Assistant Secretary of State O'Brien, who oversees US relations with Europe and Eurasia, visited the German Marshall Fund on Thursday to discuss 2024 US priorities in Europe, including backing Ukraine and "widening European integration."
During his speech, O'Brien placed special emphasis on the strategic importance of the Black Sea to the US and NATO, stressing that the development of a grand design to ensure security in the region is underway. He pointed out that meetings had been held with Turkiye and other littoral states.
"[The US] want[s] to establish dominance over the Black Sea," Vasily Dandykin, a captain 1st rank reserve and military expert, told Sputnik. "This is an old idea. One of the goals is to bring Ukraine into NATO. Because they believe that whoever dominates the Black Sea and owns Crimea receives all the bonuses. This is the underbelly of Russia in the south. And that’s why there was such irritation when the Crimean Spring happened in 2014 [Crimean people voted to reunify with Russia in March 2014 – Sputnik]. As far as I remember the Americans had agreed with Kiev to establish a base for the US fleet in Sevastopol by that time."
What's Behind US Plans to Create Strategic Dominance in the Black Sea?
It was not the first time that O'Brien has pushed the idea of beefing up US/NATO presence in the region. On October 25, 2023, the US official testified before the US Senate's Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation. He claimed that the Ukraine conflict is "a very good bargain" for the US as it gives Washington a unique opportunity to increase NATO's military presence in the Black Sea, including the region's lands, airspace, and waters, while "Ukrainians are paying the bulk of the cost" by fighting with Russians.
The Biden administration is considering the idea of redrawing the energy map of the Black Sea region altogether, as Edward Hunt, a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary, has written in his op-ed for Foreign Policy in Focus. Hunt noted that the idea of the "Southern Gas Corridor" through the Black Sea was recently touted by State Department official Geoffrey Pyatt, who served as a US ambassador to Ukraine at the time of the 2014 coup d'etat in Kiev and who now leads US energy diplomacy. Per Pyatt, "the redrawing of the energy map around the Black Sea that’s taking place" envisages "new pipeline infrastructure", in particular, "the Southern Gas Corridor to bring gas from Central Asia to European consumers."
'NATO's Expanding in All Directions'
Meanwhile, Dandykin pointed out that Washington's expansionist plans are not limited to the Black Sea:
"The fact is that the strengthening of the United States and NATO – first of all, the United States – in all directions has become the general concept," the military expert stressed, adding that the US has recently expanded its continental shelf (including in the Arctic region) to about one million square kilometers – an area twice the size of California.
"They established their bases in Finland, and the Finns gave the go-ahead, for airfields, etc. In the Baltic, near our borders, maneuvers will now take place for two months, with a total of 90,000 [NATO] military personnel. This is a concept of the expansion in all directions, including in the south. They seek to encircle and bleed the Russian Federation white," the expert said.
Dandykin emphasized that Washington appears to have benefitted the most from the Ukrainian conflict and sanctions spree. The US forced Europe to decouple from Russia and at least partially filled the latter's shoes. The American military-industrial complex is now working "at full capacity" to replenish the allies' depleted weapons stockpiles, as their obsolete weapons have been burned down in Ukraine.
"More and more [Western] countries are placing orders for weapons. There is a military schizophrenia in Germany, they want to rearm. The Americans have always been the beneficiaries in all these messes. Therefore, they will, in particular, try to pour more gasoline on the fire this year to create difficulties for Russia," Dandykin said.
How Will Russia React to US Black Sea Strategy?
The US and their NATO allies have been trying to enhance their operations in the Black Sea, the military expert noted, referring in particular to Western surveillance drones flying in close proximity to Crimea.
Russia has repeatedly warned the US against meddling in the Ukraine conflict. On the morning of 14 March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet was scrambled to intercept an American MQ-9 Reaper drone. The latter eventually crashed into the Black Sea after conducting a botched maneuver.
Dandykin pointed out that no matter how brazen the US and its NATO allies may behave, they are fully aware that they are risking nothing short of a nuclear war with Russia.
Washington's Black Sea strategy obviously won't go unnoticed by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the expert continued, adding that Russia is ready for all potential scenarios. He noted that a lot depends on how Black Sea littoral states, especially Turkiye, will react to Team Biden's Black Sea initiatives. Ankara has so far demonstrated its firm position by closing off the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships from any country, whether or not they border the Black Sea, after the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Besides, a new conflict in the Middle East over Israel's Gaza war may also influence the balance of power in the region. So, Russia is likely to take a wait-and-see approach and it won't add fuel to the fire as its American counterparts are presently doing overseas, Dandykin noted.
What's more, the US security doctrine for the Black Sea could hardly be accomplished as it excludes Russia, a littoral state with considerable strategic strength and influence in the region, Dandykin stressed. "No, it's obviously impossible" the expert emphasized when asked whether it's possible to implement this or any other security strategy in the Black Sea region without the participation of the Russian Federation.