Maximilian Hess, a British researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy Research, Central Asian Affairs, predicts that the unstable balance of power around the Black Sea threatens to turn it into another major conflict zone.

In an article for the American magazine "Foreign Policy", Maximilian says that potential trade wars, exploitation of Turkish influence, increased Kremlin retaliation, and immigration are all but some of the threats facing the Black Sea region, which was the bloodiest water in the world. Since the Cold War, not just because of Ukraine.

He pointed out that the sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet ship "Moskva" on April 14 entered history, as it is the largest military ship destroyed in the conflict since World War II, and he saw Ukraine's claim that it sank the ship with two "Neptune" missiles as a special shock to Russia, which led to reassess its coastal defense capabilities and, in particular, its ability to secure its southwestern shores.

However, the fact that this historic sinking occurred on the waves of the Black Sea has attracted less attention than it deserves.

He said that the Black Sea is rarely considered among the most strategic areas in the world, even among bodies of water.

The South China Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the eastern Mediterranean have received more attention in recent years.

It is not given the importance it deserves

By contrast, the Black Sea is still seen as a largely secondary concern.

This is despite the fact that there have been an astonishing 10 wars on or near its coast since the end of the Cold War, more than any other maritime area in the world: the Transnistrian conflict in Moldova, the Georgian-Abkhaz War, the Georgian Civil War, the Russo-Georgian War, the First and Second Chechen Wars, the two Russian-Ukrainian 2014 and 2022, and the First and Second Armenian-Azerbaijani Wars on Nagorno-Karabakh.


This should come as no surprise, the writer said.

The Black Sea, after all, is where many of the world's major powers converge: Russia, the European Union, Turkey, and NATO, which brings with it the United States.

Knowing that none of these powers has control over this sea.

Unresolved issues

The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war and the energetic legacy of other regional conflicts in the Black Sea are not the only cause for concern;

Other security crises have reshaped the region in recent years, while some persistent issues remain unresolved, all of which have the potential to provoke further conflict.

One example is the long-running conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which has killed nearly 6,000 people over the past seven years, in addition to the number of people killed between 2015 and 2017 in the conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

In addition, the border between Turkey and the European Union has been a key point in the recent migrant crises in Europe, and is still largely looming, despite the more receptive nature of the Ukrainian refugee bloc.

Prepare for a possible escalation

Maximilian points out that in order to better prepare for a potential escalation of these security issues along the Black Sea, it is important to understand the region's power structure, its own interests, and why it has proven unable to maintain its integrity thus far.

He says perhaps one of the most important strategic shifts was the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to NATO in 2004, and then the European Union three years later.

While Turkey and Greece have long been members of NATO, tensions between them have often limited cooperation in the region.

Sofia and Bucharest membership has given NATO warships more reliable access to ports in the Black Sea that are independent of the relationship between Turkey and NATO although Washington's military influence in the Black Sea is still less than in the Persian Gulf or even the South China Sea, where The US Navy is more active.

Yet, 18 years later, Russia continues to call for the withdrawal of Western forces from the two countries, even though the NATO leadership has not taken these pleas seriously.

Motivation for Russia's actions

Yet Russia's actions in Ukraine, as well as its 2008 invasion of Georgia, were motivated at least in part by the belief that it needed to re-establish its security by keeping the West away from the Black Sea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made this clear in his speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference in which he also bemoaned Russia's decisions to withdraw old Soviet bases from Moldova and Georgia in previous years.

The following year, Moscow sought to re-establish itself as a major security player on the Black Sea by invading Georgia, destroying Tbilisi's small coast guard flotilla, bombing the main port of Poti, and formalizing control of Abkhazia in the region on the eastern shores of the Black Sea.

The Russian missile cruiser Moskva sails past the warships memorial after tracking NATO warships in the Black Sea in the port of Sevastopol, Crimea on November 16, 2021 (Reuters)

Turkey enters the arena of conflict

Other conflicts in the Black Sea region followed between 1991 and 2008: the Georgian civil war, the Transnistrian conflict, the Chechen wars, and the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.

While Russia has attempted to violently re-establish itself, Turkey has also sought to fill the void left by the West in these conflicts.

Ankara's role in the region is undoubtedly important to the security of the Black Sea.

Although it is a member of NATO, it pursues its own agenda, especially around the Black Sea.

Even in the recent Russian war on Ukraine, Ankara was getting closer to Moscow, but they remained, in general, on opposite sides of the Libyan and Syrian conflict, and most importantly for the Black Sea region (Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict).

The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that Turkey does not see itself firmly in the Moscow camp, but will instead compete or cooperate whenever it sees the possibility of enhancing its relative strength.

the arrival of china

We also note that China has arrived as an emerging power in the Black Sea region, where this sea is firmly seated in the Belt and Road strategy to expand investment in infrastructure and develop trade networks, especially in Georgia, Bulgaria and Turkey, despite the surprising difficulties in Romania and Ukraine.

The writer explains that the Black Sea is overlooked as a strategic space and that it suffers from many conflicts with its beaches, which represent the largest geographical concentration of the changing major powers.

It can be said that the fact that the Black Sea represents this confluence of forces is at the same time the main destabilizing factor.

It seems that these changing forces will continue to gather and clash in it and around its coasts.

An important corridor of shipping

Although it is not usually associated with discussing trade wars like other sea routes, such as the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal, it is clear that the Black Sea is not given what it deserves, especially if we consider the huge tonnage that passes through it;

The Russian Northern Sea Route, which has received a lot of attention, set a record tonnage of 34.9 million metric tons of cargo in 2021, while a total of 898 million tons passed through the Dardanelles Gate in the Black Sea in 2021, about 70% of 1.27 billion Metric tons in Suez.