CroCrow d ed, connected, and contested Security and Peace in the Eurasian Sea and what it Means for Europewed, Connected, And Contested

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Crowded,Connected,andContested 1

Crowded, connected, and contested

Security and Peace in the Eurasian Sea and what it Means for Europe

Jonathan Holslag1

Abstract. The waters around the Eurasian continent are turning into a single maritime

ringway that gets ever more crowded, connected, and contested. While the great

powers have an interest in joining forces to maintain stability in this Eurasian Sea,

strategic distrust remains too stubborn an impediment. It is in the Pacific Corridor that

maritime disputes seem most threatening, but for the European Union it would be a

mistake to get involved in those new Asian power plays. Instead, it should prioritize

the Middle Corridor. Only by strengthening its leverage in this tract of sea that stretches

from the Bosporus and the Levant to the Gulf of Aden, Europe will be able to address

instability in its neighbourhood and be able to influence the naval aspirations of the

major powers.

Europe’s Odd Ripple of Naval Romanticism

For a few years now, maritime disputes in Eastern Asia have been sending an odd

ripple of excitement through Western Europe. From different sides, we heard experts

and policy makers claim that Europe cannot stay aloof.1 Some surmised that China

might cut off our trade lines in case of a conflict and that Europe therefore needs to

collaborate with the United States. Few went further and stated that Europe’s very

credibility as a security actor hinges upon the ability to send gunboats to the Pacific andthat it should therefore build on the grand maritime tradition of member states like the

United Kingdom.2 Others assumed that Europe’s very model of regional

integration could serve as a model for settling destabilizing wrangling over

the South China Sea. Undoubtedly, the maritime disputes in the East cause

uncertainty and, as I argued in previous papers, could escalate.3 But should

we therefore throw ourselves into this play tub of the Pacific powers?

In order to answer this question, we need to put the maritime disputes in the East into a

wider geopolitical perspective: Eurasia has become a true world island. Unprecedented

economic thrust prevailed over space and almost all physical barriers onshore. Trains

plough from Shanghai to Rotterdam, pipelines branch out from the energy-rich

heartland into all different directions, and dazzling mountain passes turned into wide

blacktopped highways. But even important is that the formerly more compartmented

seas merged into a crowded maritime ringway, a vital conduit used by countries to

trade, import raw materials, and project influence. So, the next question arises, that is,

how the ambitions of the major powers in this Eurasian Sea will play out. No doubt,

The author acknowledges Carl Gillis, Belgian Royal Defence Academy; Robert D. Kaplan,Stratfor; Toshi Yoshihara, US Naval War College; and Nicola Casarini EU Institute for SecurityStudies, Jonas Parello-Plessner, ECFR for their consructive comments on earlier drafts of this

paper.

Should we throw

ourselves into this

play tub of the

Pacific powers?




interdependence makes that the best possible option to all is an open space with

collective governance.

But this is not where we are heading for. The pursuit of

territory, military power, economic gains, and status creates

fiercer rivalry. In absence of collective governance, one couldconsider a sort of maritime concert of the major powers –

including the United States, China, India, Russia, and the

stubbornly aspiring European Union – that agrees on non-

aggression and common efforts to address new challenges. There are efforts in that

direction, but a Eurasian maritime concert remains impeded by dramatic shifts in the

balance of power, political uncertainty, and nationalism. We should therefore expect

tensions among the major powers to cause more insecurity – by missing the

opportunity of managing the seas collectively, encouraging smaller or larger states to

act recklessly, and, still unlikely but not impossible, direct military conflict between

them. The coalescence of the Eurasian Sea does not foster cooperation. Instead, it createsa single arena for maritime power politics.

This compels the European Union to get its priorities right. The ambitions of the major

powers in the Eurasian Sea centre on three main corridors: the Arctic Corridor, the

Middle Corridor, and the Pacific Corridor.4 While strife in the Pacific caught the

headlines, the risk of Chinese denial strategies to our economic interests is small. After

all, as much as 32 percent of the trade with Asia consists of Chinese goods bound for

Europe, and Beijing is unlikely to interrupt this vital flow of goods.5 Second, there is no

reason to expect Europe to develop a major interest in the energy reserves in the South

China Sea. Moreover, the focus on the Pacific has distracted us from a crucial challenge:

the stability of the Middle Corridor. How can we preach multilateralism in the Pacific if

European member states are embroiled in territorial conflicts in the Mediterranean,

Turkey and Russia have been more engage in these disputes than the European Union,

failing states are lined up all the way from the Levant to Bab el Mandeb, and Iran, that

now hardly exports anything to Europe, keeps locking horns over the Persian Gulf with

the United States and its neighbours? Especially now that the Asian powers strengthen

their presence beyond the Gulf of Aden and America shifts its attention to the Pacific it

is on this Middle Corridor that the European Union has to concentrate its attention.

Europe should not be guided by the naval romanticism and fixation with presence

beyond Suez. Realism, which departs from a sober-minded assessment of our interests,

will prove a much more trustworthy pilot.

The coalescence of the

Eurasian Sea does not

foster cooperation. Instead,it creates a single arena for

maritime power politics.




Entering the Eurasian Sea

When the lords of the maps laid out the framework of modern geopolitics, the Eurasian

continent was mostly an empty space. In the world of John Spykman and Halford

Mackinder, the imperial capitals had about three quarters of the Eurasian landmass

beckoning as a defenceless preserve. Its surrounding seas lay open as entranceways for

gunboats. Whether the contest for power centred on the heartland or the rimland;

power was only sparsely spread, sovereignty an elastic concept, and the ambition of the

imperial masters unbridled. The expansion of the European Union, the oil boom in the

Middle East, and the rise of Asia have spawned a major geopolitical transition. The

landlocked heartland is no longer a void in terms of economic and political power. It

boasts several powerful states that skilfully manage their natural richness. Those

economic centers generate new impetus in connecting the rimland and the seas beyond.

Neither is that rimland any longer a chain of destitute and defenceless states. Eurasia’s

littoral countries east of the Levant today represent about 51 percent of the world’s

GDP, generate 40 percent of its industrial production, represent 32 percent of global

defence spending, own 45 percent of the world’s merchant fleet. The rimland has

become a driving force of the integration of the Eurasian continent, as they build

connections through the heartland and tirelessly exploit the opportunities of the

adjacent waters. Those waters have turned from a series of separated seas into a

maritime ring road around the Eurasian continent. They became a true Eurasian Sea.

The coalescence of the Eurasian Sea is the result of five major trends. First, it marks the

end of the compartmenting of the seas around Eurasia. Since Great Britain abandoned

its bases East of Suez, the United States has been the only power with the interest and




the capacity to maintain permanent presence in both the Indian Ocean and the Arctic

and in the Western Pacific and the Eastern Atlantic. Today, Chinese container liners sail

to Great Britain, European ships dock in China, Russian shipping wharfs in Saint

Petersburg supply the Indian Navy, Taiwanese trawlers hunt for tuna in the

Mediterranean, and Japanese warships patrol in the Gulf of Aden – just to give a few

examples. Second, sea straits are less seen as boundaries to maritime ambitions, butmore as step-stones, transit hubs, and gateways on routine intercontinental shipping

lines. A third trend, and a driving force, has been the rise of Asia as manufacturing hub

and especially the transformation of China. Whereas Japan brought industrialization to

Asia, its trade volume in the previous decades was not at all as large as China’s torrents

of trade today. Banking on hundreds of billions of dollars in trade incomes, China now

establishes inroads into the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, penetrated into the

mining reserves of South Asia and Africa, and searches for new opportunities as far as

the Arctic Sea. A fourth evolution has been the sheer size of the Eurasian fleets, which

grew from 400 million deadweight tons (DWT) in 1980 to 700 million DWT in 2011.

Thousands of fishing boats are trawling the Eurasian Sea, most of them able to journeythousands of kilometres from home.6 Those sprawling fleets and expanding commercial

interests contributed to a fifth important change: the desire of countries to modernize

their naval capabilities.

