Russia is a naval power, especially in its own huge backyard. From Declan Hayes at strategic-culture.org:
No matter what firepower NATO’s navies can bring to bear in Russia’s eastern backyard, they cannot prevail.
When Russia’s navy recalls both the Anglo-German naval arms race, which helped precipitate the Great War and the Great Game Tzarist Russia played in Asia against Britain, they must feel confident about the future.
Russian President Putin no doubt had those precedents in mind when he recently told Russia’s admirals that Russia’s already formidable navy would be expanded to protect her entire coastline and project power from there to wherever it is needed. Although the Norwegian, Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi, Bering, Okhotsk and Japan Seas add up to a lot of water, Russia, with the right tactics, is more than up to the job of protecting her coastlines and projecting power from them.
Not only would most of those seas be terrible vectors for any hostile power attacking Russia but NATO’s posturing towards North Korea and China has made the defensive job of the Russian navy infinitely easier. Instead of just concentrating on tweaking the tail of the Russian tiger, NATO got the brainwave of sending Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan to antagonize the entire Chinese navy. Although that is good news for NATO’s arms industry and for whoever else is in on Pelosi’s latest short trading Wall Street scam, it does indicate a major shift in the world’s strategic goalposts because-China, with Iran’s impressive navy, is now solidly and permanently in Russia’s camp. No more divide and conquer NATO games there.
