By Colin Barnard
In a recent article for CIMSEC, I proposed three ways to improve U.S. maritime posture in Europe, including the forward basing of small surface combatants in the Baltic and Barents Seas. Due to the Montreux Convention, however, only littoral states are able to base warships in the Black Sea, which excludes the United States and all but three NATO members: Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Recognizing this limitation and others on overall NATO maritime posture in the region, Russia has invested heavily in expanding and modernizing its Black Sea Fleet to maintain a position of relative strength in the region and ensure its unfettered access to sea lanes, which it has used in recent years to continue its destabilization of Ukraine and Georgia and resupply its forces in Syria and Libya (the latter in violation of UN sanction regimes).
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