The Dilemma of the Sea

Eurasia and its Sea is getting ever more crowded. This intensifies security dilemmas in

which the growing influence of one country is seen as a challenge, if not a threat, to the

other: a challenge to economic interests, a challenge to political freedom of action, a

challenge to international status, and a challenge to territorial integrity. It is the onus of

the continental state to handle these perpetually fluctuating rays of influence, but that is

evenly becoming a concern offshore. Water does not stop, as John Mearsheimer put it,

certainly not the waters around the densely populated littorals of Eurasia. The Eurasian

Sea is becoming the locus of new rivalry that unfolds over four levels.

To start with, we witness fiercer contest over territorial claims. The largest part of the

Eurasian Sea is the subject of territorial conflicts, especially over the delimitation of

exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and the interpretation of the rights in those zones.

Countries are also bickering over strategically located islands that might or might not

be of interest in determining the exclusive economic zone. Starting in the north, the

frosty Arctic has become the hotbed of territorial disputes. Passing the Bering Strait,

Moscow holds on the Kuriles because it turns the Sea of Okhotsk into a de-facto Russian

fishpond. Japan and the two Koreas have still not settled their dispute over the Sea of

Japan. China is at loggerheads with all other countries around the East and South China

Sea. There are still conflicts over the Gulf of Thailand, the Celebes Sea, and the

Andaman Sea.7 Despite having settled several disputes in the past, India is entangled in

maritime disputes with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The whole Gulf Region is

marred by territorial disputes and several countries, like Iran, have not ratified the

pivotal Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt

contest each other’s exclusive economic zone in the Eastern Mediterranean. But also in

the western part, countries remain in a legal limbo as regards the exclusive economic




zone and often claim exclusive fishing zones beyond their territorial waters.8 There is

hardly any area in the Eurasian Sea that is not disputed. Many of these conflicts have

become more prominent: because of environmental changes, in case of the Arctic, but

also because many littoral countries now have the motivation and the capabilities to

enforce their claims.

Second, there are more and more military tensions. This is, of course, largely the result

of conflicts over territorial claims. But they also flow from the recollections that many

developing countries have of aggression or blackmail from the sea in a not-so-distant-

history. In 1958, for example, Jawaharlal Nehru put it: “History has shown that

whatever power controls the Indian Ocean, has in the first instance, India’s sea borne

trade at her mercy, and in the second, India’s very independence itself.” During the

Cold War, the two superpowers wielded influence from the sea. After the fall of the

Berlin Wall, many countries witnessed – and experienced – how sea power became the

muscly arm of American unilateralism. Today, all countries that do not get along with

the United States invest in some sort of sea power to deter American interference. Butsmaller countries also gear against regional powers. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri

Lanka aim at naval capacity to keep India at bay. All over Asia, the fear of China’s naval

power projection is driving a major naval build-up. Furthermore, naval power is often

harnessed to compensate for weakness along continental borders. India is clearly

ramping up its navy along strategic sea lanes as a deterrent against Chinese aggression

that might eventually whirl down from the Himalayan plains. Iran minds its capacity to

disturb traffic through the Strait of Hormuz because it knows that it is prone to Israeli

or American air strikes. Distrust and tensions often get worse as the main powers in

Eurasia all seek to enhance their capacity to project power over long distance, mostly to

protect their merchant fleet or to respond to threats against economic assets in instable

regions. None of the protagonists wishes to rely on another for securing its growing

global interests and as they venture further from home, so do new doubts arise about

their intentions. Just consider how the Indian strategic elite frets about China’s growing

naval presence in the Gulf of Aden, or how China responded to Indian forays into the

South China Sea. Western countries also hesitate about what to make out of Russia’s

efforts to show the flag into the Mediterranean or in the Persian Gulf. Mutual distrust

prompts countries to invest in long-range naval power projection. That effort, on its

turn, causes more wariness.

Third, littoral countries vie for the economic potential of the

Eurasian Sea. This involves the full exploitation of their

exclusive economic zone. That, as we have seen, is a matter of

making a legal case for claiming these zones, but it equally

involves the means to hunt for oil, to mine the minerals, and to

catch the fish. Especially in disputed areas like the South

China Sea, the claimants with the best-developed tools will be the most capable of

exploiting the legal limbo. That is somewhat similar to the areas not covered by an

exclusive economic zone where distant countries with large fishery fleets often deplete

the fish stocks at the expense of proximate countries that do not have these capabilities.

The most important way that states benefit from the Eurasian Sea, though, occurs

onshore. The country that is most capable of connecting its own market to other

Claimants with the best-

developed tools will be

the most capable of

exploiting the legal limbo

in maritime dis utes.




economies – through industrial zones on the coasts, efficient ports, modern cities on the

seaboard, and fast connections with the hinterland – will generate more income for its

citizens. The competition for the Eurasian Sea is thus also a competition for trade. To be

sure, the construction of a large merchant fleet and the defence of that fleet are

inseparable from this endeavour, but the main contest revolves around the ability to

build the infrastructure onshore that is needed to make the maritime conveyer beltserve the domestic economy. Industrial clout breeds maritime power; maritime power

facilitates industrial growth. This should be a zero-sum-game, free traders insist. But

that neglects the fact that countries often want to prosper more and faster than a free

market allows for and have a tendency to manipulate trade. It also ignores that free

markets usually make some countries more successful than others and thus also

accumulate more resources to translate into political and military influence.

Last, the competition for maritime power is part of the competition for international

status. Even as countries rush into cyber, space, the deep ocean; flying the flag over

nearby and distant seas remains one of the most manifest expressions of internationalpower. Again, for many developing countries this has become a fixation in their escape

from inferiority and search for esteem. Maritime nationalism is a prominent feature of

Asia’s rise, but even the European Union seeks to demonstrate its role as an

international security actor by dispatching flotillas under its twelve golden stars. Russia

is acting desperately to prove that is still a great maritime power. The United States

clings to its six fleets as the imposing emblems of global naval leadership. It is hard to

draw the line between those maritime ambitions that stem from strategic calculations

and economic needs on the one hand, the aspirations that are the product of pride or

nationalism on the other.

The Middle Corridor

The main focus of maritime ambition is still the middle corridor, the perilous sluiceway

that connects the Indian Ocean with the Near East, the pier to the Middle East and

Central Asia. Since the sixties, the United States watched over this region like park

ranger over a duck hole. In the summer of 2012, it had still three aircraft carrier battle

groups deployed around the Arabian Peninsula.9 As troops were pulled out of Iraq,

bases were consolidated in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Djibouti. Manama, Bahrain,

now hosts the Central Command of the US Navy, but this compound, the modern

equivalent of an imposing camel coloured desert fortress, is also home to a crucial force

multiplier: the Combined Maritime Forces. Counting 25 American allies, this

partnership is meant to support American presence and to maintain maritime security

from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. One of its task forces combats pirates in

the Gulf of Aden, another backed American operations in Iraq, and a third supports the

war on terrorism. American presence was vital in maintaining regional stability. Not in

a sense that created peace. Its interests and predominance helped to direct the region’s

restlessness to single enemies: Iraq, Iran, the terrorists, and, to some extent, the pirates.

America kept the game simple and put a lid on the many tensions among the countries

like the British Navy was the arbiter in local quarrels until World War II.







Many of those tensions revolve around maritime interests. Almost all countries in the

Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean are involved in conflicts over

maritime territory. One of the main positive feats of the Persian Gulf is that – often after

Western pressure – some disputes over offshore oil and gas fields were settled in the

previous century. But, still, many conflicts go on. The bickering between Oman, the

United Arab Emirates, and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz is certainly the most sensitiveone. Eritrea and Yemen have a similar conflict over Bab el Mandeb, but they lack the

power to fight. In the Mediterranean, Turkey is at loggerheads with Greece over how to

interpret the right of passage in the Aegean Sea and with Cyprus over the exploitation

of a giant gas field.

The main question is how much the United States will continue to suppress, attenuate,

or direct those tensions. Washington, so much is clear, still has the commitment. Even if

the Pacific and Arctic Corridor rise on the agenda, there are still sufficient interests to

retain predominance along the Middle Corridor. It imports about 15 percent of its

energy from the region, which is the same as at the beginning of the century.10

Israeland Iran rally sufficient political interest at Capitol Hill to keep the military engaged.

