The world is facing a global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Agricultural products from Russia and Ukraine are essential for global food security: Russia and Ukraine account for 13% and 8. 5% of global wheat exports, respectively, and sanctions opposing Russia, as well as Moscow’s naval blockade of Ukrainian ports, have taken these important steps. As a result, millions of people are at risk of acute food insecurity, particularly in emerging countries. The stakes are high: a food crisis of this magnitude can lead to catastrophic global famine, fuel political instability in countries that depend on cereals. imports, and send shock waves to the world economy.
The foreign network has military and diplomatic characteristics to mitigate this impending crisis, but they all have drawbacks. NATO can use its formidable navies and vast air force to escort Ukrainian grain ships. But a treaty known as the Montreux Convention limits the duration of force. they can enter the Black Sea, and Russia can simply oppose convoys with its own naval arsenal, maximum probably mines and submarines. Alternative approaches, such as third-party convoys or shipping grain from non-Ukrainian Black Sea ports, would be less provocative. however, he would still count on Russian acquiescence.
In short, there are no simple answers to this crisis. But as complicated as the possible options are, the West cannot simply forget about the problem. Eventually, if hunger spreads and leads to political instability, there will be increasing tension in the country. The West to act. The United States and its allies will have to have an imperfect plan if they want to avoid a global disaster that can spiral out of control.
One way to circumvent Russia’s naval blockade and lose Ukraine’s agricultural exports would be to send them overland. With the help of neighbouring countries such as Poland and Romania, Ukraine has already turned to roads and railways to ship grain. These shipping modes offer a main advantage: Russia does not have the ability to prohibit such movements. Although railway lines are, in theory, vulnerable to missile or aircraft attacks, such a ban is very difficult to unload for an extended period. As the Allies learned during World War II when they tried to disrupt the German and Japanese railways, the railways are relatively easy to repair: simply fill in the craters and place new tracks; therefore, the attacks will have to be continuous. Russia lacks the means to carry out this approach: the country has exhausted its arsenal of high-precision missiles mandatory for such an attack, and its air force does not venture deep enough into Ukrainian territory to hit the target. railways carrying grain to European ports.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainian railway formula does not have the capacity to compensate for the loss of maritime trade. Transporting Ukraine’s total food exports, estimated at 30 million tons of grain, would require one hundred shipments of cargo, to 300,000 railroad cars. Some calculations recommend that it would take 14 months to ship all the grain by rail, but only 4 months by sea. Given the scale of the business, a ground shipping technique is a useful stopgap measure, but it’s not a long-term solution for the food ahead. crisis.
NATO may simply seek to break Russia’s naval blockade by offering convoys of merchant ships bound for Ukrainian ports, which would provide the immediate food that global needs. the ability to attack all Western ships that interfere in the conflict. Russia’s Black Sea fleet recently includes five frigates, amphibious ships, dozens of coastal defense vessels and, most importantly, six new Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines. These submarines, the maximum complex in the Russian inventory, were built with complicated appeasement measures, incorporate complex sonar and are armed with torpedoes, cruise missiles and mines. Russia also has Crimea-based anti-ship missiles with levels of at least two hundred miles, but its recent abandonment of Snake Island opens up a lower-risk domain to the west.
Russia’s control over the Black Sea is not absolute: the loss of the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea missile cruiser, in April dealt a severe blow to Moscow’s ability in Ukrainian waters. a hand in attacks on Ukraine’s ground forces and infrastructure, it had 16 large anti-ship missiles that would have dominated naval fighting in the Black Sea had this happened. As global attention turns to Ukraine’s seaports, the Russian military will feel the loss of the Moskva vividly.
NATO, however, will be limited in its ability to loosen Russia’s grip on the Black Sea due to the Montreux Convention. The 1936 agreement regulates maritime traffic in the Turkish Strait that connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. Allows unrestricted access to merchant ships and free passage to Black Sea countries, but limits the length and number of warships that can transit the strait and the duration of deployments through countries that do not belong to the Black Sea. This limits the West’s ability to move forces into the region: countries outside the Black Sea are limited to a maximum weight of 30,000 tons, a total weight of 45,000 tons, and a maximum stay of 21 days. The conference also bans submarines from non-Black Sea countries, sidelining one of NATO’s wonderful naval forces. The United States is not a signatory to the Montreux Convention, so in theory those regulations do not apply to the US Navy. However, Washington stuck to the deal out of attention to the rule-based foreign order and out of respect for Turkey, another NATO member.
Ultimately, the use of the strait will feature Ankara, which could, in theory, circumvent regulations to facilitate a NATO naval reinforcement. But given Turkey’s impartial position in the conflict, its reluctance to compromise relations with Russia or the West, and because of its longstanding reluctance to undermine the convention, restrictions will most likely remain. At most, Turkey might be willing to interpret certain provisions flexibly, but such a concession would likely have a higher charge for the West, such as offering economic assistance, easing certain sanctions, or turning a blind eye to human rights violations.
NATO could simply fall within the limits set by the convention, allowing for some force-building. The restriction of forty-five thousand tons on ships of external powers would allow about five destroyers. A U. S. DDG-51-class destroyer, a complex multi-mission warship, would be worth about 9,000 tons; a British Type forty-five destroyer, also suitable for a wide variety of tasks, would constitute some 7,350 tons. Given the limit of 30,000 tons in the forces of a single country, the U. S. The US can send only 3 destroyers, and other countries such as Britain or France can send the other two. These five ships can provide a tough escort to merchant ships carrying Ukrainian grain despite their limited numbers.
