution of power internationally and regionally among status quo and revisionist powers. Notably, multilateral regional arrangements were enacted in the post-Cold War era to accommodate Russia as a legitimate stakeholder in the Black Sea security.

How recent challenges to the regional order affected Turkey’s policy

Tensions were evident before the annexation of Crimea. The Russian-Georgian War of August 2008 signified a turning point for Russia and added momentum to its military modernization and transformation efforts. Before the war, Turkey had supported Georgia’s military modernization. Ankara had invested in an airfield where Turkish military aircraft could be based in times of need, and supplied Georgia with coast guard boats. The Marnuli airfield and Turkish-supplied coast guard boats were among the military targets destroyed by the Russian artillery in the early stages of the war. In other words, Ankara’s attempts to gain traction in the southern part of the Caucasus were ultimately and effectively checked by Russia.

The war brought about de facto changes in the territorial and maritime status quo in the Black Sea. South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared their independence with Russian support. The Abkhazian declaration of independence created the potential for great impact on regional geopolitics, considering it gave rise to an unrecognized state with access to the Black Sea.

The idea of regional ownership and its mechanisms received a substantial blow, but nevertheless survived the war, partly because the Obama administration had not yet dismissed the idea of accommodating Russia in the liberal international order. Again, the strategic choices of the global leader largely determined the parameters of interaction regionally.

In November 2010, after a general decline in Turkey’s naval standing, Ankara endorsed NATO’s new strategic concept, which called for development of ballistic missile defense system (commonly known as “the missile shield”). At a global level, Russia saw this as a way station to the development of a US missile defense system that would eventually cancel out Russia’s nuclear deterrent and weaken its international status. Additionally, two aspects of NATO BMD system were destined to increase the Alliance’s footprint in the region: the ground-based interceptors, to be deployed in Romania, and the regular rotation of the US Navy’s Aegis-class destroyers as sea-borne assets of the system into the Black Sea.

Russian apprehensions grew after Ankara agreed to the deployment of an X-Band missile detection system and tracking radar in Turkey’s southeast as part of this missile defense structure, as well as ascent for Aegis destroyers’ frequently appearing in the Black Sea. Russia countered this move by deploying S-300s and the latest S-400 air defense missiles in its Southern Military District, beginning in 2012. These were the core capabilities around which an A2/AD sphere would eventually be erected in the region.

In hindsight, there is a general agreement about how the West missed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s messaging regarding his intentions in 2007. Although he revealed them in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, it failed to grab the attention of his Western audiences. Similarly, Russia’s ambitions in Georgia were largely overlooked by the West.

The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea was the final nail in the coffin for the regional security architecture championed by Turkey. With this annexation, Moscow was able to build a formidable A2/AD sphere covering the Black Sea, extending to the shores of Turkey.⁷ Russia then began to voice stronger opposition to the naval presence of nonlittoral states in the Black Sea.⁸ Moreover, Moscow added new weight and momentum to its naval reconstruction program for the Black Sea fleet. The plan foresaw the addition of six new submarines, six frigates, and four new corvettes armed with cruise missiles by 2020. This signified a tripling or even quadrupling of Russia’s naval strength in the Black Sea.⁹ Russian revisionism rendered Turkey’s status quo policy in the Black Sea unsustainable and untenable.

It’s important to note that during the 2014 crisis in Crimea, Turkey carefully assumed a low profile. For instance, Ankara did not cancel or postpone plans to send the Turkish Naval Task Force “Barbaros,” comprising two frigates, a corvette, and a replenishment ship, for a trip around the Horn of Africa during this time of high tensions between NATO and Russia.¹⁰ By sending a naval force of this size on such a distant mission, Ankara showed that it was not interested in deepening the crisis between Russia and NATO, nor did it want to take sides. Hence, Russian-Turkish political, economic, and naval relations survived the Crimean crisis with perhaps some Turkish loss of confidence in Russia.