Control over the Middle Corridor also serves as a deterrent against China. Enough

reason thus to stay. Another matter is whether the United States will be able to exert the

same influence as in the past decades. There are indications that this will not be the

case. Turkey has not been impressed by Washington’s call to tone down on the

maritime tensions with Greece and Cyprus, which also led to frictions with Tel Aviv

that supported Nicosia’s claims on the Aphrodite gas field. At the contrary, the United

States has a serious credibility problem within the Turkish political elite. Ankara is now

conducting rivalling exploration in the area and increased its naval presence near to the

gas field. Israel on its turn announced that it would bolster its maritime power to

defend the gas deposits that it now exploits together with Cyprus. In the Persian Gulf,

Iran is not intimidated by the United States either. Facing up to the mighty Fifth Fleet,

the Iranian Navy seems a floating target, its efforts to show its flag in the Mediterranean

and the Indian Ocean preposterous, and its Kilo-submarines hardly effective in the very

shallow waters of the Gulf.11 But it is continuing to develop troubling asymmetric

capabilities – missiles and torpedoes among others – that can be scattered over a large

number of small boats or even in fisherman’s houses onshore.

These challenges could become more complicated as other powers weigh in. In 2006,

Russia sent its Black Sea fleet to Syria, where it was refurbishing its military port

facilities at Tartus. In 2007, Moscow announced that it would restart regular naval

sorties in the Mediterranean. “The Mediterranean is an important theatre of operations

for the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” Admiral Vladimir Masorin said, “We must restore a

permanent presence of the Russian Navy in this region.” In 2012, its fleet carried out a

large manoeuvre in the Eastern Mediterranean. This came at a sensitive moment, as

Syrian troops blatantly defied Western calls for a cease fire by storming Aleppo, but

also because Russia had stated that it would support Cyprus in its claims over offshore

gas. This could possibly have encouraged Turkey to give in to Washington’s demand

for more restraint, but Ankara rather opted for even more assertive military posturing

and accelerated its military shipbuilding. To be sure, the Russian Navy is not in a

position to defeat its American counterpart. Just consider that most of its ships hardly




saw any upgrade since the end of the Cold War, besides some fresh paint. Russia also

had to divert ships all the way from the Baltic to make its Black Sea fleet look a tit more

intimidating. Yet, its Navy does show its resolve over strategic issues and that

Washington has to take the risk of escalation seriously.

Russia is not the only power that has increased its presence. The French opened a newmilitary base in the United Arab Emirates, in addition to its previous foothold in

Djibouti. Indian presence has been strengthened a lot over the last years because of

Pakistan, petrol, and the presence of millions of Indian expatriates in the region. The

Indian Navy goes at great length to boost its presence in this western gateway to the

Indian Ocean. It holds one key advantage: geography. A warship that pulls out in

Mumbai on a Monday morning can moor in Dubai on Tuesday evening the day after

and in Istanbul on Friday. The Indian Navy has almost permanent presence in the

Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It established ties with a host of countries, including

Egypt, Israel, Oman, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Since 2006, when it evacuated

about 2,000 people from Lebanon, Indian Navy taskforces sailed through the SuezCanal and the Strait of Hormuz about once a year, including the three ships that

evacuated some citizens from Libya in 2011. Japan has been active in the Indian Ocean

and Persian Gulf since the War on Terrorism. About 200 soldiers are based in Djibouti

to take care of logistics. The Japanese government plans to keep the Djibouti facility for

at least a decade. But it is China that aroused most anxiety. Since 2008, it maintains a

task force in the Gulf of Aden that has been very active in military diplomacy and saw

an impressive supply chain of civilian and military agents develop in its wake. It dips

its toe in the Mediterranean about once a year – the last time when it evacuated 36,000

compatriots from Libya in 2011 and when it sent a task force for port calls in the Black

Sea in 2012. What matters the most, however, is not what China has achieved in terms

of force projection, but what it might soon be able to achieve. Its surface fleet

modernizes at an unequalled pace and all its new ships are geared for long-range

missions. Its port facilities at Gwadar, Pakistan, could be converted in a naval hub,

which Islamabad would certainly not object to. There is also sufficient political support

for turning the navy into a tool for protecting interests in distant areas like the Middle

Corridor.12

The Pacific Corridor

Until World War II, the Pacific Corridor formed the gateway to the outer reaches of

Western empires. Now it is transforming gradually into the maritime springboard of

China. The Pacific Corridor consists of the Andaman Sea, the South China Sea, the East

China Sea, and might further stretch into the East Sea if traffic through the Arctic picks

up. It is that narrow strip of water – taking about a day to cross at its widest point – that

is squeezed in between the continent and seven islands or archipelagos: the Andaman

Islands, Sumatra, Borneo, Palawan, Luzon, Taiwan, and Japan. Maritime power plays in

the region are the result of one important strategic dilemma: the desire of the United

States to dominate this corridor as a buffer against rising powers on the continent and

the hope of China to break through this security perimeter.13 Especially now that China

is able to project overwhelming military power in the Strait of Taiwan, all tensions

revolve around Chinese and American efforts to tilt the regional balance of power into




their advantage. The United States has invested massively in upgrading its bases in

South Korea, Japan, and Guam; strengthened its military partnerships; expanded the

Seventh Fleet; and frequently used its navy to enforce full freedom of navigation in

waters that are claimed by China. Beijing, on its turn, has made a spectacular effort to

build up its maritime deterrence. In the last decade, it ordered about 37 submarines, 14

destroyers, 18 frigates, and 3 large landing platform docks. All of them show greattechnological improvement. China is a continental power with maritime ambitions and

the economic wherewithal to support them. But the more China tries to enhance its

security by strengthening its naval power in and beyond the Pacific Corridor, the more

the US attempts to find new countermeasures in pursuit of its own security, that is, to

be able to stop any challenger before it sails into the Pacific Ocean.

This security dilemma between the two Pacific titans aggravates a whole series of other

tensions between China and countries that fear its rise, its military power, and its

ambitions in the Pacific Corridor. In Tokyo, eyes are turning from Russia and North

Korea to China’s aspirations in the East China Sea. Large budgets are made available tostrengthen military presence on southernmost Japanese islands and to purchase new

gear for hunting Chinese submarines – including the giant Hyūga class

helicopter/aircraft carrier. The Philippines and Vietnam called in the first place on the

United States for support in their conflict with China over the South China Sea, but also

strain their budgets to purchase new warships and alike. The Indian Navy too has

become more present in the waters east of the Malacca Strait. Investments in the South

China Sea’s oil reserves, interest in protecting its shipping lanes, and distrust of China’s

strategic intentions along the continental border has prompted Delhi to deploy

warships into the Pacific Corridor at least once a year. Russia has modernized its

facilities in the Far East, gave the Pacific Fleet priority in the allocation of new ships,

and established military and energy ties with Vietnam – all attracting the ire of China.14

The United Kingdom quietly revived the Five Power Defence Arrangement and staged

a robust naval exercise in the South China Sea in 2011.15

The dispute over the Pacific Corridor has many dimensions. It is, as we have seen, the

result of a military security dilemma, primarily between China and the United States, in

the second place between China and its neighbours. China’s military rise causes distrust

among other countries and as the latter try to improve their security, China’s own

perception of the security situation deteriorates. In addition, it is very difficult to

distinguish offensive from defensive intensions. What seems the correction of a

situation of vulnerable inferiority to China looks like assertiveness, if not aggression, to

others. It is also the product of the different legal dilemmas that mar the bickering over

territory. International sea law hardly provides a cogent framework for settling

disputes over the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone. Its provisions on the

freedom of navigation are murky at best. Territorial conflicts are the ultimate example

of zero-sum-gains: what one state gains, is lost to the other. But, different

interpretations of historical maps, rules, and custom give each side sufficient arguments

to state that it is only defending its rightful interests and to blame the other for being

the aggressor.




The conflicts are even part of an economic dilemma. All countries in the region take a

great interest in building strong industries and acquiring some control over the supply

of resources, to a degree even that it becomes a matter of national security. The sea is

crucial in this endeavour and so do governments try to gain influence over shipping,

fishing, and the exploitation of resources. While China maintains that it just seeks to

acquire what is needed to develop; a lot of neighbouring countries see it diverting trade,resources, and, hence, also opportunities to generate jobs, income, and to maintain

social stability. Especially in regard to the territorial disputes, the perception becomes

that China uses its economic weight to exploit the legal impasse and turns its maritime

margins in a de facto economic sphere of influence. Last, it is important to stress the

importance of status. Asian powers attach a great deal of importance to territorial

claims and military power, not only because it is in their strategic or military interest,

but also because it feeds nationalist pride. Nationalism has particularly deep roots in

the region and has been nourished by decades of propaganda and centuries of

imperialist strife. This all makes it even more important for leaders to stand strong.

