Hey Everybody Peter Zeihan, New Zealand, Tongariro Circuit, blah blah blah. This is a quick take. I just found out that, the scuttlebutt in the Middle East is that the Russians are going to relocate their fleet to Benghazi, Libya. Quick background. The Russians have been operating out of the ports of Banias and Tartus in, Syria for about a decade, and they’ve been using those as the primary supply points to participate in the Syrian civil War, where they are responsible for, among other things, carpet bombing civilians and probably killing, somewhere around 100,000 people in Aleppo specifically.
Anyway, the new government that is taking form is a group of militant groups that are opposed by the Russians. So the Russians are getting the hell out of Dodge because they’re not completely stupid. Anyway, I’m digging this Benghazi story. Let me explain. The fleet, the Russian fleet has to go somewhere. They can’t stay, in Syrian waters, for long.
And their options are limited. If they were to try to go through the Turkish straits to get to the black Sea, which would be for some of these ships, their home port, that is not allowed, because there is now a war on in the Black Sea. And under the treaty, of Montreal, that the Turks adjudicate and control.
No warships can come through without Turkish. Get go. And the Turks back. The militant groups that are kicking out the Syrian government and the Russians. So can’t go there. You can sail all the way around Europe, to where the Northern Fleet headquarters are in Murmansk and Archangel. But, the Russian ships don’t have much range, and it’s highly likely that most of the fleet wouldn’t be able to make it.
So they would have to dock to refuel and resupply and European ports, all of which are NATO and the, the likelihood of a NATO country just seizing the ships very high. So two humiliations that the Russians are trying to avoid. So that leaves Benghazi and Italy, where, again, the Russians are participating in the local civil war. Here’s the thing.
But Ghazi doesn’t have the necessary port facilities to do full resupply and certainly can’t do repairs. So the Russians would have to build that when they did it in Syria. It took several years and several billion dollars. So in the meantime, the Russian fleet would just sit in Libya, rusting while support facilities are built. And with the way things are going between NATO in Russia, the chances of there being a bit of a spark down the line pretty good, and the Russians will have repositioned their most capable naval assets within easy striking distance of the French Navy and the Italian Air Force.
So in order to avoid some significant embarrassment today, the Russians are arguably doing the most stupid thing that I could possibly come up with, and I really hope they do it.