Strategic Culture and Geography: Russia’s Southern Seas after Crimea

Abstract

Geography plays an important role in strategic culture, by placing enduring objective constraints on military and defense policy and influencing the way that political and military elites view the world. Although Western attention has been focused on Russian activity in the Baltic region and Eastern Europe, Russian strategy has been more preoccupied with the geography of Russia’s southern border. An important role in this southern strategy is played by Russia’s three southern seas—the Caspian, Azov, and Black seas—as interconnected maritime platforms for Russia’s wider power projection.