The Arctic corridor

For many centuries, the Arctic appealed to the imagination of adventurers, merchants,

and states. As soon as Spain and Portugal had claimed the duopoly over trade with

America and Asia in the Treaty of Tordesillas, lobbyists called on London and

Amsterdam for exploring the northern passage. “Your subjects shall not have to travel

half the way that others do,” Robert Thorne wrote to Henry VIII.16 But the Arctic

shortcut did not yield to early explorers. Even in the early twentieth century, after the

defeat of the Russian Navy in Port Arthur in 1905 had prompted the Tsar to utilize the

Arctic passage, the endeavour was too risky and costly to sustain.17 It was telling that

when Robert Peary telegraphed President Taft that he had reached the North Pole and

that the Arctic lay up for grabs, Taft responded: “Thanks for your interesting and

generous offer, but I do not know exactly what to do with it.” Throughout the rest of

the twentieth century, the Arctic was hardly considered by geopolitical strategists,

besides the fact that it offered a hideaway for the submarine leg of the nuclear triad.18

That changed at the turn of the twenty first century. In 2000, American cruise ships

navigated the Northwest Passage, a Chinese research vessel examined the ice condition,

and Russia successfully tested its new icebreaker oil tanker.19 The new scramble for the

Arctic corridor had begun, sparking a contest over territory and privileges.20 Besides,

eight Arctic countries, other powers like China, Japan, India, and the European Union

also tried to protect their interests.

That scramble, however, has thus far been of a different nature than the perilous

posturing in the Middle and Pacific Corridor. In the first place, some of the tensest

disputes have been settled. In 2010, for example, Russia and Norway signed an

important treaty on the Barents Sea. Second, all claimants, except the United States,

have turned to arbitration by a United Nations Commission to judge on how the

continental shelf shapes their exclusive economic zone. Third, the Arctic states have

invested in multilateral schemes to maintain stability and to address some common

challenges, like environment, the depletion of fish stocks, etc. Fourth, the vast part of

the energy reserves is located in parts of the Arctic that are not disputed.21 Tensions




over those resources located in disputed areas are tempered for the simple reason that

there is enough elsewhere and that exploitation remains technically difficult. Fifth, the

United States is showing restraint in pushing for freedom of navigation. Even if it is at

loggerheads with Russia and Canada over whether the Northern Sea Route and the

Northwest Passage should be an internal sea or an international strait, it did not display

its resolve as forcefully as in the Pacific Corridor. It has been since 2003, for instance,since Washington sent a Coast Guard icebreaker through the Northwest Passage.

Most importantly, the Arctic has not become the locus of a massive military build-up.22

Compared with the other two corridors, the United States hardly bothered to

strengthen its military capacity in the Arctic and recent strategic documents do not give

priority to maritime security in the North.23 Russia has spoken more ambitiously of its

military designs for the region. It promised a modern submarine task force for the

Northern Sea Route, several new bases, new Arctic elite forces, and enhanced anti-

submarine warfare capabilities.24 Yet, the latest submarine additions to its Northern

Fleet date from the early nineties, all its latest surface combatants joined other fleets,and it occurs frequently that ships of the Northern Fleet are temporarily deployed as

stopgaps for the Pacific or Black Sea Fleet.25 What the other claimant states put into

position, showed their interest in defending their Arctic interests, but it was by no

means testifying of nascent military tensions. Denmark ordered three frigates, two large

support ships, and five patrol vessels which were all ice hardened. Norway

commissioned five ice resistant frigates and a large armed icebreaker for the coast

guard.26 Canada ordered six Arctic patrol ships and two ice-hardened landing plat form

docks.27

Off all three corridors of the Eurasian Sea, the Arctic Corridor remains

the calmest. How this will develop in the long run, cannot be

predicted. Tensions could erupt if the UN Commission turns out to be

unable to come up with satisfying decisions on the continental shelf

and, hence, on how far the different exclusive economic zones will

stretch out to the North Pole. There are still overlapping claims that need to be solved

and the delimitation of the continental shelf could create new ones. It also remains to be

seen how the United States will interact with Canada and Russia over the Northwest

Passage and the Northern Sea Route. Organizations like the Arctic Council steadily

develop. The Council will soon have a standing secretariat and a director, but its

mandate remains limited.28 The Kremlin also seems to have clasped the defence of the

Arctic as an opportunity to rally national pride and patriotism. Yet, there are two

important elements that will restrain conflict. The Arctic is not yet as congested as the

other corridors. Over the next decade or so, this will certainly change, but it will still

cost time before the commercial exploitation of its shipping lanes and resources

becomes viable. Nor is the region subject to dramatic shifts in the balance of power.

That will also limit distrust.

A Maritime Concert

The Eurasian Sea – with its three main corridors – is becoming ever more

interconnected, congested, and contested. Yet, however tense conflicts have often been,

Off all three corridors of

the Eurasian Sea, the

Arctic Corridor remains

the calmest.




states still sought to defend their interests at the lowest possible cost and to avoid risky

wars. No state wanted to be perceived as a new gunboat aggressor. This created some

scope for coordination and cooperation. International law has been one such avenue.

The majority of states still embraced the UN Law of the Sea as their preferred

instrument in territorial conflicts. There have been examples of international arbitration.

Initiatives were taken to develop new rules to manage the seas.29 But all together,international law did not make a great difference. Nine states that border the Eurasian

Sea have not yet signed or ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, including

several maritime gatekeepers like Iran, Israel, and Turkey. Neither is it likely that the

United States, the world’s most potent naval power, will ratify the Convention anytime

soon.30 Besides, the Convention has just not proved detailed and accurate enough to

provide in cogent guidelines for settling rows over the delimitation of continental

shelves, the rights in exclusive economic zones, and the whether or not a strategic sea

lane is an international strait. In the military realm there are no rules whatsoever to

check evolutions like the proliferation of paramilitary maritime security agencies, the

use manoeuvrable ballistic missiles against ships, electronic warfare, cyber-war, etc.More and more countries acquired these capabilities. In comparison to the growing

importance of the seas and the increasing risk of new conflicts, international law and its

enforcement are grossly inadequate, and there is not much hope for improvement.

A second option concerns regional maritime regimes and collective security

arrangements. The European Union has pushed for comprehensive regulation on a

range of issues in the Mediterranean Sea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

(ASEAN) mulls over a code of conduct, but none of them have been successful. In the

European Union member states are even trying to relieve the European Commission

from its task to regulate the sensitive fishing business and to water down initiatives on

maritime safety.31 Whereas regimes centre on rules, collective security is based on force.

It holds that a group of countries works together to deter aggression. It enhances

stability and cooperation by making sanctions against aggression both overwhelming

and predictable.32 There has been talk of collective maritime security in Asia, but it did

not take off. Asian countries were too divided. For a moment it looked like the

Southeast Asian countries around the South China Sea moved towards a basic form of

collective maritime security, as a response to China’s growing influence, but the

divisions among them appeared to be as vexing as their distrust towards China.

That leaves us another option: a maritime concert. A concert, as Charles and Clifford

Kupchan put it, represents the most attenuated form of collective security.33 It concerns

a small group of major powers that shares some core values about the international

order and whose foremost concern is to maintain international stability. They agree on

military restraint, informally confer on security challenges, and act together against

common threats. In a concert, the major powers still mind the balance of power and

compete for influence, but conflict is mitigated by occasional coordination and

cooperation. Concerts are inclusive in as far as participants that resort to aggression can

expect to be expulsed and face countermeasures by the remaining members. There have

been several hints at a concert of powers in the maritime sphere, not the least from the

United States. In a 2007 strategy document, the Navy vowed to build confidence and

trust among nations through collective security efforts that focus on common threats




and mutual interests in an open multi-polar world.34 Another report stated that the

Navy needed to act in concert with other maritime forces in the quest for an orderly

maritime domain.35 China too has put emphasis on cooperation in maritime security

and several Chinese scholars flagged great power cooperation as the way forward.