NATO can also use its abundant air force. Assuming Romania and Bulgaria cooperate by offering bases and allowing NATO aircraft to fly over their territory, the NATO air force would dominate Russian surface forces and air forces in the Black Sea region and lend a hand to the submarine. war.
If NATO were to send convoys to Ukrainian ports, it could face a Russian attack. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated warnings to NATO not to interfere in the conflict, it is unlikely that he will allow a NATO convoy to break the Russian blockade. without taking any action. Russia would also have strategic merit in the sense that it would not want to ban all shipping movements. A attrition rate of the same 25% would likely be more than NATO and carriers would be willing to tolerate.
Russia would likely use naval mines and submarines to attack grain convoys, as those weapons are only effective but also secret and denied, alleviating the guilt attributed to firing first. Russia has already laid underwater mines near Ukrainian ports. to sweep them, but this would require a slow and careful search through small, vulnerable vessels. To further complicate matters, the fact that Ukraine has also mined its sea coast to protect itself against Russian forces; It would be difficult for Moscow to point the finger at Kyiv if a mine broke a grain ship.
The six Kilo-class submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet would pose the greatest risk to the convoys, given that they are silent and well-armed. They can simply attack with torpedoes, launch cruise missiles outside the effective diversity of escorts, or lay mines in the path of a convoy. Crimea’s land-based anti-ship missiles can fire at ships, and a major war would likely erupt when NATO attempted to withdraw Russian missile batteries. Other Russian forces are unlikely to participate substantially. Russia’s weak surface forces would not be up to even a limited NATO escort. They may only head to the chimney on convoy ships near the coast, but that would divulge them to Ukrainian anti-ship missiles and NATO air power. . Russia can also use its giant air forces, but they are fully involved in floor warfare and have not achieved smart effects so far.
If Russia decided to challenge the convoys, the world would likely figure out when the explosions rocked a shipment of grain. Russia would deny any involvement, saying the shipment hit a Ukrainian mine. focus, if you were looking for further escalation. Alternatively, a naval crusade could begin to clear the mines and defeat the Russian submarines. In this case, a naval fire war would ensue.
Such a war would become a series of convoy wars as NATO struggled to push cargo ships through the Russian blockade. There would be enough opportunities for such skirmishes given that a convoy sailing at a popular speed of 12 knots would take about a day to sail. from the port of Odessa to the strait. The final results of such a war would be doubtful as there is no fashionable precedent for naval confrontation between peer competitors. Unlike warfare in the air and on the ground, few naval engagements have taken a stand since the end of World War II. Most likely, NATO, with its tough ships and huge advantage in the air force, will win quickly, after a long series of convoy wars. But many NATO countries will not have the abdomen for a direct confrontation with the military. with Russia and all the dangers of escalation that this would inevitably entail, even if it could simply break Moscow’s blockade and alleviate the developing food crisis.
A less contentious option would be to use non-NATO countries to provide escorts and cargo ships. A country like Egypt, which relies heavily on imported grain, might be willing to take on the dangers that a convoy would entail. This technique obliques a Russian narrative of NATO aggression and would rely heavily on the humanitarian argument of fighting hunger. In the end, however, this is a diplomatic calculation, as those third countries probably do not have the military capability to fight Russia well.
Ukraine can also send cereals by rail to the Romanian port of Costanta, which is only three hundred kilometers from Odessa, and from there send them by sea to third parties. This would prevent any direct link with Ukraine and the war, thus leaving some distance for Russia if it sought to avoid a confrontation. However, Russia would possibly not be willing to abandon such a formula in the face of sanctions against its own exports.
USA. The U. S. navy may also adopt a direct technique by registering or changing the flag of merchant ships as U. S. vessels, so Russia would have to attack U. S. vessels to impose the blockade. There is a precedent for such a decision: The United States replaced the flag of Kuwaiti tankers. to provide U. S. naval cover for the Iran-Iraq war in 1987-1988 to ensure the continuous flow of oil. However, it is a risky strategy; Even in the tanker war, those famous tankers were subjected to sniper fire and mines, so they needed escorts, regardless of their redesignated nationality. Russia would probably not be deterred through this tactic either.
There are also diplomatic features that might be worth pursuing. Putin, for example, said Russia would allow shipments from Ukraine under certain conditions. interaction in foreign industry in exchange for Russia doing so. This tit-for-tat proposal has hardly gained popularity, as it would provide Russia with really extensive monetary resources and set a precedent for the lifting of sanctions. However, Western nations have been reluctant to threaten a military confrontation, and the global food scene will become increasingly dire. A diplomatic technique can simply get foreign help over time.
Countries that have Ukrainian and Russian cereals have enough materials to last a while, and their stocks are inflated thanks to short-term Western aid. There are no reports of famines. But in the longer term, the prestige quo will prove unsustainable. If the war continues, the shortage of materials will lead to shortages and hunger riots that can also lead to social and regime instability. The West will face increasing pressure to act. Hunger in the world may not be acute yet, but when it hits, it will hit hard. It is the duty of NATO and the West to put a plan in place before shortages turn into a crisis.