Now that Turkey’s maritime ambitions go beyond the “blue homeland” (the Eastern Mediterranean area it regards as its exclusive zone), Ankara may find itself in a similar situation: needing to make a hard choice between committing its assets to address maritime security challenges in its immediate neighborhood or to support its growing overseas commitments from Somalia to Libya and Qatar. Importantly, maintaining the status quo in the Black Sea indeed helps Turkey focus more of its attention and resources away from the Black Sea. This provides yet another incentive for Turkey to resist any attempt to upset the existing balance of maritime power in the region.

Naval situation before the broader Russian attack on Ukraine

By 2016, Russia had secured a comfortable degree of naval superiority in the Black Sea. As early as in September 2016, Russian Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov pronounced that the days of the Turkish Navy’s mastery in the Black Sea were over. At the time, the Turkish Navy was set to receive the last two of four indigenous Ada-class corvettes (MILGEM), ordered in the previous decade. The second batch of four more units was canceled in favor of four more capable, I-class frigates based on MILGEM basic design. The Turkish submarine service was to receive six German 214 air independent propulsion diesel submarines. To bolster the Turkish navy’s blue water capabilities, a Juan Carlos-class strategic projection ship was ordered to be built by Turkish shipyard Sedef under license from Spanish shipbuilder Navtia.

Despite these various naval-development attempts, Russia could comfortably claim mastery of the Black Sea when it unleashed its attack on Ukraine in February 2022. It had a formidable array of combat and auxiliary vessels supported by an impressive naval air power stationed in Crimea.

At this time, other littoral states began focusing on their poor naval capabilities. Ukraine, which had inherited among others a single Kirvak III-class frigate (Hetman Sahaidachny) from the Soviet Union, placed an order for two Turkish Ada-class corvettes to modernize its navy in December 2020, with an option for two or three more units. The Romanian Navy had a single submarine for training purposes only. The latest additions to the surface fleet consisted of two ex-British Type 22 frigates purchased in 2004. It had another frigate, a Romanian design, and a motley collection of mostly Cold War-era smaller surface vessels. In 2019, French shipbuilder Naval Group was awarded a contract to build four Gowind-class corvettes for the Romanian Navy for €1.2 billion. These frigates were in way Romania’s response to Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Like Romania, Bulgaria relied on Cold War-era Soviet designs, with the exception of three Wielingen-class multirole frigates and three Tripartite-class mine hunters, received from Belgium in 2004; its navy also ordered two multirole corvettes from German shipbuilder Lürssen Werft in December 2020.¹¹

This mastery, however, would not even last past the first year of the war. In March 2022, Turkey closed the straits to the warships of belligerents at the request of the Ukrainian government. Turkey’s decision, in effect, turned the Black Sea into the maritime equivalent of a boxing ring, denying belligerents the opportunity to reinforce their existing fleets with units from other theaters and/or countries.¹² Since then, the Russian Black Sea fleet has suffered huge losses including a guided missile cruiser, several amphibious assault ships, and an improved Kilo-class diesel submarine. So long as the war goes on, Russia will be unable to replace its losses, increasingly a hostage to the Black Sea than its paramount.

The prospects for Russia to recover naval dominance in the Black Sea are slim. Since March 2022, Ankara has managed to persuade its non-Black Sea littoral NATO allies to keep their warships away from the Black Sea to reduce the risk of escalation. Although this may be temporary relief for Russia, the Kremlin has had to withdraw its naval assets to the east to avoid further losses to Ukrainian standoff anti-ship and air-to-ground missiles. The introduction of US Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) into the war prompted the redeployment of Russian air and naval air assets away from Crimea and the Black Sea coast. Russia, thus, has lost the tactical and operational momentum that it clearly possessed in the initial months of the war. The situation in the Black Sea reflects the overall change in the character of war from maneuver to attrition. In the meantime, as the Russian Navy is worn down, others seek to increase their naval strengths. By the time the war ends, Russia may face a radically altered and very unfavorable naval balance of power in the Black Sea.

