What happens in this region matters to the rest of the world.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Halford Mackinder, one of the founding fathers of geopolitics, said that if the Heartland was unstable, the world was unstable. And since the Heartland encompasses virtually all of Eurasia, it’s safe to say that what happens in the Black Sea matters to the entire world.
In times of peace, the Black Sea is largely stable, a region that fosters movement, trade and general prosperity among the lands it abuts, including Russia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. In times of uncertainty, it’s the key to stabilizing the region.
A New Era
In 2008, the Black Sea region entered into a new era. Interestingly, this was only partly because of the 2008 financial crisis, which took some time to reach a region as poorly integrated into capital markets as the Black Sea. More consequential was the Russo-Georgian War, which showed that Moscow was ready and able to defend its buffer zones.
For Black Sea countries that were also members of NATO and the EU, these events hit home the need to reconsider the utility of the systems they were a part of. For countries that were part of neither, the choice between Russia and the West became much more urgent.
Then came the 2014 Ukraine crisis, which literally divided the nation into separate camps. Russia annexed Crimea, eastern Ukraine separated from the mainland, and the rest of the country maintained ties with Kyiv and thus the West. Russia has a strategic priority to maintain influence in Kyiv, without which it is relegated to sustain a frozen conflict. Moscow may have lost some of its power there, but keeping Ukraine engaged like this at least prevents it from falling entirely into the Western orbit.
Naturally, the events in Ukraine triggered responses from the U.S. and its NATO allies. Since 2014, for example, the U.S. moved its containment line eastward by improving bilateral ties with Poland and Romania while supporting NATO exercises in the area. This was by no means the beginning of a new Cold War, but neither was it the picture of regional stability.
Meanwhile, the fallout of the 2008 economic crisis touched nearly every corner of the world. As nationalism and protectionism grew, it became clear that globalization was deepening the differences between classes and countries.
It wasn’t just that people were angry; the ensuing socio-economic problems started to slowly challenge if not change the global order. The very basis of the U.S.-led world order was being questioned. China was working to remodel its economy and lessen its dependence on the U.S. market, exemplified by the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, but was finding it difficult to do so when so many countries from Asia to Europe were in economic decline. Russia, which had actually fared fairly well after 2008 because of high oil prices, began to slow after sanctions were introduced in 2014. One way it countered sanctions was the war in Syria, which it helped propagate by supporting its ally in the Syrian government and thus kept the U.S. bogged down.
This, in part, led to the refugee crisis in Europe, which contributed to the success of nationalist and sometimes anti-immigrant parties. The route by which many Middle East and North African migrants took, moreover, passed through Turkey, a country with a lot at stake in the Syrian conflict and, as it happens, a border country of the Black Sea. Turkey’s negotiation power with the EU has grown since the refugee crisis started. More important, its regional balancing act between Russia and the U.S. points to its recently announced neo-Ottoman policy, which seeks to reestablish Turkey as a regional power.
Put simply, the Black Sea region is undergoing changes that present an opportunity for strategic realignment. Turkey is a NATO ally and, for now, a U.S. ally. Accommodating though it may be at times to Russia, it is historically a Russian competitor. The U.S. is meanwhile courting Eastern Europe and tacitly encouraging the Intermarium, only some of whose members are NATO allies.
Which is to say these institutions, at one point vital to the stability of the Black Sea, are merely vestiges of an increasingly irrelevant Cold War era that no longer reflects the imperatives of the region.
The Future of the Black Sea
This is why the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic was so crucial, especially for the Black Sea region. The outbreak exposed the fragility of global supply chains and hammered home the need to reconfigure them.
Transportation and shipping have dropped as international trade in goods and tourism have slowed. Cruises have been halted pretty much everywhere, and container shipping, which constitutes the majority of Black Sea traffic, has seen an unprecedented decline.
It wasn’t that long ago that transportation in the Black Sea was expected to grow. Initiatives such as BRI convinced many that they should invest in the development of port facilities. Ukraine, Bulgaria and Georgia have been undergoing expansion plans of their ports since before 2010 and were aiming to increase terminal capabilities so that they could accommodate larger ships. The idea was to make the Black Sea a maritime hub.
