As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mulls over European force posture changes, the United States and NATO are already bolstering land, sea, and air exercises in addition to heavy military investment in the Black Sea region, where Russia is threatening NATO partners with hybrid warfare and a growing military presence in Crimea.
NATO partner Romania is vying to be a hub for that effort and win an increased U.S. troop presence, spending $10 billion on military infrastructure, including rail, road, airstrip, and base upgrades aimed at creating “strategic flexibility” for the U.S. on NATO’s southeastern flank.
“Crimea is being right now heavily militarized,” Romanian Ambassador George Maior recently told the Washington Examiner, underscoring the urgency of the threat.
President Biden directed Austin on Feb. 4 to conduct a global force posture review to ensure the U.S. military footprint is in line with national security. That could mean additional rotational movements to the eastern flank, an idea first voiced by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper in July.
More and more extensive combined U.S. and NATO exercises are also planned in the Black Sea beginning this spring, with plans to amass some 30,000 troops.
“The United States stands shoulder-to-shoulder with allies old and new, partners big and small,” Austin said in a statement indicating that the U.S. would look to new partners in making decisions regarding troop movements.
Deterring Russia was also stressed by Biden in remarks made alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Feb. 4.
“The days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens, are over,” Biden said. “We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interest and our people.”
Maior argues that the Black Sea basin, where NATO allies Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania have shorelines, is a vital new front in Russia deterrence.
The U.S. European Command confirmed to the Washington Examiner that enhancing defense partnerships in the Black Sea region is a new focus area.
“Especially since 2014, with the Russian invasion of Crimea, it’s become a particularly important area,” a EUCOM official told the Washington Examiner.
“Now that we know that the Russians are building up a lot of both sea and air assets in Crimea, indications and warnings are a big thing,” the official added. “When we talk about collective defense in the European theater, we have to look at where the next Crimea could be.”
Increased Russian submarine and hybrid activity against NATO, including the militarization of the Crimean Peninsula, have prompted a U.S. and NATO reorientation to the alliance’s neglected southeastern flank, where its most recent members are located.
Romania and Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, but Russia effectively halted Black Sea neighbors Georgia and Ukraine from similar paths by fomenting frozen conflicts and internal divisions. The two non-NATO partners still cooperate with the U.S. on defense, participating in naval exercises, sharing port access, and receiving donations of vessels to strengthen their coastal fleets.
However, until now, NATO and the U.S. have focused most exercises and rotational deployments on countries that share land borders with Russia. But experts indicate that the focus is shifting south.
“When Ukraine happened in 2014, we focused very much on the Baltic States and Poland,” European security analyst Pal Dunay recently told the Washington Examiner.
“We felt that the Black Sea was OK,” added Dunay, who is also a scholar from the Pentagon-funded George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. “Romania is a very good ally, and Romania deserves reinforcement and reassurance.”
The Defense Department signed cooperative agreements with Romania and Bulgaria in October at the Pentagon, charting a 10-year map for defense cooperation.
The agreement seeks to advance each country’s military readiness and capabilities.
The Romanian ambassador warned that Russia had deployed more missiles, modernized its Black Sea fleet, and increased disinformation, propaganda, and cyberattacks against nearby NATO partners upping the ante as the U.S. weighs force movements and where to invest limited dollars in the face of calls to refocus attention on the Indo-Pacific region and China.
The newly militarized Crimea, however, is only 200 miles from NATO shores, Maior said.
“We must understand the strategic value for Russia of the Crimea,” the longtime chief of Romanian intelligence said. “We think that the eastern flank of NATO, which is from the Baltic States to the Black Sea, continues in terms of challenges posed by Russia.”
More U.S. troops
The U.S. presence in Romania includes 800 personnel at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near the Black Sea port of Constanta, Aegis Ashore missile defense facility in Deveselu, and the NATO Multinational Division Southeast.
A similar but smaller presence in Bulgaria is spread over the Novo Selo Training Area, Graf Ignatievo Air Base, and Bezmer Air Base.
U.S. Navy exercises in the Black Sea, strictly capped by the Montreux Convention, have still allowed the U.S. to exercise for two weeks at a time up to nine times and a total of 100 days per year.
In turn, Romania boasts a robust commitment to support the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, having cycled 40,000 troops through the country with regular deployments of some 800 to 900 troops.
Now, the country wants more U.S. troops on its soil.
“The Black Sea area will require more American presence,” Maior said.
“We’ve always stated that we’ll be happy to host more U.S. troops on our territory,” he added. “We consider this also is part of enhancing deterrence and defense capabilities for NATO and for U.S. interests and Romania.”
Alongside Esper in July, Gen. Tod Wolters, the commander of EUCOM, explained a new European strategy that called for more U.S. troops to rotate on NATO’s eastern flank.
“We’ll now be able to rotate units in perpetuity in multiple locations to include potentially Poland, to include the northeast in the vicinity of the Baltics, to include the southeast in the vicinity of the Black Sea,” Wolters said at the time.
While another announcement made that day to withdraw 12,000 U.S. troops from bases in Germany was recently frozen by Biden, the call for positioning troops farther east makes strategic sense, according to defense analysts.
