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Forbes Business Aerospace & Defense In A Russia-Ukraine Peace, Montreux Convention Will Stress NATO Black Sea Peacekeepers Craig Hooper Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I evaluate national security threats and propose solutions. Following Jul 3, 2023, 06:13pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin After the Russian invasion, NATO fleets will be a common sight in the Black Sea Department of Defense Before the battle for Ukraine winds down, NATO has a duty to prepare a peacekeeping plan for the Black Sea. Until the Black Sea states of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Georgia field strong navies of their own, each capable of contending with Russia’s aggressive and oversized Black Sea forces, it will be up to NATO peacekeepers to maintain the freedom of the sea. The Black Sea nations are not stupid. They’re building bigger navies as fast as they can. Ukraine, of course, is committed to build up a modern warfighting fleet, with Türkiye already building several combatants. Romania is eying French-supplied Scorpene submarines and Bulgaria is purchasing two German-built Multipurpose Modular Patrol Vessels, but the progress has been halting and slow, with proponents likely targets for Russian disruption. Regardless of the outcome in Ukraine, it will take years for Black Sea states to protect their local maritime interests. And, even if Russia is defeated on land, Russia’s Navy will remain a powerful force. It will serve as a key means for Russia to make maritime mischief, sparking fear and disrupting freedom of navigation across the Black Sea basin. Old habits are hard to break; Russia’s long-held expectation of dominating the entire Black Sea will remain a nationalistic rallying cry for years to come. The Republic of Türkiye, as the future dominant maritime force in the Black Sea, would be a natural guarantor of a peaceful Black Sea, but the Black Sea gatekeeper, as the manager of the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, Türkiye appears more intent upon maintaining Russian and NATO ties than in making tough calls on deterrence and maritime norms. MORE FOR YOU ‘Big News’—Leak Reveals The SEC Could Be About To Blow Up Crypto’s $100 Billion Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin, Solana And Litecoin Price Pump Russian Troops Took An Old Tractor, Stuck Rockets On One End, A Mortar On The Other—And Produced The War’s Weirdest Vehicle The Witcher Losing Henry Cavill After Season 3 Is An All Time Netflix Fumble Unless Russian naval units are completely banned from the Black Sea, post-War Black Sea peacekeeping will fall to non-Black Sea members of NATO. To do it, a multi-national base somewhere in Romania, would be ideal. Built along the lines of Rota, Spain, where four American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers enjoy a forward home port, a local base would be ideal, but a quaint, diplomatic relic from the 1930’s, the Montreux Convention , stands in the way. The Convention makes the maintenance of a Black Sea NATO peacekeeping flotilla no easy task. Planning for this task must get underway now, and sketched out during the July 11-12 NATO Summit. Black Sea peacekeepers may require new tactics, weapons, and vessels that can only come from early consultation. Russian ships block passage under the Kerch bridge in 2018. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The Montreux Convention: A Peacekeeping Challenge The Montreux Convention of 1936 is an old treaty. Last modified before World War II, the agreement governs the movement of warships through the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. It limits the tonnage, time and types of non-Black Sea warships that can pass through Turkish waters and operate in the Black Sea. The diplomatic relic makes sustained, multinational maritime peacekeeping a tough task. For an ancient diplomatic tool, the Montreux Convention is has held up surprisingly well against the march of naval technology, though it could use a modern refresh, accounting for the global increase in average naval combatant displacement and other things. Right now, the Convention allows non-Black Sea navies to operate a combatant force of up to 30,000 tons (and in some cases up to 45,000 tons) in the Black Sea. Since no single non-Black Sea power can contribute more than two-thirds the aggregate tonnage at any one time, a NATO Black Sea peacekeeping flotilla must be multinational. A Black Sea peacekeeping force must be a fleet of lightweight combatants, too. According to the Convention, no single non-Black Sea warship can displace more than 10,000 tons. Any conventional warship ship slated to participate the Black Sea peacekeeping flotilla must also be reliable. The Montreux Convention mandates that non-Black Sea warships must leave the Black Sea basin after twenty-one days, so nothing can break down mid-voyage. Black Sea peacekeeping will be no pleasure cruise. If NATO wants to establish a peacekeeping presence in the Black Sea without requesting changes to the Montreux Convention, warships on peacekeeping duty will be on a relentless schedule, transiting in and out of the Black Sea on a near-monthly basis. But the Montreux Convention, as written, offers some interesting loopholes that NATO might consider exploring later this month. In 2019, the U.S. Marine Corps used warfighting vehicles to secure passage through the Strait of ...
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