i’m sorry if this makes some users here feel old lol but i was a preteen and apolitical obviously when this happened so i genuinely know nothing about this situation. does it have anything to do with nato? i’m just curious to get a marxist analysis of this situation
Russia has like 3 non-crimea ports that aren’t shuttered every winter
They can just wait for global warming and in 30 years Arkhangelsk will be ice free year round
:porky-happy:
russian riviera here we come!
The history of Russia can be summed up in 2 sentences
We really need some warm water ports
and
We really need to make sure those psychopaths to the west can’t march right up to St. Petersburg
warm water ports is a meme by liberal IR guys, it certainly matters but i would be careful overstressing its importance personally.
I don't think it's possible to overstress how vital it is for a nation to have year round access to the sea. St. Petersburg could be blockaded easily with naval mines and missiles, while Archangel is ice bound for a significant part of the year. Vladivostok is several hundred million miles from anywhere that matters and directly across the pacific from US naval bases in Hawaii and San Francisco.
Like if you've got evidence to the contrary please by all means present it, but to the best of my knowledge year round access to the seas with high volume ports is right below energy independence and nuclear weapons on the list of vital strategic assets.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44642451?seq=2
Naval War College Review, 1993.
This might seem counter to what I'm saying given the paper predicts an urge from the Russian Federation to gain warm water ports:
Crimea would certainly count as one of those but let's be real it's not the most valuable of warm water ports given the Bosphorus and a friendly Turkey isn't a guarantee if I'm a Russian policy planner. Also keep in mind that I'm contesting the idea that warm water ports have been central to the history of Russian Foreign Policy which includes both Tsarist and Soviet Russia, neither of which in reality prioritised it as much as it's been made out to be.
Thank you, i'll read through this later.
I would say none.