This Commentary is the first in a series of expositions that will examine the critical significance of the Black Sea area to the United States and NATO. Examine the second paper here and the third paper here.

Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014 drew public attention to the central significance of a region that is on the border of two past empires the Russian and Ottoman Empires with contributions from European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. This investigation provides an outline of the region in the belief that the past foreshadows the region's future as unsettled nations reestablish observant political and military practices in a modern context.

Six years of conflict between Russia and From 1768 to 1774, an overextended Ottoman Empire necessitated the signing of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, which granted Russia direct access to the Black Sea region (utilizing the Kerch and Azov ports). Russia was also given the option of protecting the Christian minority in the Ottoman Empire, and the allegedly autonomous Crimean Khanate was brought under its control. Nine years after the agreement was signed, well-known hostility toward changes presented by Russia's co-selected managing tip-top, combined with a steady influx of pilgrims to Crimea, filled territorial distress, giving Catherine II's emissary, Prince Grigory Potemkin, a hotly anticipated guise to add-on Crimea through military means with minimal outfitted opposition. That same year, the Crimean city of Sevastopol was set out Russia evolved as a growing Black Sea force while the Ottoman Empire sank into a lethargic, declining path beginning in 1783.

The Ottoman Empire continued to decline, as did the local epic clash in the Black Sea, over which neither side could promise a conclusive victory. The absurd 1853-1856 Crimean War between the Ottoman Empire and Russia killed thousands. During the conflict, France and Britain supported the Ottomans because they feared that Russia's growing might would lead to Russia's dominance in the region. Although this never happened, a more grounded but more alienated Russia repeatedly failed to wrest control of the vital Bosporus and Dardanelles (Turkish Straits) from the Ottoman Empire. One of Russia's primary motivations for entering World War I was to maintain control of the Turkish Straits, which backfired when The Ottomans and Germans closed the canals, suffocating Russia's economy.

Following the collapse of both the Russian and Ottoman Empires during and after World War I, there was a futile attempt to redraw the map of the region. The first attempt was the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, and the second and more successful attempt was the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne, which established the Republic of Turkey. With a more secure vital position, Turkey could use the Lausanne Treaty to monitor increasing tensions among European countries in the region, which resulted in the 1936 Montreux Convention, which established Turkish authority over the waterways and guaranteed free passage of warships having a place the Black Sea states that are not at odds with Turkey Non-Black Sea powers were restricted from sending tactical warships to the Black Sea (they should be under 15,000 tonnes for each vessel, 45,000 in total, and could remain in the Black Sea for 21 days). The United States did not participate in the Montreux Convention.

This delicate balance began to unravel around the end of WWII, when tensions flared between the Soviet Union and Turkey, as the Soviet Union pressed Turkey to revisit the Montreux Convention so that the Soviets might share command of the Bosporus and Dardanelles with Turkey. During the 1946 Turkish Straits emergency, the Soviet Union increased its military presence in the Black Sea and pressed the Turkish government to recognize its desire for army sites on Turkish land. While attempting to protect itself from Soviet pressure, Turkey sought assistance from the United States, which responded by dispatching US warships to the area. Even though the Soviet Union eventually withdrew, the event served as one incentive for the 1947 Truman Doctrine, which attempted to limit a nuclear threat by Increasing the Soviet threat in the Mediterranean by enlisting Turkey and Greece as NATO members by 1952. Throughout the Cold War, an uneasy equilibrium existed in the Black Sea between Turkey, NATO, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Since 1976, Turkey has allowed Soviet plane-carrying battleships working in Ukraine (Kiev-class, later Kuznetsov-class) to transit the waterways.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Black Sea region was less geostrategically significant from a Western perspective, but it remained crucial in shaping Russia's concept of its "near abroad." Following the end of the Cold War, the major problem was the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, as shown by the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Ukraine agreed to the withdrawal of its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (backed by France and China) to assure its regional trustworthiness.

Despite this approach's success, Ukraine and Russia maintained an uneasy relationship over the critical Crimean peninsula. Crimea was given as a 'gift' by Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Tsarist Russia, but it developed into a never-ending bargaining concession between the two republics. Russia had a military foundation, most notably a base in Sevastopol that was critical to the Black Sea Fleet's operations. At the time of the Soviet Union's breakup, there were 100,000 Russian faculty, 60,000 support personnel, and 835 warships, including 28 submarines, which were utilized to put pressure on Kyiv about the lawful status of Sevastopol City and its essential basis.

Moscow, whose action was also influenced by a patriotic fervor for Crimea, could successfully use its long-standing political links with Crimean authorities (Crimea had independence and its constitution until 1995) to increase pressure on Kyiv. The Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty of 1997 divided the Soviet Black Sea Fleet between Russia (81%) and Ukraine (19%) and allowed Russia, in exchange for the elimination of the vast majority of Ukrainian obligations and concessionary energy costs, to rent the Sevastopol base for an indefinite time, a term extended until 2042 of every 2010.

Although Russia recognized that its former Soviet republics especially the Black Sea area had a place in its regular spectrum of significance, it lacked the political, financial, and military might to fully enforce its desire. This began to change with a more confident Russian local strategy in light of the purported Color Revolutions that occurred in Russia's area in Georgia (the 2003-2004 Rose Revolution) and Ukraine (the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution), where pioneers who were more vulnerable to Russian influence and interests were supplanted by pro-West and pro-Euro-Atlantic pioneers. At the same time, NATO enrolment was extended to recall Bulgaria and Romania for 2004, bringing about three out of the six Black Sea nations Sea littoral states are NATO members, and two distinct states, Ukraine and Georgia, are cooperating closely with the union in preparation for NATO membership. NATO saw the Black Sea as "important for Euro-Atlantic security" (Bucharest Summit Declaration, 2008).

Russia interpreted these events as an encroachment on its conventional effective reach, and it went to great pains to reestablish its influence and enhance its tactical presence in the Black Sea. Russian energy was used as a weapon of influence over Ukraine in 2006 and again in 2009 when Russia temporarily halted the supply of flammable gas to Europe via Ukraine and increased Russian energy bills. In August 2008, Russian military forces, which had held power in South Ossetia since the beginning of the conflict, were deposed.

Georgia-South Ossetia conflict in 1993, destroyed a Georgian president's attempt to retake leadership of the separatist region, then entered Georgia, overpowering Georgian powers, and almost held onto the capital Tbilisi (exactly 350 military staff and 400 regular citizens were killed on the two sides in the deadlock). Opposing a truce agreement, Russia quickly perceived the "liberation" of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and has since strengthened its influence over Georgian territory and continues to publicly coordinate the two areas.

The second and more geostrategic and militarily significant event was Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, only days after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed in a well-publicized revolt in the spring of 2014. Despite the Budapest Memorandum and the Friendship Treaty, Russia's remilitarization of the landmass and military intervention in eastern Ukraine enabled the establishment of a few military fortifications in the region, including the organization of S300 and S400, Bastion-P waterfront safeguard units, and other antiair-and antisurface-rocket frameworks. General Philip M. Breedlove, the last leading partnered officer in Europe, described Crimea in 2015 as a Russian "theatre for power projection." This entrenchment of Russia's capabilities in the continent was accompanied by indisputably aggressive use of nuclear language, with the Kremlin alluding to considering future atomic organizations in the promontory and indicating it had the atomic option to protect Crimea if necessary

Russian military intervention in Syria in September 2015 was the most recent step toward reinstating Russia's tactical engagement in the region. Surprisingly, after the Cold War's conclusion, Russia has demonstrated its ability to expand components of the Black Sea frameworks in the theatre of operations. Russia currently operates an air base in Latakia, Syria, and is currently redesigning and expanding its maritime office in Tartus into a larger base capable of accommodating up to 11 boats without delay. It also has an agreement with Cyprus that allows Russian ships to dock, and it is negotiating to build an army base in Egypt.

Russia, a dominant state in the eighteenth century, an overextended force during the Cold War, and a depleted power after 1991, has returned to the Black Sea region and the Eastern Mediterranean as European and American involvement in the region declines. Will the Kremlin try to restrict more unconstrained access to the Eastern Mediterranean, for example, by increasing its participation at Tartus? Will the Kremlin maintain its tactical presence in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, increase pressure on Bulgaria to reduce NATO's presence, and coordinate a Turkish-Russian reconciliation to gain influence over the Turkish Straits?

The geostrategic features of the Black Sea area have not altered for Russia since 1853, with NATO and the United States supplanting individual nations and European states as Russia's most important international rivals: Crimea is the tactical source, Turkey is the turn, and the Turkish Straits are the critical throughput, and the ultimate goal is admittance to and military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean as a counter-balance to the US; also, NATO expansion to the east and its presence in the Aegean and Central Mediterranean.