At present, Ukraine has two Ada-class corvettes on order from Turkey, while Bulgaria has plans to procure two second-hand submarines, and Romania has plans to acquire three newly built submarines based on a French design. The latter received two Sundown-class mine countermeasures vessels decommissioned by the Royal Navy. Meanwhile, Romania canceled the contract for Gowind-class corvettes; according to media reports, Turkish STM offered Ada-class corvettes for the new tender, which would make Romania the third Black Sea navy to operate them. In that case, a common platform would likely contribute to closer cooperation and interoperability between Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine.¹³

What does the future hold?

Russia has lost sea control in the western Black Sea. Its naval blockade of Ukraine’s remaining coastline did not survive the first year of the war. The sinking of the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, indeed symbolized the demise of the Russia blockade. Ever since, Ukraine has maintained somewhat secure access to the Black Sea, on which its future as a sovereign and independent state hinges. The western Black Sea is now effectively denied to the Russian Navy’s surface vessels. Moreover, Ukrainian attacks on command and control centers, A2/AD assets, and shipyards, have substantially degraded Russia’s ability to sustain its maritime power in the Black Sea—now a wholly contested maritime theater of operations for both belligerents. Russia is unlikely to attempt to reclaim it, having refrained from challenging or disrupting Ukraine’s new grain corridor in the maritime domain. Some Turkish naval observers are of the opinion that Russia may be content with the status quo, and has little to gain from escalation in the maritime domain. Therefore, Russians cannot interrupt maritime traffic in the new grain corridor unless it is willing to take the risk of escalation.¹⁴
The balance of maritime power has turned, but that does not mean NATO has secured sea control. For NATO to maintain this favorable balance of maritime power—with Russia effectively denied the western part of the Black Sea—requires Turkey’s maritime capabilities. For instance, Turkish naval and naval air assets provide around 65 percent of the recognized maritime picture in the Black Sea.¹⁵ Turkey is capable of performing NATO’s functions alone without any other littoral or nonlittoral member of the Alliance. It has accumulated the required capability and competence to fulfill missions alone. Indeed, it was the only NATO member in the Black Sea region that continued to invest in additional naval capabilities in step with Russian naval modernization, while Bulgaria and Romania lagged behind both Russia and Turkey.¹⁶ Considering that Russian effectiveness in the Black Sea has gone down to a tolerable level, NATO’s direct maritime presence is no longer warranted.

There have been talks of transferring warships and/auxiliary vessels from some NATO members to Ukraine. The debate started in Germany first,¹⁷ and reached a new height with Britain’s decision to donate two ex-Royal Navy Sundown-class mine hunters to Ukraine. Turkey made it known that it would not allow their transit through the Turkish Straits as long as Article 19 of the Montreux Convention is in effect. The former supreme allied commander Europe for NATO, Admiral Stavridis, argued that mine hunters were defensive ships and therefore exempt from the Montreux restrictions.¹⁸ In both cases, the debate revealed the depth of knowledge (or lack thereof) among Turkey’s NATO allies of the legal intricacies of the Montreux Convention. A common argument is that freedom of navigation should be implemented without any limitations as set forth in the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III); ironically, the Montreux Convention limitations are recognized as deviations from freedom of navigation for warships by UNLCOS III. Therefore, the wording of the Article 19 does not leave any room for a liberal interpretation of the convention to allow transit of warships (and auxiliaries) of the belligerents. It does not recognize any distinction between offensive and defensive ships either.

Of course, there is nothing in the convention that would restrict or prohibit transit of warships acquired by the nonbelligerent Black Sea powers which may later contemplate to transfer such ships to Ukraine. However, such a transfer could be considered a hostile act and risk bringing NATO directly into the war.¹⁹ Such a course of action is inadvisable unless NATO deliberately pursues direct entanglement in the conflict.

