Publisher's Synopsis
The Black Sea region is a central locus of the competition between Russia and the West for the future of Europe. The region experienced two decades of simmering conflicts even before Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Russia has used military force against countries in the region four times since 2008. The Kremlin is seeking to establish a sphere of privileged influence over countries in the region and limit their integration into Euro-Atlantic structures while enhancing Russia's regime stability and improving military capabilities for homeland defense and wider power projection into the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Despite this instability and conflict, U.S. and European officials and analysts have not given nearly as much attention to the region's security challenges as they have to those in Northern Europe. In this report, the authors first assess how Russia is employing a variety of nonmilitary and mili