However, transshipment is volatile and highly price sensitive. Port tariffs are dependent on both economic and security risks, and therefore there’s a lot of interdependence between geopolitics and maritime shipping. This is to say nothing of the war in eastern Ukraine, the U.S.-China trade war, the consumption declines in the U.S. and Europe, and the coming recession, all of which have stunted the Black Sea’s recovery from the 2008 crisis and dampened hopes for future shipping. (The most optimistic estimates suggest the industry will recover at the end of 2021. The most pessimistic suggest 2023.)
Ultimately, the evolution of global trade flows depends on the economics of the United States, the single biggest consumer in the world, and of the European Union, the largest market union.
The recovery of China and Russia depend on how fast demand will recover from the pandemic.
Both are undergoing reforms meant to restructure their economies, and both have to manage the socio-economic disparities between their regions, while maintaining stability.
All four of these regions “meet” in the Black Sea. All have special relations with Turkey except China, which has developed better relations with Ankara for the past year. China’s central bank, for example, reportedly transferred $1 billion to Turkey as part of a currency swap, giving a short-term boost to the country’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
Turkey will need the financial stability a partner like China can provide if it is to expand its regional influence as it intends to. (It will also need to champion its “neo-Ottoman” policies to keep the public on its side.) To that end, for example, it has been negotiating directly with Germany to settle the migration crisis with Europe. As Turkey resets its relationship with the West, it is the Balkans and Eastern Europe – the Black Sea region – that will feel the growing tensión.
Russia is in trouble too. Its economy won’t grow if oil prices remain low, so its foremost priority is to somehow keep the economy afloat and thus stave off social unrest. But as always, it also needs to maintain the buffer zone between it and Europe. Ukraine will be essential to Russia in that regard, but Moscow will have less money to spend abroad, so while some of its operations may become more aggressive, others will become less so. (Moscow may choose to spend more money in Ukraine and less in Moldova, for instance.)
The U.S. will remain engaged in Eastern Europe and will continue to support regional cooperation between its allies on the Eastern front, namely Poland and Romania. However, due to its internal problems it is likely to keep costs and involvement to a minimum.
While defense capabilities will remain in place and support for the new Intermarium will continue, it remains to be seen how the U.S. relationship with Western European countries that are unwilling to contribute as much to NATO as Washington wants will change.
While this will not affect defense alliances in the Black Sea region, it will likely shape the security arrangements in the region. (Security here refers to resilience to outside influence and the risk that such influence poses. Depending on how the EU solves its socio-economic problems, and whether Brussels increases its political power after the pandemic, countries in the Black Sea region will seek to decrease their reliance on the EU or become more antagonistic to Brussels.)
For Romania and Bulgaria – the Eastern European member states bordering the Black Sea – the challenge after the pandemic lies in solving economic problems while also limiting influence from Russia and Turkey. As the EU gateway to Asia and the Middle East, the two countries will need to manage traffic and trade toward and outside the EU common market. Considering the negotiations over a more political EU, which involves more coordination for managing funds, the need arises for an extended Schengen zone that would include Romania and Bulgaria.
With less maritime cargo in the ports, the EU will likely need to expand its control over borders, if it wants more coordination and to build up the idea of “European sovereignty.”
Trade flows from the Black Sea will never be comparable by volume or value to those from the North Sea or the Atlantic, but the pressing need for critical infrastructure, especially technological infrastructure, may force more coordination along the Black Sea border. New green energy standards, too, might prompt some countries to invest in the management of naval traffic, which currently serves Central Europe through the Danube.
These will likely become topics of negotiations in Brussels. In terms of the plan for “repairing and fixing” the EU for the next generation, the consideration of potential risks for the very existence of the EU remains key. For the Black Sea area, the future of the U.S. is important, but the future of the EU is fundamental.
If the EU increases its role through further integration, its neighbors will gravitate to it. Even if frozen conflicts continue to exist, the security environment will remain relatively stable as the common European market will continue functioning. If, on the contrary, the EU weakens, the Black Sea region will follow suit as the potential for conflicts increases.
0 comments:
Publicar un comentario