Moreover, we might already be heading into that direction and witness the emergenceof a new maritime concert with protagonists like the United States, China, Japan, India,

Australia, South Korea, Russia, and, in its own atypical way, the European Union. First

of all, there is a lot of balancing going on between them. Most of the time, China is the

target, but, still, China is not excluded or denied cooperation. What we observe is a

group of rather nervous maritime powers, which all compete for influence in the

Eurasian Sea, try to look after their security interests themselves, aspire to project power

in all three maritime corridors, and, most importantly, understand that they will face

stiff resistance from the others if they go too far. Consider this inclusive balancing in its

most basic form. Second, there is more intensive interaction and consultation, not in the

carpet laden conference rooms where great powers convened in the age of Castlereagh,but through bilateral exchanges the major powers have been well able to identify

sources of both discord and consensus on a range of issues. Interesting in this regard, is

how China, India, Japan, and South Korea moved towards some basic coordination of

their anti-piracy escorts in the Gulf of Aden.36

It is unlikely, though, that a maritime concert will prevent new clashes over the

Eurasian Sea. Not the least because it has to navigate against a gathering tide of

suspicion and alarm. 1) This is caused by more pronounced shifts in the maritime

balance of power. China’s ascent elicits anxious reactions almost everywhere, but the

naval modernization of lesser powers like India, Iran, and Turkey has a similar effect on

their neighbourhoods. 2) In the last few years, we have already witnessed how this

leads to assertive balancing. Smaller maritime countries that feel insecure spend more

on their own navies and rally actively for support from the rivalling naval juggernauts.

Just consider how countries along the Pacific and Middle Corridor have called on the

United States and Russia to counter China, Iran, or Turkey. The more visible the

changes in the balance of power, the sharper the fault lines, and the more difficult it will

be to stick to inclusive balancing. 3) What adds to the tide of distrust, is this most vexing

constraint in strategic planning, namely that the military systems of a country often do

not reveal whether they are meant to defend or offend. We did already refer to the

disputes in East Asia. But in the same vein, no one can say, for example, with which

purposes in mind Turkey has ordered its six new submarines or how India will use its

new destroyers. 4) That leads us to another main challenge: contrarily to strife on the

continent, it is much more difficult to determine whether or not a military operation is

aggressive or defence. Most of the land borders are demarcated, but this is not the case

with sea borders. You cannot drive a tank up to the highway of a neighbour, not fly

fighter jets into its airspace, but you can put warships in its exclusive economic zone,

and, some maintain, even in its territorial waters if these form a sea lane of international

importance. When foreign armies cross a land border, that is called a invasion, but how

about trawlers venturing in seas that are not demarcated, warships sailing into disputed

waters, or interpreting the law of the sea in a different way than the country that claims

the area? Navigating into those legal voids, countries can interpret as offensive the




posturing that is considered defensive and rightful by other. 5) Distrust is further

aggravated by the fact that a country’s naval presence is a powerful demonstration of

interest and leads to the assumption that if that presence will grow it will also go

further in defending those interests, whenever they are imperilled. Deploying warships

is a first important signal that a country wishes to harden its influence and if one

country does so near to strategic sea lanes, others follow suit. 6) While internationalrules and organizations are not sufficiently developed to attenuate these sources of

distrust, tensions are not restrained as much by America’s naval primacy as before. This

is not to say that America is no longer the key maritime power in the Eurasian Sea, but

the mere prospect of other powers gaining influence, or its presence wearing thinner in

some parts of the Eurasian Sea is reducing the disciplinary effect of the American navy.

The most daunting impediment remains, however, that there is hardly a basic

understanding on the values that are to sustain a concert. One could indeed consider

that like the major powers in the European concert shared the conservative objective to

stamp out revolution, the major powers today share the goal to fight piracy and a hostof other non-traditional security threats. But that is about it. Fundamentally, the rift

between the main maritime power and some key continental powers over the rules and

principles of managing the seas could not be bigger. The more continental powers like

China are to assert their influence offshore, the more pressing this normative gap will

become.

A maritime concert is the loosest form of collective security. Still, a concert demands for

a minimal level of trust. The major powers should also agree on which acts are deemed

either unwanted aggression or legitimate defence. In case of the Eurasian Sea, both

conditions are not fulfilled, which instantly disqualifies the major powers for the second

most important task of a concert, which is to respond in a coordinated way to

adventurous behaviour of lesser powers, non-traditional security threats, and the risk of

unintended military incidents. Instead of cooperating on potentially destabilizing

behaviour of lesser powers and repressing tensions among them, the protagonists have

showed a tendency to choose sides. Besides the United States, all other major powers

are desperate to build their own network of loyal partners. Smaller states that search for

great power support offer just that opportunity. Cyprus is a case in point. Beguiled by

lucrative energy concessions and the prospect of a naval step stone in the

Mediterranean that could make it less dependent on its facilities in Syria, Moscow just

needed a blimp to rush to Nicosia’s support. Russia eagerly supplied naval gear to Iran

and staged joint exercises; China assisted Iran to develop its anti-ship missile

capabilities. Russia, the United States, and India are backing Vietnam to hold its

position in the maritime disputes over the South China Sea. Thus far, the major powers

have seldom been able to benefit from maritime disputes to draw smaller powers

decisively into their camp, but the shrewd efforts of smaller states to benefit from the

divisions among the main players renders completely implausible the prospect of a

concert that curbs adventurism.

Small powers with maritime ambitions are not the only challenge to a maritime concert.

Equally vexing are non-traditional security threats, like piracy, maritime terrorism,

poaching, and failing states on the boards of the Eurasian Sea. Great powers have an




obvious interest in keeping a lid on those perils and one might expect them to do so in

the most efficient way, by sharing the burden, coordinating efforts, and, eventually, let

those countries take the lead when they are the nearest to the scene of action. Reality

shows, however, that efficiency is not the foremost concern. What the great powers

mind the most is to show the flag and to assert their national interests as autonomously

as possible. Moreover, their most urgent aspiration is usually to avoid having to rely oncooperation. Piracy has become the major powers’ favourite pretext for flag waving, an

occasion for gaining operational experience, and an even better opportunity for

gathering intelligence on how their counterparts work. Nothing shows this better than

the anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. The major powers visit each other’s ships,

they occasionally coordinate the deployments of their vessels, and exchange

information through the so-called shared-awareness and deconfliction group (SHADE).

The Russians reportedly even got communication equipment from NATO to liaise with

its ships.37 But whether it concerns the US-led task force 151, the European Union’s

operation Atalanta, the flotillas of the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indians… the

foremost occupation remains to operate as independently as possible, to build propersupply chains, etc. In the same vain, anti-piracy has been the preferred alibi for Russia

and India to dispatch their warships into the South China

Sea. And, of course, China and India could not afford not to

send warships to the Mediterranean when compatriots had

to be evacuated. Yet, when the three Indian warships arrived

off the coast of Libya, almost all Indian expatriates had left

the country by civilian ship. Neither was it very clear what

the added value was of a Chinese frigate gliding besides a

Greek cruise ship that transported evacuees, besides

showcasing that it was there, ready to provide security to

Chinese compatriots.

Prospects of Conflict

Coordination among great powers is unlikely to become strong; challenges almost

certainly to be plentiful. This leaves us grappling about the different prospects for

instability in the Eurasian Sea. The most important question in that regard is what could

make the major powers more belligerent towards each other and how likely this is to

happen. For all their frictions, armed conflict between the great powers is the least

likely to erupt. Ambitious trading states, they have an important positive motivation to

refrain from aggression: the maintenance of an open global market. Indeed, it would be

unwise to take for granted that those major powers will always be guided by the

primacy of economic interdependence. One can, after all, imagine that a protracted

downturn leads to more economic nationalism and trade wars. Five years after the

global economic crisis erupted, pragmatic, trade-enthusiast elites are under strong

pressure. But even in this case, there are two important constraints. All major powers

are armed to the teeth, so it is simply considered too costly to start a war. Power

projection from the sea poses as much a threat to less developed naval powers, as the

latter can inflict tremendous damage on the maritime champions by means of long-

range missiles and non-conventional deterrence. In addition, the major power that

Piracy has become the major

powers’ favourite pretext for

flag waving, an occasion for

gaining operational

experience, and an even better

opportunity for gathering

intelligence on how their

counter arts work




would be seen as aggressive will most likely see the others closing the ranks. Even if

one major power’s naval capabilities grow faster than others’ this balancing will thus

put an additional brake on the incentives of aggression. It is true, still, that a mixture of

nationalism, fear, and aversion can make great powers willing to take tremendous risks,

to a degree that their behaviour seems reckless. One cannot exclude this to happen in a

context of severe social distress, political instability, and international rivalry, but thisremains highly unlikely.

