Yikes! – The neighbourhood is going ballistic

Well after yesterday’s post relating to the sedate life of Odessa, it’s time to go ballistic.  No, I mean seriously to go  ballistic!

The neighbourhood is going ballistic.   The Black Sea neighbourhood that is.

Immediately to the west of Odessa is the EU and the majority of the NATO membership.  I can be in Romania in two or three hours by car.

Immediately south is Turkey, another NATO member, which is no more than 9 hours away by yacht.

Immediately to the east is of course Russia.  3 hours flying time to Moscow.

Immediately north is basket case Belarus.

It has long been planned for NATO to plonk radar and missile systems in the former Communist nations to provide a missile defence (allegedly) from Iran and….um….and….um……anyone else in North Africa and the Middle East.  They would of course (ahem) never have any use against Russia.

Quite obviously it can’t be done from Greece or Turkey because…….well because.  Actually to be fair, Turkey would host NATO radar as long as Israel doesn’t get to share the knowledge or facility and the Europeans would probably be happy with that as the whole missile defence thing is supposed to be about protecting the continent of Europe and not the continent of Europe and a tiny blob in Asia as well.

The US of course isn’t happy with that and would want to share information from facilities in Turkey with its ally which sits in the continent of Asia.  End result US radar station now in Israel despite Israel’s long standing precedent of never relying on anybody else on their soil.

Probably best that we don’t even go down this path for now and honestly it has little direct relevance to what I am going to say relating to Odessa and Ukraine and that ballistic neighbourhood.

The net result, by design or default of the NATO plans is a $1 trillion upgrade for the Russian military over the next 20 years.  Much of which is going towards offensive ballistic missiles (not nuclear I hasten to add).  Probably fair enough when Russia has no shortage of what are globally considered state-of-the art missile defence systems such as the S300 etc. – Why not go offensive if your defence is good?

Of course Europe is hardly defenceless  with or without the US radar or missile shield.  It does include the nations of France and the UK who both have the “ultimate deterrent” not to mention numerous nations with ballistic missile capability, even if not inter-continental ballistic missles.

The difference?  Simply the distance they can travel.  5000+ kilometers = ICBM, anything less are simply ballistic missiles.

Anyway, that accounts for ballistic missile proliferation West and East of Ukraine.  Now lets look immediately south to Turkey.

Indeed, unsurprisingly, Turkey despite being an already very significant military force in the Black Sea neighbourhood and in North Africa is also going ballistic.  By 2014 will have doubled the distance it’s ballistic missiles can cover from 1,300 kilometers to 2,500 kilometers.

You would probably say, so what?  If I lived so close to Iran I would do the same.  After all the distance may only be 1267 kilometers between Istanbul and Tehran but a ballistic capability of 1500 kilometers will not cover the entire geographical area that is Iran.

You would have a point, until you then realise that 2,500 kilometers would cover the cities of  Athens, Amman,  Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Geneva, Algiers, Jeddah, Cairo, Copenhagen, Kyiv, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Damascus, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Warsaw, Vienna, and  Zurich, just to name a few.

How terribly fortunate Turkey is a NATO member and most of those cities need not fear its ballistic wrath.  Certainly Kyiv, Geneva and Zurich being non-aligned, reasonably sane and non-interventionist should have little to worry about from either Russian, European or Turkish ballistic capabilities regardless of whether Turkey remained in NATO or not, Russia increases its ballistic capabilities or not, or indeed if the entire NATO structure collapsed in the future.

The problem with that picture is that there is no guarantee NATO will see another 50 years.  There is also no guarantee that Turkey will remain in NATO even if it did.  There is quite a lot of noise stating Turkey is not that enamored with NATO and it certainly isn’t overwhelmed by EU love and affection, whose members make up the majority of NATO nations.  There is an internal  movement advocating Turkey go it alone  and in my region there are few who can get close to matching it.

That could put a very different light on Turkish ballistic capabilities as well as any NATO shield and Russian moves to enhance its offensive capabilities.

I am used to standing on my balcony on a warm summers night overlooking the Black Sea and seeing fireworks to my left as the famous Arcadia summer nightlife gets into full flow here in Odessa.  I am not so accustomed to peering at the horizon towards Turkey for a pyrotechnic display.

Anyway, no matter how you move the chess pieces, and even if you don’t, there is no doubt that my neighbourhood is going ballistic – quite literally!