"Let me get this Strait: The Turkish Straits question..." Topic

….REVISITED

"The Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, together with the adjoining Marmara Sea, are known collectively as the Turkish Straits and provide the only access between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. More than 40,000 vessels passed through these waters in 2019, transporting almost 650 million tons of cargo, and reaffirming the Turkish Straits as one of the most important maritime trade corridors in the world. Additionally, the shores of the Straits – which narrow at some points to as little as 700 meters apart – are home to more than 22 million people, including the historic city of Istanbul.

Since 1936, the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits, hereinafter referred to as the Montreux Convention, has allowed for the peaceful flow of commerce through the Turkish Straits. However, recent calls from Turkish and Russian policy circles for revisions to the Montreux Convention should be cause for concern, as these proposals threaten to either spur a naval arms race in the Black Sea region or look to exploit the Straits as a geostrategic chokepoint…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I've always found the Montreux Convention fascinating.

It is always amazing that even during the height of the Cold War, NATO partner state Turkey retained it, which in turn effectively turned the Black Sea into a Soviet lake.

I actually think the Black Sea is becoming a real liability for NATO as two of its members, Romania and Bulgaria are sandwiched between the Russians, unstable Ukraine and increasingly hostile Turkey.

Both of those countries have pathetic navies backed up by equally pathetic air forces. Eg Romania's primary fighter is still the MiG-21 and its Type 22 frigates were delivered from RN without missile systems and no missiles were ever sourced, thus making them gigantic 4,800 ton patrol boats. Romania's plans for the future of its airforce is 53 second hand F-16s built in 1980s and 1990s and updated to 1990s tech (Block 50 standard). So far they managed to buy 17 of these from Portugal of which 12 have been delivered. Bulgaria's air force currently relies on about 30-ish MiG-29s and Su-25s which will be replaced by 16 latest standard F-16s (8 ordered with extremely limited weapons – about 2 A2A missiles per jet and virtually no A2G ordnance!)

Both countries are haemorrhaging their populations to richer EU states which means they will struggle to ever become rich enough to be able to afford reasonable defence forces. Indeed Bulgaria had over 9 million- people in 1989 and is now down to under 7 million and is continuing to decline massively. Romania peaked at close to 23 million people in early 1990s, was down to 21 million in 2010 and now is down to 19.4 million.

It is possible to envisage a scenario where one or both of these two countries are threatened either by Turkey or Russia. And lack of naval access due to the Montreux Convention makes adequate NATO naval reinforcement impossible.

And it is also plausible that Bulgaria be drawn back into its traditional Russian sphere if Turkey continues its path and NATO continues to be weakened by both political lack of leadership and ongoing reductions in defence spending in the EU.

I've never really understood why the world permitted this "convention" to go forward.

I suspect it went forward because it was 1936 which meant:

1. USA had an isolationist foreign policy.

2. A lot of the world was going through the Great Depression.

3. Hitler was rebuilding Germany and had other bigger things to worry about such as solidifying his own power and remilitarising the Rhineland.

4. Britain and France were probably too busy trying to fight the depression and worry about Germany as well as Italy's imperial ambitions.

5. Italy – I doubt they cared as they had no interests in that part of the world. And again they were already engaged in expansionism in Ethiopia (then known as Abyssnia).

6. Spain – just starting an nice little civil war that would cause a lot of international grief.

7. The Black Sea is strategically not vital for trading powers like France or UK or USA or Mediteranean powers like Italy or Spain. It's a dead end street that in 1936 led to the closed state of Stalin's USSR, impoverished Persia (Iran) and as such no money to be made. In any case Iran could be easily accessed via established trade routes via Suez Canal or Indian Ocean.

To be honest Black Sea is still not strategically important. It still leads to an economically undeveloped region and it still is a dead end.

And even if the Turks allow the Russians to sail any kind of warships through the Straits, it leads straight to NATO land of the Aegean and Mediterranean with the Greeks,Italians, French and Spaniards controlling all potential routes backed up by USN units of the 6th Fleet (mainly rotational ships).

It's why I say that NATO's coast of the Black Sea is a liability for NATO. It's not strategically important for NATO but it is for the Russians. The Russians are willing to go to war over Ukraine but NATO is not.

If Ukraine agitates too hard and is rolled over by Russia, it will compromise NATOs southern east flank and place the largely disarmed states Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in a precarious position.

And with Turkey no longer a reliable NATO partner, there is a threat of Bulgaria and Romania's coasts becoming encircled by countries hostile to NATO. This puts both these countries in a more precarious position.

For now the only benefit of US deploying the odd destroyer to the region is to irritate Russia.

An excellent synopsis. Thank you.

I concur with all of it.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand