tion officially started on 25 April 1859. Completed ten years later at a then-astronomical cost of US$100M, it revolutionized maritime shipping by cutting costs and delivery times, which translated into huge profits. It also brought the inestimable military advantage of moving fleets and armies around the globe with great speed and efficiency that a traditional land-based force like Russia’s could never hope to match. Despite their poor state of readiness, it was strategically more efficient for the Alliance to fight an offensive war in Crimea than to yield space and time to fight the Russians somewhere else, perhaps in the Aegean Sea or beyond. The pros- pect of Russian naval forces operating in the Eastern Mediterranean was never an acceptable outcome. Crimea today is not the strategic prize that it once
was. The Black Sea is operationally cut off and contained by the NATO alliance. No amount of Russian ambition to increase the size of the Black Seas Fleet and im- prove the facilities for its operation at Sevastopol can change the strategically limiting facts of geography. Sevastopol holds great symbolic value for President
Vladimir Putin. His visit to Sevastopol on the anniver- sary of the end of The Great Patriotic War was clearly designed to stir emotional attachments to both the place and the fleet. The problem is that Mr. Putin is not a navalist and has little grasp of maritime strategy. There are several glaring problems with his ambitions to promote Russian interests in the Black Sea and be- yond by means of sea power. The Russian plans to expand their naval forces and
facilities in the Black Sea will be enormously expensive. This comes at a time when the consequences of their actions are wreaking havoc on the Russian economy. The flight of investment capital from Russia has been stupendous. In less than a week, CDN$62.72B was lost from the value of Russian companies; in a month that figure was over CDN$100B. Likewise, the basic interest
Historical dredging of Suez Canal.
rate in Russia has been raised by 1.5% to 7%. This is the largest hike since the financial crisis that practically ruined Russia in 1998. The economic results have been equally bad on the international currency exchanges, with the ruble trading at historically low values de- spite the central bank spending billions to prop up the currency. The Russian economy has been heavily dam- aged and has little of material worth to show for it. Putin is dangerous militarily but he has no staying
power. The Russian army has been radically restructured in the past ten years and is now based on one-year conscripts. Nearly 700 of the 1,200 generals in Russian military were fired when the military was downsized between 2005 and 2010. This has left the army as a shadow force. If this was a smash-and-grab strategy, it is likely
to end up costing Putin more than it is worth. The gambit to secure Crimea was successful but it sparked uncontrollable nationalistic ambitions among ethnic Russians in mainland Ukraine. Once alight, the patri- otic flames spread quickly to areas and groups that were never part of Putin’s calculus. Seeing the smoke of potential conflict, NATO’s military forces moved to reinforce and reassure their nervous members on the borders with Russia. While Putin’s supporters cheer his accomplishments, saner heads are seeing the military preparations by the West as an ominous warning of their resolve. Corruption is a major problem for Putin’s government and sanctions are costing both him and his cronies heavily. The economic, social and military costs of Crimea
are piling up and will empower the opposition inside Russia. It is likely the biggest conflict resulting from the annexation of this ancient battleground will be internal to Russia, rather than external.
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