So, we shall assume that the major powers will continue to avoid naval wars with each

other. For that reason we can also expect them to overcome naval incidents and to limit

escalations. That brings us to a second risk: smaller powers, counting on the support of

one of the major powers, could be tempted to be much more provocative. Those

provocations could be a matter of internal behaviour that has consequences for their

wider neighbourhood, also at sea. Failing states causing maritime insecurity is the most

obvious example. But small power aggression can also involve offensive behaviour

towards other countries. Either way, great power rivalry offers impunity to belligerentregimes, and this poses an instant threat to the security in the Eurasian Sea. The very

insecurity that this causes could prompt the major powers to intervene directly. This is

obvious when direct interests are at stake. Expecting American backing, overly

confident behaviour of one of the small countries around the South China Sea could

lead them in collision with China, which will not refrain from showing its muscle. With

America’s credibility as ally at stake, Washington is likely to show its resolve, which

will likely prompt Beijing to stand strong as well. A lot more needs to happen for such

escalations to lead to war, but it will cause major instability and exacerbate tensions

among the protagonists.

Summing up, the failure to establish a multilateral framework for the Eurasian Sea and

the unlikely emergence of a concert of major powers create four layers of insecurity.

Even though every country on the fringes of the Eurasian continent countries is a

stakeholder, they will miss opportunities to tackle the challenges in a cooperative and

effective way. Second, great power conflict gives smaller states more scope to

undermine stability – by failing to bring development to their own people and by acting

recklessly in maritime disputes. Third, smaller states that fail to maintain domestic

stability or act aggressively towards other countries can elicit great power interference.

Only in extreme circumstances of nationalism and uncertainty, there is a chance that the

major powers take on each other and engage in combat over the Eurasian Seas directly.

Repercussions for the European Union.

So, again, the question arises how the European Union has to position itself in the

Eurasian Sea. Especially the maritime disputes in Eastern Asia have attracted the

attention of opinion leaders and decision makers. They even elicited a strange anxiety

to get involved. Naval romantics insisted that China imperils our economic lifelines and

that it would be a missed opportunity not to use the facilities of European member

states in between the Gulf and the Pacific to safeguard our shipping lines. European

countries do, after all, have bases from the Gulf, Diego Garcia, La Réunion, all the way

to Polynesia. Others maintained that the European Union should stand by the United




States in compelling China to show restraint and to sign up to a code of conduct on the

South China Sea. Moreover, it has been claimed that Europe’s model of regional

integration could prove useful in promoting peace and stability in the Eastern Asia.

Those in charge of the European navies have brushed away the prospect of sending

warships to the maritime hotspots in Eastern Asia or playing a prominent role in easing

naval tension.38 Their main argument is that Europe just lacks the capabilities tomaintain long-term presence in that region and has more urgent issues to tackle. But

still, we should avoid getting caught between, on the one hand, naval fancy and, on the

other, excessive restraint and isolationism. The European Union cannot turn its back to

new geopolitical realities. The key is a sober-minded assessment of interests and threats.

Let us start with the main argument: Europe relies on long

trade lines that could be blocked by aggressors like Iran and

China. In the first place, we need to distinguish between

China and Iran. China, thus far, produces most of the goods

that are shipped between Asia and Europe and alsocontinues to have a great interest in importing European capital goods. It is thus just

unimaginable that China will cut off its own maritime lifelines to Europe. Furthermore,

Chinese naval strategists understand very well that it is in no position to disturb

maritime traffic through chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca as a way to gain leverage

in the maritime disputes in Eastern Asia. First, it will come at a tremendous economic

price. If only we think of the soaring costs of imported oil. Second, China’s own long

supply chains make it very vulnerable to retaliation by allies of the Pacific countries that

it might seek to blackmail. From the Strait of Malacca to the Strait of Hormuz, China

faces 4,000 miles of vulnerability. So, China is unlikely to pose a threat to our maritime

trade. Iran is another matter. Especially since its oil exports to Europe dried up as a

consequence of sanctions, the threshold for disturbing maritime traffic is lower. There

is, indeed, a need for contingency planning, but the European Union should also

understand that part of Tehran’s aggressive posturing is the consequence of a siege

complex that makes it feel surrounded by hostile powers. So, instead of aggravating the

polarization between Iran and the United States by showing naval resolve alongside the

Fifth Fleet, we might better search for new opportunities to get Iran out of its

disgruntled isolation.

The second argument: Europe should stand by the United States as the latter seeks to

pressure China into a regional maritime regime that provides in peaceful dispute

settlement and, most of all, allows the United States to position its navy in the South

and East China Sea. From an American viewpoint this agenda is straightforward. It is

about establishing a security perimeter around its main challenger and avoiding that

China creates a maritime sphere of influence that it could use to deflect American

deterrence and, eventually, as a launch pad for extending its naval presence in distant

waters. In this regard Europe faces a daunting dilemma. Geopolitically, we do not

entertain the same concerns as the United States. We are not entangled in a security

dilemma over the Pacific. Moreover, part of America’s assertions and the way it

interprets the UN Law of the Sea is as contentious as China’s claims.39 If Europe

manages to build a sound understanding with China on the challenges along the

From the Strait of Malacca

to the Strait of Hormuz,

China faces 4,000 miles of

vulnerability.




Middle Corridor, there is no reason to expect a collision in our backyard if China

acquires long-range naval power projection capacity.

Moreover, extending the logic of leveraging great powers in our backyard, we can also

pose the question whether American posturing along the Middle Corridor has always

been that helpful. The track record of strategic Euro-American strategic dissonance inthe Gulf and the Mediterranean is long. The point is thus that, as long as Europe is able

to increase its role in the Middle Corridor, we should not automatically assume that

building synergy with China is less feasible than synergy with the United States. Any

decision to side with the United States on the maritime disputes in the Pacific would

thus no be so much the outcome of a critical reflection of our strategic interests. Instead,

it would confirm the habit to take the transatlantic partnership as the reference point in

assessing the evolving world order, a habit that demonstrates perhaps most

compellingly the weakness of Europe as a strategic actor. I am aware that this argument

causes unease among many Europeans. My point is not that we should disengage from

the transatlantic partnership. A more solid maritime strategy for the Middle Corridormight even strengthen that partnership and could be the basis of a new division of

labour between Europe and the United States. Yet, we should not buy too easily in the

“China threat” discourses and give Beijing at least the chance to explore cooperation.

The European Union should not be satisfied with playing the role of dumb deputy in

America’s quest for naval dominance. Instead, it should aspire to become the maritime

pivotman in its part of the Eurasian Sea – however distant a prospect this might seem.

There is thus nothing self-evident in trailing into America’s wake when it comes to

maritime security in Eastern Asia. How then about the Arctic? Europe has a great

interest in an efficient management of the Arctic as a potential corridor for shipping and

as one of the world’s most vulnerable treasures of natural wealth. Any environmental

hazard will come at a great cost for Europe as well and has the potential to disturb

marine life from the Baltic to Gibraltar. As we have seen, the Arctic is not as sensitive

yet as the Pacific Corridor. But, still, the European Union should stand by Denmark in

its efforts to build a multilateral framework for managing the Arctic and support it in

finding a negotiated solution for its territorial disputes with other claimants. A

precondition for Europe to be considered a strategic player is that it builds the

wherewithal to support the Scandinavian member states whenever one of the other

claimants resorts to aggression or reckless exploitation of the Arctic’s resources. But for

the time being, the Arctic will probably stay the calmest of all three corridors.