On the other side of the coin, there have been calls on Turkey to close the Turkish Straits for merchant marine traffic to and from the Russian Black Sea ports. Heeding the calls would entail ending the freedom of navigation for Russian merchant vessels, particularly those involved in transporting war materials and grain exports. It’s worth noting that the Montreux Convention establishes a permissive transit regime for merchant vessels, even in times of war, between the littoral states. Freedom of navigation is the essence of that regime, and past attempts to interdict and seize merchant ships transporting war materials have been overturned by national and international courts. This was firmly established after a Greek Cypriot-flag cargo ship, Cape Maleas, was seized by the Turkish authorities in the Bosphorus in October 1991. The cargo ship was chartered by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRASL) to carry arms and ammunition from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to Iran. Its cargo was declared as “special equipment,” and the ship was seized for arms smuggling by the Turkish Coast Guard. The court authorization for seizing the ship was later overturned by the Court of Appeal in Turkey on the grounds that merchant ships enjoy absolute freedom of navigation in the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention, so long as Turkey is not at war with the country of flag or the country that chartered the ship.²⁰ Subsequently, IRASL sued Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for unjustified control of property. In 2007, the ECHR decided that Turkey’s action constituted a violation and awarded the applicant €35,000 for costs and expenses.²¹ Therefore, under the current transit regime, and in view of the decisions by the national and regional courts, Turkey cannot justify blocking merchant traffic to and from Russian Black Sea ports. The freedom of navigation remains the cardinal rule in regulating the transit of merchant vessels in the Turkish Straits.

Conclusions and challenges (Part 2)

The turn of events since 2008 points to a clear pattern in Russian behavior in the Black Sea. Moscow had been responsive to regional initiatives, so long as they were perceived to be complementing efforts to bring Russia into the Western fold or the liberal international system. In 2008, the incoming Obama administration chose to pursue a reset and, therefore, did not attempt to punish or exclude Russia after it invaded Georgia: the Black Sea regional security architecture managed to hold despite the war. After 2014, Russia transformed into an adversary to be checked. Gradually, nearly all institutional bonds between the West and Russia were dismantled. This inevitably had ramifications for regional security arrangements, which could no longer complement arrangements at the global level. In short, there was nothing left to complement at the global level through regional cooperation.

Ironically, Ankara regards the United States as a potential revisionist extraregional power. Its tendency to question and occasionally challenge the relevance of the Montreux Convention contributes to Turkish apprehensions about Washington’s intentions. Moreover, the US military interventions in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, haunt Turkish policymakers and the public alike regarding the destabilizing consequences of Great Power involvement in a neighboring region.²² While Ankara continues to grapple with the fallout from the US invasion of, and subsequent withdrawal from, Iraq, it fears prospects for destabilization of comparable magnitude to its north. Therefore, Ankara values the Montreux Convention as a tool for preventing sudden changes in regional geopolitics.

Fundamentally, the US and British air control over the western Black Sea facilitates Turkish primacy in the Black Sea, ensuring that they will remain the most relevant nonlittoral actors in Black Sea security for the foreseeable future.²³ Both have committed to support MCM Black Sea, if needed.

Sea mines are the most serious among current maritime security challenges. The MCM Black Sea was devised to tackle this challenge. In many ways, the MCM represents the latest manifestation of Turkey’s long-standing regional ownership idea. The absence of NATO imagery and language is in line with Turkish thinking to exclude nonlittoral powers from the Black Sea.²⁴ However, the MCM has extended Turkey’s relevance to regional maritime security and affirmed its credentials as the primary maritime security provider there. Indeed, it may even be considered a scaled-down version of the BlackSeaFor, tailored to NATO purposes. Its future depends on the degree of commitment from Romania and Bulgaria.

