Russia vs Ukraine: Crimean Crisis

[Orionblamblam]

use them to enforce a blockade of the Black Sea.

And how exactly would you propose to do that?

A really long chain, strung across a series of ships across the straight. Lame, but effective until a Russian ship decides to actually attack a NATO installation.

 

[SOC]

A really long chain, strung across a series of ships across the straight. Lame, but effective until a Russian ship decides to actually attack a NATO installation.

Unnecessary. The approved procedure for blockading a force that's not attacking you is to sink old ships in the waterway!

 

[Orionblamblam]

Unnecessary. The approved procedure for blockading a force that's not attacking you is to sink old ships in the waterway!

Sadly, I believe the straight is too deep.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Britain warns West and 'isolated' Russia face new relationship

Britain warned Tuesday that the West and Russia faced a changed relationship in the coming years, as London suspended all bilateral military cooperation and halted arms exports to Russia.

Well, that's good.

 

[Triton]

A really long chain, strung across a series of ships across the straight. Lame, but effective until a Russian ship decides to actually attack a NATO installation.

Unnecessary. The approved procedure for blockading a force that's not attacking you is to sink old ships in the waterway!

Do we really want a war between NATO and CSTO to decide this issue?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Sadly, I believe the straight is too deep.

Turkey doesn't need to do any of this stuff to block the Bosporus Strait. It just says 'thou shall not pass' and if anyone tries drops bombs on them from a F-16 or deploys any other of many military systems.

 

[Hot Breath]

Sadly, I believe the straight is too deep.

Turkey doesn't need to do any of this stuff to block the Bosporus Strait. It just says 'thou shall not pass' and if anyone tries drops bombs on them from a F-16 or deploys any other of many military systems.

Why use something like bombs when all you need to do is string some naval mines across the entrance and cover them with some army artillery. Worked in 1915, it would still work today.

And just as in 1915, the key to forcing the blockade would be capturing the land on either side of the Bospherous. We all know how well that went the last time it was tried, now don't we?

 

[Orionblamblam]

The idea behind using a chain is that it is inert, passive, non-aggressive. If someone sends a ship through and the Turks or NATO bomb it, it can be claimed that the bombing was an act of aggression.

 

[Hot Breath]

It's all academic, anyway. The Montreux Convention guarantees access to the Russians. We wouldn't want to see Turkey, aided and abetted by the West breaking an international treaty of such long standing, I hope?

 

[Orionblamblam]

It's all academic, anyway. The Montreux Convention guarantees access to the Russians. We wouldn't want to see Turkey, aided and abetted by the West breaking an international treaty of such long standing, I hope?

According to Wiki:

Turkey was authorised to close the Straits to all foreign warships in wartime or when it was threatened by aggression

and...

In April 1982, the Convention was amended to allow Turkey to close the Straits at its discretion in peacetime as well as during wartime.

It's Wikipedia, so...

 

[Hot Breath]

You need a formal declaration of war. It isn't going to happen, no matter how much you want it.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Going nowhere. Locked.