It is in the Middle Corridor that Europe faces the most

urgent challenges. First, the European Union has to play a

much more active role in settling the territorial disputes in

the Eastern Mediterranean. It is just incomprehensible that

the European Union is preaching regional maritime

cooperation in Asia, while it has hardly negotiated between

two of its member states and Turkey, a country in a rough

neighbourhood that we need to keep good relations with. It

is imperative that the European External Action Service, Europe’s juvenile foreign

service, works on proposals for managing the exploitation of recently discovered

It is just incomprehensible

that the European Union is

preaching regional maritime

cooperation in Asia, while it

has hardly negotiated

between two of its member

states and Turkey.




energy resources, mediates between Athens and Ankara in regard to the Dardanelles,

and between Nicosia and Ankara on confidence building measures in the maritime

strait that separates them. The toll of failing to do so will be high. Not only will other

powers like Russia continue to assert their influence. Europe will also witness countries

like Turkey and Israel build up their navies faster and faster, so that it will have less

leverage if a showdown is to happen in the future.

But there is an even greater risk that if the economic crisis persists, the whole Middle

Corridor turns into a passage of peril and leaves the European Union powerless. Greece

and Cyprus are again the most startling examples of how economic distress has

undermined European influence. But a protracted economic crisis will also weigh

heavily on the North African countries, which are all desperate to create jobs to appease

their expanding cohorts of youngsters and keep their burgeoning cities stable. Again,

the European Union has largely failed to make a difference. Any effort to enhance our

maritime security starts with a bold vision for promoting stability onshore, i.e. to

advance growth and development from the Mediterranean to Bab el Mandeb.

The growing interest of other great powers in the Middle

Corridor shows the importance to maintain a naval force that is

solid enough to deter unwanted behaviour. The baseline

remains that the European Union should have the capacity to

cut off other powers at the Dardanelles, the Gulf of Aden, and

Gibraltar. It also should position itself as an indispensible

partner for whatever power that seeks to advance its security

interests beyond these three sea lanes. Does that mean that we are to turn the

Mediterranean into a European lake? Of course not. That would be preposterous.

Europe should welcome any power that seeks to advance its economic interests and to

strengthen its relations with littoral countries, but we should be able to sanction

behaviour that compromises our security.

In sum, the main duty for the European Union is to come up with a comprehensive

maritime security strategy towards the Middle Corridor, which should be a

combination of regional maritime security regime building – especially in the

Mediterranean, an ambitious plan to promote stability in littoral countries, enhanced

dialogue with regional protagonists like Turkey and Russia, and, ultimately, the hard

power to punish belligerent behaviour. It is by becoming a potent player in the Middle

Corridor that we will also strengthen our bargaining power in other tracts of the

Eurasian Sea.

Priorities and Policies

Even if the Europe Union is far away from the maritime power plays in the Pacific, it

has a vital interest in a common maritime strategy. This is not to gear for naval presence

in the Far East, but to protect its interests nearby. While stability in the Arctic Corridor

cannot be taken for granted in the long run, security threats are most imminent in the

Middle Corridor. This area that stretches from the Dardanelles to the Gulf of Aden not

only serves as a vital conduit for trade; it could also become a conveyor belt of misery if

It is by becoming a potent

player in the Middle

Corridor that we will also

strengthen our bargaining

power in other tracts of the

Eurasian Sea.




Europe fails to maintain security. Extrapolating some current trends, the following

contingencies should be considered:

1) Territorial disputes involving member states turning violent. Recent tensions

between Turkey and Cyprus over claims in the Eastern Mediterranean might not

have made the headlines; the situation remains volatile, especially given theenormous stakes in energy and the historical track record of rivalry between

Nicosia and Ankara. As this conflict is one of the main reasons for Turkey to

build up its naval prowess, it will add to the tensions with Greece over the

Aegean Sea. In total, seven member states are involved in territorial disputes in

the Mediterranean.40

2) Failing states infesting the Middle Corridor with organized crime, terrorism,

and dreadful flows of migration. Yemen and Somalia are failed states that cause

insecurity at the gateway between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. But the

threat also looms closer to home. The Arab Spring has brought a wave of hope toNorthern Africa and the Levant, but states continue to grapple with wrecking

social, economic, and political problems. In countries like Libya, Egypt, and

Syria, there is a clear trend towards political fragmentation and radicalization.

3) The lack of European influence elicits great power interference. The inability

of the EU to mediate between Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus has already been an

incentive for Russia to intervene. The impotence of Europe to stabilize Northern

Africa is making the Asian emerging powers to consider increasing their

presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The incapacity to convince even its own

member states of a solid common security policy has led some member states

around the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean to explore strategic ties with

China. While this remains mostly symbolical, it might embolden other powers to

show their flag.

4) Europe being a powerless bystander whenever the next great showdown in

the Middle East takes place. Absent a coherent and sophisticated strategy,

Europe has been unable to play a role of importance in mediating between the

main rivalling parties in the Middle East. Sanctions have become the default tool

to deal with countries like Iran and Syria, but no effective preventive diplomacy

has been put in place. Should tensions between Israel and Palestine, between

Syria and its neighbours, or Iran and its neighbours increase, the European Union

will be powerless and can only hope for a quick ending.

These challenges make a robust European strategy towards the Middle Corridor

indispensible. No European member state can afford to be disinterested. Even the

countries in the north will be affected when the southernmost belt of member states is

to succumb to an eventual explosion of mayhem. They will equally suffer from insecure

shipping lanes. They will equally face the pressure of the great powers, whose naval

assertiveness will inevitably target the Arctic Corridor as soon as the Middle Corridor

becomes their new playtub. The maritime interests of the European member states are

indivisible. The following important tasks stand out:




1) The establishment of real platform for strategic thinking. None of the current

European committees, councils, and working groups is fit to reflect properly

about a common maritime strategy. The External Action Service lacks the

intellectual capacity to make a significant contribution. The External Action

Service should therefore establish a mixed task force that consists of navalofficers, experts, and diplomats to develop such a strategy.

2) The European Union should get real about its Mediterranean partnerships.

The key to stability along the Middle Corridor is stability onshore. Member states

still do not yet seem to understand the consequences of a persistent failure to

bring stability to Northern Africa and the Levant. Recent EU policy papers show

the way, but they need to be backed by a robust effort of the member states in

terms of investment and development cooperation. There is no reason why the

approximately 300 million people that live along the Middle Corridor cannot

form a new engine for growth and an alternative economic opportunity toEastern Asia.

3) The European Union needs to play a more active role to solve territorial

tensions in the Mediterranean and facilitate arbitration between Turkey and

Cyprus. While it has to stand by its member states, the precondition for such a

policy to be successful remains a more solid partnership with Ankara. If we

continue to squander our political credit in Turkey, we will lose a crucial partner

to help advance stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. This is

particularly urgent because we can no longer rely on the disciplining role of the

United States towards Turkey.

4) The non-military part of a maritime security policy towards the Middle

Corridor is key, but the EU should also invest in its naval power. This is not

necessarily a matter of spending more, but spending more efficiently by

specializing and avoiding the development of too many different types of ships.

Given the combination of traditional and non-traditional threats, Europe should

continue to invest in major multipurpose platforms like frigates, attack

submarines, and aircraft carriers. More joint exercises and patrols in the

Mediterranean are a must. In addition, forward bases of member states should be

optimally used to enhance European synergy.

5) Security along the Middle Corridor will largely depend on the posturing of

Israel and Iran. Europe needs a sophisticated policy to mediate between Israel

and its enemies and to avoid driving Iran into the arms of the Asian powers.

6) The European Union needs to maintain a strong naval deterrence at the

gateway between the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Mediterranean. This

capacity should target any specific power. Instead, it should target unwanted,

provocative behaviour. This deterrence requires 1) the full use of French facilities

(UAE, Djibouti, Reunion) and the British Indian Ocean Territory; 2) maintaining




forward leaning capabilities like nuclear attack submarines and supporting fleet;

3) signalling resolve by maintaining permanent presence in the Gulf of Aden.

7) To avoid instability to become a pretext for intervention by other great powers,

the European Union should attempt to become an indispensible player in Africa

and a leading partner of regional initiatives that seek to promote stability andpeace. This is particularly important in the Horn of Africa and around the Gulf of

Guinea.

