Russia has a key strategic fear that NATO could exploit to prevent Vladimir Putin’s forces from invading other countries, experts have suggested.
Russia has historically been a continental power, with its military might resting on its army.
NATO’s naval power is far superior, but it would be able to do little to prevent Russian tanks from rolling into the Baltic States or Poland.
However, two British experts have suggested that NATO’s combined navies could be ingeniously deployed in a psychological war with Putin’s forces, namely by scaring Moscow into putting its scarce resources into beefing up the defences along its vast coastlines – rather than launching further invasions.
In an essay for Britain’s Royal United Services Institute think tank, Sidharth Kaushal and Rene Balletta said: “By forcing Russia to commit to its own defences in the maritime domain, it would divert critical Russian resources to tasks that the Alliance [NATO] deems less threatening.”
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Russia has almost 24,000 miles of coastline in Europe and Asia, and though its navy is one of the biggest in the world, it mainly exists to protect the mainland, support the country’s troops, and offer strategic firepower.
Ukrainian cities have been hammered by cruise missiles for the past two years, with many of the rockets launched by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
“Rather than naval combat per se, the purpose of Russian sea power is to ensure that the Russian state can compete and engage in conflict safely and effectively,” the essay said.
Russia is said to fear that NATO vessels could unleash long-range guided missiles at the country’s heartland, and Kaushal and Balletta suggested there are a number of ways this could be exploited, as reported by Insider.
NATO allies could conduct exercises, forward deploy nuclear subs closer to Russia’s shores, invest in drones and hypersonic missiles, and convert anti-aircraft missiles deployed from ships, like the American SM-2 and SM-6s, into land attack weapons.
Russia has sustained huge losses in Ukraine, and as it rebuilds its military, the Kremlin may feel pushed to allocate resources to its navy – rather than its ground forces.
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“To the extent that the Alliance can expand the area over which Russia must achieve sea denial in order to protect itself against long-range strikes, it can shape the contours of Russian force regeneration,” the experts argued.
“It can achieve this primarily in two ways: by expanding its long-range land attack capability, and by operating on new vectors that Russia has not historically had to defend.”
But strengthening its maritime defenses will be a tough task for the Kremlin. “While Russia can achieve sea denial and a degree of sea control in its coastal seas, contesting freedom of action out to 1,000 kilometers and beyond will be difficult and costly for a country that must also rebuild its forces on land,” the essay explained.
Though Putin’s forces have large stocks of anti-ship rockets based on sea and land, it doesn’t have the ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities to spot naval targets from a distance and guide missiles toward them.
Costs could also be a barrier, as ships – especially those built for blue-water rather than coastal operations – are expensive to manufacture, keep in working order, and crew.
Meanwhile, Russian shipyards are already being overwhelmed and imported components for new ships may be ruled out by Western sanctions.
The essay’s authors acknowledged that NATO faces constraints too. the West also suffers from constraints. Some members of the military alliance on Russia’s border, like Finland and Norway, may be reluctant to make Russia nervous.
Stoking Moscow’s fears of cruise missiles roaring in from the sea could also heighten risks of nuclear escalation, the outlet reports.
