Monaghan: Russian Maritime Power
Date: July 28th, 2022 at 17:00 CET / 11:00 EDT Platform: Cisco Webex Events
Link to Video Recording
Abstract
The Russian leadership has framed a strategic agenda to turn Russia into one of the world’s ‘leading seafaring states.’ This agenda is set out in a series of broadly harmonized and well-resourced plans (by volume of financial resources alone, Russia is a naval power of global importance), and Moscow is making a sustained and concerted extensive effort to implement it.
The agenda indicates a global horizon in which Russia links its growing maritime role to what it sees as the rise of a “post-West” world and a Pacific 21st century, and also intensifying geo-economic competition. Its use of the navy in the war in Ukraine reflects Russian strategy in action, both assisting the ground assault and playing a wider role in the embargo on Ukrainian grain. The war emphasizes the importance of the sea to Moscow: the Russian economy depends on export of hydrocarbons and agricultural products by sea, and as Moscow seeks to diversify its transit routes and markets, especially to the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia-Pacific regions, the sea will become yet more important.
Obstacles and problems, such as slow shipbuilding capacity, remain, underlined by Western sanctions, but it is time to think of Russia not only as a “continental” or “land” power, but as a “seafaring state.”
Details
Andrew Monaghan will host a panel including Richard Connolly and Michael Peterson to discuss his recently published RSI-sponsored research on Russia's strategy at sea. It will examine Moscow's intent to turn Russia into one of the "world's leading seafaring nations” and consider the naval and economic implications of this.
Biographies
Andrew Monaghan
Title: George F. Kennan Fellow Affiliation: Kennan Institute; Senior Associate Fellow, RUSI; Non-Resident Associate Fellow, NATO Defense College
Andrew Monaghan is a George F. Kennan Fellow at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome.
Since 2006, Dr. Monaghan has served as the Director of the Russian Research Network Limited. He has held positions at Oxford University, NATO, and Chatham House. He has written extensively on Russian grand strategy, Russian domestic politics, and the Russian way in war. His latest book, Russian Grand Strategy in an Era of Global Power Competition, was recently published.
Richard Connolly
Title: Director Affiliation: Eastern Advisory Group; Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
Dr. Richard Connolly is the director of the consultancy Eastern Advisory Group and a senior honorary fellow at the Centre for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include economic policy, the development of the defense and energy industries, and the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.
Michael Peterson
Title: Director Affiliation: Russia Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
Michael B. Petersen is the director of the Russia Maritime Studies Institute and an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. His work focuses on Russian naval operations and strategy as well as net assessments of high-intensity maritime conflict.
He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is the author of Missiles for the Fatherland: Peenemuende, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile (Cambridge University Press).