8) The European Union needs better mechanisms to interact with the major

powers on maritime security. Some member states already have occasional

exchanges, but this has by no means allowed them to engage countries like

China, India, and Russia in synergies that suit the European interest. Optimally,

the European Military Staff should expand its capacity to conduct dialogues with

the major powers that are properly prepared in working groups where the

member states also have their say.

Notes and references:

1 Pawlak, Patryk and Eleni Ekmektsioglou, 2011. America and Europe’s Pacific Partnership. Paris: ISS. More moderate: Casarini, Nicola, 2012. EU foreign policy in the Asia Pacific:striking the right balance between the US, China and ASEAN. Paris: ISS; Jonas-ParelloPlesner, 2012. Should Europe fear the Pacific century? London: ECFR.2 Rogers, James, 2009. From Suez to Shanghai: the European Union and. Eurasian MaritimeSecurity. Paris: ISS.3 Holslag, Jonathan, 2011. Trapped Giant. London: Routledge, IISS; Holslag, Jonathan,

2012. Seas of Trouble. BICCS Asia Paper, August 2012.4 To be sure, the Atlantic corridor that strechtes from Scandinavia to Gibraltar remainsthe most busy stretch of the Eurasian Sea, but is not a security concern.5 UN Comtrade Database, Total exports with China as reporter.6 WCPFC Database: http://intra.wcpfc.int/Lists/Vessels/Stats.aspx7 Amer, Ramses. ASEAN and the Management of Territorial Disputes. pp. 82-83.8 Chevalier, Claudine, 2005. Governance in the Mediterranean Sea. Gland: IUCN.9 Aircraft carrier locations: http://www.gonavy.jp/CVLocation.html10 UN Comtrade Database, HS27.11 Adelkhah, Nima, 2011. The Three Startegies behind Iran’s Projection of Naval Power.Terrorism Monitor, issue 40, pp. 4-5; Cordesman, Anthony and Alexander Wilner, 2011.Iran and the Gulf Military Balance. Washington: CSIS.

12 Holslag, Jonathan, 2010. Khaki and Commerce. Issues and Studies.13 Yoshihara, Toshi and James Holmes, 2011. Red Star over the Pacific. Annapolis: NavalInstitute Press, pp. 51-5614 Russia’s Gazprom Develops Two Offshore Blocks with PetroVietnam, VietnamObserver , 7 April 2012.15 Ministry of Defence Singapore, 2011. Singapore Hosts FPDA Joint Exercise. 17October 2011. See:http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/news_and_events/nr/2011/oct/17oct11_nr.html; Ministry of Defence UK, 2011. Malaysian exercise resounding success for RAFTyphoon squadron. 21 November 2011,http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/TrainingAndAdventure/MalaysianExerciseResoundingSuccessForRafTyphoonSquadron.htm.16

In 1527. Quoted in Nerlich, Micheal, 1987. The Ideology of Adventure, Volume 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, p. 128.




17 Antrim, Caitlyn, 2011. The Russian Arctic in the Twenty-First Century. In Kraska, Jamesed., pp. 107-129.18 Horensma, Pier, 1991. The Soviet Arctic. London: Routledge.19 New Russian icebreaker tanker tested in Arctic, Itar Tass, 12 May 2000.;http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/29/world/arctic-shortcut-for-shipping-raises-

new-fears-in-canada.html?scp=4&sq=arctic%20russia&st=nyt&pagewanted=220 Hart, Andrew, Bruce Jones and David Steven, 2012. Chill Out: Why Cooperation isBalancing Conflict Among Major Powers in the New Arctic. Washington: Brookings;Kraska, James ed., 2011. Arctic Security in an Age of Climate Change. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.21 Hart, Andrew, Bruce Jones and David Steven, 2012. p. 3.22 Wezeman, Siemon, 2012. Military Capabilities in the Arctic. Stockholm: SIPRI.23 Wezeman, Siemon, 2012. pp. 10-13; Department of Defence, 2011. Report to Congress on

Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage. Washington: Department of Defence;Department of Defence, 2010. Quadrennial Defence Review Report, Washington:Department of Defence, p. 19, 55, 86; National Security Presidential Directive 66 onArctic Region Policy, 9 January 2009.

24 Wezeman, Siemon, 2012. pp. 8-10; Defense Northern Fleet Gets Modernized Anti-Submarine Plane, Ria Novosti, 5 March 2012; Russia to build up submarine task forcealong Northern Sea Route, Ria Novosti, 8 November 2011.25 6 Akula Class SSN and three Kilo Class SSG were added in the nineties.26 Norwegian Navy fact sheets:http://mil.no/organisation/equipmentfacts/sea/Pages/default.aspx27 National Defence and the Canadian Forces, fact sheet for the Arctic Offshore PatrolShip and the Joint Support Ship: http://www.materiel.forces.gc.ca/en/proj-sea.page?28 Honneland, Geir and Olav Stokke, 2007. International Cooperation And ArcticGovernance. Abingdon: Routledge; Arctic Council secretariat to be established inTromsø, 13 May 2011. See: http://www.northnorway.org/nyheter/846-arctic-council-secretariat-to-be-established-in-tromso29

For example: the 2002 regulation on oil tankers, the 2009 agreement on port statemeasures to prevent unregulated fishing, and the 2006 maritime labour convention.30 Wright, Thomas, 2012. The Outlaw of the Sea. Foreign Affairs, 7 August 2012.31 http://cfp-reformwatch.eu/2012/04/ministers-want-fewer-decisions-in-brussels-but-disagree-on-how-to-get-there/32 Kupchan, Charles and Clifford Kupchan, 1991. Concerts, Collective Security, and theFuture of Europe. International Security, 16, 1, pp. 118.33 Kupchan, Charles and Clifford Kupchan, 1991, p. 121; Jervis, Robert, 1985. FromBalance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation. World Politics, 38, 1,pp. 58-79; Elrod, Richard, 1976. The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System. World Politics, 28, 2, pp. 159-174; Haas, Ernst, 1955. Types of Collective Security:An Examination of Operational Concepts. The American Political Science Review, 49, 1, pp.40-62. 34 Department of the Navy, Department of the US Marines, the US Coast Guard, 2007. ACooperative Strategy for 21st Century Sea Power.35 National Research Council, 2008. Maritime Security Partnerships . Washington: NationalResearch Council, p. 5.36 Anti-piracy bid: South Korea joins India, Japan, China. Times of India, 13 June 2012;Bodeen, Christopher, 2012. China aligns with India, Japan on piracy patrols. AP, 3 July2012.37 Russian Warships to Get NATO Communications Equipment. Ria Novosti, 25 April2011.38 Discussion at a meeting of the Chiefs of the European Navies (CHENS), Ostend, April2012.39 The main issue here concerns the right to conduct innocent passage across a litoral

state’s EEZ. There are no provisions in the UNCLOS that support the US position that



such innocent passage also applies to naval intelligence vessels. Neither is it obviousaccording to the UNCLOS that the US can deny the maritime laws of littoral stateswhen navigating across their EEZ. Also contested is the US interpretation of straits forinternational navigation. The point here is not that the US is per definition wrong onthese issues, but that the UNCLOS just does not provide clear enough language for the

US to claim that it has right on its side.40 Those and other territorial disputes are marked on map 2: 1. Maritime jurisdiction inthe Straits of Gibraltar; 2. Alboran Sea dispute; 3. Gulf of Lion dispute; 4. Mammellonedispute; 5. Strait of Sicily Dispute; 6. Gulf of Gabes; 7. Adriatic Sea; 8. Aegeancontinental shelf dispute; 9. Turkey-Cyprus; 10. Gaza-Israel; 11. Cyprus-Egypt; 12.Serpents Island; 13. Halaib dispute; 14. Hanish Islands; 15. Eritrea-Djibouti; 16. Bab elMandeb: Yemen-Saudi Arabia; 17. Iran-Oman-UAE conflict over the Strait of Homuz;18. Bahrain-Quatar; 19. Bubiyan and Warbah Islands.

Documents

CroCrow d ed, connected, and contested Security and Peace in the Eurasian Sea and what it Means for Europewed, Connected, And Contested