“That’s very valuable, very useful for our allies down in that area, being NATO partners, for the United States to be present,” the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense Director Tom Spoehr told the Washington Examiner.
“We should be exercising and deploying ships right to the exact limit of what we’re allowed to do in that area,” he added. “I wouldn’t say it has eclipsed the Baltics, but there is at least a lot more attention on that area now.”
Maior urged defense thinkers to consider the Black Sea on par with the Baltic States in terms of deterring Russia on the eastern flank of NATO.
“We have to respond very coherently to this without disparities between an emphasis on the northern part of the Black Sea,” he said. “We need the same emphasis in terms of strategic thinking.”
Maior said Romania is willing to foot a hefty part of the bill to position itself as one of America’s top regional allies.
Two Patriot missile defense systems were stood up last year — the first in the region — and five more will be in place by 2025. Romania is also buying F-16s and will add to its maritime capabilities.
“This makes Romania one of the greatest contributors in terms of defense capabilities in that region of Europe,” Maior said.
The ambassador also said $3 billion of the $10 billion infrastructure investment over 10 years would be directed to the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, which already hosts U.S. troops.
In all, Romania is contributing about 80% of the investment, with NATO and the U.S. through the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) covering the remaining portion.
“We are investing in military infrastructure,” he said. “That’s big in terms of the potential for hosting more troops.”
Black Sea deterrence growing
Russia has not taken well to the U.S. presence in the Black Sea, but EUCOM planners indicate exercises will only increase.
While taking part in NATO exercises in international waters on Jan. 31, the U.S. destroyer USS Donald Cook felt Russia’s unwelcome in a dangerous flyby.
A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 flew low near the vessel, an example of the regular harassment of U.S. military ships operating in the region. It was captured in a video posted by the Navy’s Sixth Fleet.
Adding U.S. troops and firepower to the Black Sea could upset the balance of power in the region and increase tensions with Russia.
“You could put U.S. troops in the Baltic States, but that feels like, you know, rubbing Russia’s nose in it in a way I’m not sure Biden wants to do at the beginning of this administration,” the Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon recently told the Washington Examiner.
Instead, he said modest additions of troops in Romania would be a “viable, reasonable idea.”
Maior disputed the argument that adding resources will upset Russia.
“It’s certainly not aggression,” he said. “It’s certainly a response to what’s already being done by Russia in the Black Sea.”
EUCOM defense officials agreed that Russian activity has increased and deterrence must keep pace.
“Since the attempted illegal annexation of Crimea and then certainly the invasions in Georgia, and then you look at the Sea of Azov, there’s only one nation that’s really being disruptive to maritime security,” a EUCOM official said, referring to Russian aggression in the region, including the 2018 seizure of three Ukrainian navy vessels attempting to enter the Sea of Azov, a shallow waterway connected to the Black Sea.
“There’s one that would like to dominate all of the Black Sea, and NATO, the U.S., all of our Black Sea partners are a hedge against that,” the official said, referring to Russia. “So that’s why we have to remain vigilant. That’s why we continue to operate [and] we continue to maintain our presence in that theater.”
The price tag
Romanian Defense Minister Nicolae Ciuca said during an October Pentagon visit that his country has spent at least 2% on defense since 2015. That still may be a far cry from what’s needed to host large amounts of U.S. troops.
In the past, U.S. EDI funds helped bridge that gap for former East bloc countries, but former President Donald Trump canceled military construction projects in Europe to funnel money to his border wall.
EUCOM could not respond to a question about how many military construction projects in the region were affected.
EDI reached $5.9 billion in 2020 and essentially helped pay for pre-positioning U.S. equipment and material in Eastern Europe.
Congress later ordered the border money be returned, but some of the planned EDI projects are now two years behind.
Others are already taking shape, such as a new MQ-9 Reaper base in Romania, giving the U.S. and NATO more visibility of Russian activities.
“It gives us a little bit more situational awareness of what’s going on in the Black Sea,” one EUCOM official said. “Being able to have more of a continuous presence in that area, I think, is really, really important. And I know that from our perspective and from their perspective that they want it to be enduring.”
But questions remain as to when infrastructure will be ready.
“If the host countries are ready to host the infrastructure, I don’t think it is a big issue to a limited presence,” Dunay said. “Large-scale, massive would be very different.”
But massive troop movements are part of the Defender Europe 2021 exercise, EUCOM said.
The command, however, declined to characterize the movement of some 30,000 troops across 12 countries in the region as a “test” of capability despite recent comments from Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.
“It also points out where there are deficiencies in that infrastructure. Then we can work through NATO to the European Union to fund improvements to that infrastructure, especially as you go to places that NATO had not historically operated during the Cold War,” Cavoli said during a recent AUSA discussion.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a test,” the EUCOM official told the Washington Examiner. “I’d more say it’s a demonstration of our ability to operate from different ports. …What we seek to do is not test our abilities but increase our interoperability.”
Meanwhile, EUCOM stressed the importance of exercising in a region it believes could see the next location of Russian aggression.
“That’s why we’re always exercising,” he said.
“Collectively, if we had to respond to an emerging threat or any kind of crisis, that it would be seamless,” he added. “We focused on the Black Sea and up in the Arctic region because those are like most likely type of scenarios.”
