Russia Reaches All Its Maritime Borders

According to "War at the Top of the World" by Eric Margolis, it has historically been Russia's policy to try to expand to all its maritime borders. It has done so with the Black Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the Pacific, but not the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

In it, he describes a scenario where the Russians control the Dardenelles, have naval bases on the Adriatic (thanks to the Serbs), and their own Gibraltar on the Indian Ocean at Gwadar or near Karachi linked to the Russian rail net at Tashkent. He even said, if Russia allied to India, it could bring Singapore and the Straits of Malacca "under Soviet naval guns."

He theorized that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the first move in an attempt to establish this, but it didn't work.

So how might this uber-Russia come about?
 
First a Russian victory in the Russo-Japanese War: this gives acces to Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea.

Then a Russian victory in WWI: this gives the Dardanelles and the Serbian Adriatic ports to the Imperial Navy.

And for India, a scenario where Russia helps the subcontinent achieve its independence from the UK can be imagined. This can lead to Russian basing rights in Karachi or maybe on Sri Lanka.
 
I think they can access the Atlantic via the North, so Russia needn't conquer all the way to the Channel.

Sorry, dude, I seem to recall that the Northern ports - Archangel, etc, - are frozen in all winter and the access out of the Baltic is controlled by the Skaggerak & Kattegat.

Bobindelaware
 

CalBear

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The question is really "Did Russia expand to the Sea or was it constrained by the sea?"

Russia has had a piece of the Black Sea coastline since around 1600. They had Murmansk and the Baltic since the 1500s, Siberia and its Arctic and Pacific coasts since the early-mid 1700s. At its peak it had actually crossed the Bering Strait and had colonies as far down the North American Pacific Coast as Ft. Ross (about 200 miles north of today's San Francisco). Since then it as withdrawn completely from North America and has not made any real move toward the India Ocean or the Med.

The "warm water port" theory dates back to the British Empire. England was, quite correctly, in constant fear of losing the Raj. Without the subcontinent's wealth and dominant military position, Great Britain's Empire would have been a small "e" not a capital "E". The French, Russian, even the Dutch & Portuguese ALL wanted it and British policy was built around denying it to all comers until after the Second World War. Of all the contenders, Russia was, on paper, the most severe threat. All the other players had to defeat the Royal Navy to get at the Raj, something the the British dealt with by having a fleet double the size of any alliance that might spring up and ensuring that its fleet was always the best worked up of all the big contenders. Russia, however, could move overland with an army so large that the Empire's forces could not hope to match. Hence the "warm water port" obsession by London. St. Petersburg and Moscow followed the British line of reasoning and then also became obsessed, not that they could ever have achieved their goals.

In modern times The Russians/USSR have never made any serious attempt to reach either the Med or Indian Ocean. Afghanistan was feared by some Western observers to be a lunge for the Persian Gulf; in fact it was a matter of keeping the right bunch of bastards in power in a neighboring country, one that went VERY wrong.

By far Russia's best hope of reaching the Med was during WW I. The Ottomans were weak, the British and French were busy with the Germans (and for one of the very rare historical periods were the Russians allies) and the Czar had that huge army ready to go. Unfortunately, the huge army was, as it had generally been, a paper tiger. Any Russian thought of moving in the direction of the Med died at German hands.

Today, there is no hope of reaching the Med, Gulf, or Indian Ocean without engaging in an utterly unwinnable war. Moreover, the reason for getting such access is effectively gone. With the current transport net and the ready availability of air travel the even theoretical need to push out to any of the remaining major sea lanes is noneexistent.
 
America-hating? He seems to hate India, but not America.

You've never read his Toronto Sun columns then. He's blamed America for Benazir Bhutto's death, the Chechen separatists, the Kargil War and Hezbollah, among other things. I haven't read a column from him yet that isn't a merciless hate America bashfest.
 
You've never read his Toronto Sun columns then. He's blamed America for Benazir Bhutto's death, the Chechen separatists, the Kargil War and Hezbollah, among other things. I haven't read a column from him yet that isn't a merciless hate America bashfest.

He's an American and according to Wikipedia consider himself "Eisenhower Republican" :confused:
 
The question is really "Did Russia expand to the Sea or was it constrained by the sea?"

Russia has had a piece of the Black Sea coastline since around 1600. They had Murmansk and the Baltic since the 1500s, Siberia and its Arctic and Pacific coasts since the early-mid 1700s. At its peak it had actually crossed the Bering Strait and had colonies as far down the North American Pacific Coast as Ft. Ross (about 200 miles north of today's San Francisco). Since then it as withdrawn completely from North America and has not made any real move toward the India Ocean or the Med.

The "warm water port" theory dates back to the British Empire. England was, quite correctly, in constant fear of losing the Raj. Without the subcontinent's wealth and dominant military position, Great Britain's Empire would have been a small "e" not a capital "E". The French, Russian, even the Dutch & Portuguese ALL wanted it and British policy was built around denying it to all comers until after the Second World War. Of all the contenders, Russia was, on paper, the most severe threat. All the other players had to defeat the Royal Navy to get at the Raj, something the the British dealt with by having a fleet double the size of any alliance that might spring up and ensuring that its fleet was always the best worked up of all the big contenders. Russia, however, could move overland with an army so large that the Empire's forces could not hope to match. Hence the "warm water port" obsession by London. St. Petersburg and Moscow followed the British line of reasoning and then also became obsessed, not that they could ever have achieved their goals.

In modern times The Russians/USSR have never made any serious attempt to reach either the Med or Indian Ocean. Afghanistan was feared by some Western observers to be a lunge for the Persian Gulf; in fact it was a matter of keeping the right bunch of bastards in power in a neighboring country, one that went VERY wrong.

By far Russia's best hope of reaching the Med was during WW I. The Ottomans were weak, the British and French were busy with the Germans (and for one of the very rare historical periods were the Russians allies) and the Czar had that huge army ready to go. Unfortunately, the huge army was, as it had generally been, a paper tiger. Any Russian thought of moving in the direction of the Med died at German hands.

Today, there is no hope of reaching the Med, Gulf, or Indian Ocean without engaging in an utterly unwinnable war. Moreover, the reason for getting such access is effectively gone. With the current transport net and the ready availability of air travel the even theoretical need to push out to any of the remaining major sea lanes is noneexistent.


There is some talk about the Russians "leasing" a port off the Syrians but really that is far from "taking" it. Maybe Russian naval vessels will have a warm water ally in Iran? Perhaps.
 
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