There are indications that the EU may be contemplating a Black Sea strategy without regard to Turkey and its concerns. This approach may enjoy the support of EU members such as France, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. In its June meeting, the European Council made the following statement:

The European Council reaffirms the importance of security and stability in the Black Sea and invites the Commission and the High Representative to prepare a Joint Communication on building an EU strategic approach to the Black Sea.²⁵

Romania and Bulgaria may be tempted to bring the EU in, as a counterbalance to Turkey’s influence as the primary maritime security provider to the region and as the strongest NATO member in the Black Sea. Persistence of the EU’s exclusionary practices may be self-defeating and drive Turkey even closer to Russia. Although Kemal Kirişçi, an international relations expert and nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, sees MCM Black Sea as an indicator of a subtle convergence of Turkish and US policies in the region, he draws attention to the dangers of excluding Turkey when devising a Black Sea strategy.²⁶

On the other hand, even if Turkey adopts a more inclusionary approach, a major issue is that the United States or the EU may no longer function as stable anchors for Turkey’s international and regional behavior. Both are undergoing a process of redefining their global roles, and therefore cannot serve as stable anchors until they come up with consistent and coherent visions to confront current security problems at the global level. In short, as there is a great deal of uncertainty, and Turkey will probably be less responsive to US and EU leadership attempts, From Turkey’s perspective, their pro-Israeli attitudes have eroded their claims as the moral champions of the rules-based international order.

Finally, a Russian defeat, though it would mark a significant weakening of Russian military threat regionally, runs the risk of complicating the maritime security situation in the Black Sea for Turkey. Such an outcome could eventually lead to the unfolding of the Montreux regime. If the war ends with a Russian defeat, peace terms may include Moscow’s acceptance of a new status in the Black Sea. In other words, if Russia capitulates, Ankara may find itself isolated as the only champion of the status quo on the Turkish Straits. Current parties to the convention include Australia, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Romania, Russia, and Serbia. Of the original signatories, Japan withdrew in 1951, whereas the Soviet Union was succeeded by the Russian Federation and Yugoslavia by Serbia. This lineup does not seem very promising when it comes to Ankara building a pro-status quo coalition.

Takeaways and challenges

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has upended our understanding of European security and its institutions. The course of events re-affirmed that NATO, once considered by some as brain-dead, remains the core institution of the European security architecture to tackle revisionist Russia’s military threat.

At this point, a crucial question is how to keep Turkey in NATO so that it is an asset rather than a liability for European security. There are two possibilities: the current war will either play a catalyst role in bringing Turkey back into the fold of mainstream European politics or will add momentum to its alienation from the West in general.

The war in Ukraine has given a new lease on life to the EU’s pursuit of strategic autonomy and simultaneously added momentum to Turkey’s ambitions for a strategic autonomy at a regional level. Recently, Vice-President of the EU Commission Josep Borrel admitted “growing Turkish and Russian influence has derailed the EU’s ‘Mediterranean Order.’”²⁷ If this is truly the case, the EU’s emerging perception of Turkey as a strategic competitor may frustrate its attempts to promote a regional maritime security order in the Black Sea. Hence, Turkey’s role in the new security environment will ultimately depend on choices made in Ankara, Washington, and Brussels and to a lesser extent in Moscow.

Continue on to the next chapter of the report: “Part 3. Defense cooperation: Turkey’s triangular balancing in the Black Sea region.”

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About the author

Dr. Serhat Güvenç is currently Professor of International Relations and the Dean of the College of Economics, Administrative Sciences at Kadir Has University. Previously, he held faculty positions Istanbul Bilgi University (2000-2010) and lectured as visiting Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago (2006), as adjunct professor of international relations at Koç University (2008 and 2009) and Bosphorus University (2014). Dr. Güvenç’s research interests include Turkey’s foreign relations and modern Turkish military and naval history. He has authored or co-authored five books. His articles have appeared in Middle Eastern Studies, International Journal of Naval History, Uluslararası İlişkiler, Exotierika Themata (Greek), Journal of Strategic Studies, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, International Journal, Turkish Studies, Turkish Policy Quarterly, The Journal of Military History, the Journal of Cold War History and War and Society.

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