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TThe United States should provide tangible diplomatic and military support to Ukraine. But it would be very ill advised for the US Navy to launch a challenge to Russia for controlling access to the Azov Sea.
Russia's seizure of 23 Ukrainian sailors and 3 warships lacks moral or reasonable political justification. This reflects only the desire of Russian President Vladimir Putin to make Ukraine a vassal state. In turn, Putin should find an international response defined by the escalation of sanctions and the provision of more important military equipment to Ukraine. But the entry of the Navy into the sea of Azov, as suggested Monday Anders Aslund of the Atlantic Council, is a very bad idea.
First, he would support Putin and the Russian ultranationalist movement. While most of the Azov Sea belongs to Ukraine (within the meaning of international law relating to nearby sovereign territories), Putin and many Russians see things very differently. After seizing Crimea by force and building their Kerch bridge between Russia and Crimea – to try to formalize claims of Russian ownership over Crimea – the Russians regard the Sea of Azov as a Russian center. The fact that the sea is closed by the Crimea and that Russia proper takes on extra psychological meaning for the Russians in that it seems divinely Russian under the myth of Russian imperial glory. Since the Second World War, this myth is deeply rooted in the purity of Russian territory. Putin has made this story.
In this sense, the fact that the United States disputed the control of the Sea of Azov by the Russians would appear to the Russians as if the United States disputed the control of the island of Kronstadt in St. Petersburg: in short, a an act of war requiring an appropriate reaction. Do not believe me? Then, consult the Russian ultra-nationalist political leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky Twitter feed. Although this is fairly predictable, Zhirinovsky is pushing for the escalation of Russia, despite the Ukrainian conciliation. Zhirinovsky may be an unbridled and often drunk ideologue, but he represents a considerable group of populists. Even if Putin resisted a call to arms in the event of the Navy's incursion, he would be trapped in the populist sentiments of ultra-nationalists that he has so carefully cultivated over the last decade.
In simple terms, if the United States enters the Sea of Azov, we must prepare for a total war with Russia. Do we want that?
The best way to deal with Russia in this area is to punish Putin and clarify that there will be no relief sanctions until the Crimea will return to power in Kiev. However, there is another challenge that goes beyond Russian political conceptions: the fact that any American effort to effectively challenge the control of the Azov Sea would involve a huge military risk.
For starters, there is the fact that the southern Russian military command is literally at the northeastern tip of the Azov Sea. This means that many Russian missile and artillery missiles could rain down on all the more American warships than those that manage to reach the sea. Then there is the fact that the Russian Black Sea fleet has its seat in Sevastopol, Crimea. In addition to the guided missile frigates, this fleet also has at least five attack submarines (although the number of those actually operational is far from clear). Finally, you can bet that the Russians would saturate the Sea of Azov with fighter-bombers capable of hitting American warships. It got worse. For even if we were willing to accept the thousands of American casualties and warships that this operation would entail, how would we intend to control the Crimean Strait?
Are we doing what would ultimately be necessary and reliving the Crimean War in the 19th century by conducting amphibious landings of the Marines against Sevastapol? I do not think so.
The simple point here is that it is clearly not in the US interest to conduct military operations for the control of the Azov Sea. Yes, Ukrainians are perfectly entitled to fight for every inch of their territory and deserve moral and material support to do so. But when it comes to US strategic interests, we are not talking here about Russia's takeover of NATO territory. In this case, as in the case of the Baltic States, we should go to war. In this case, we should recognize our limits in terms of interest and capacity and, in this context, apply economic-diplomatic pressure on Putin's modified behavior.
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