Sea Control - Sea Control 295 - Russia's Caspian Flotilla with MIDN 1/C Benoit Gorgemans

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

Links1. "The Caspian Flotilla: Russia’s Offensive Reinvention," by MIDN 1/C Benoit Gorgemans, Proceedings, August 2021. 

Hey folks, Jared here. Today my guest is Midshipman First Class Benoit Gorgemans. We're going to be discussing the history and evolution of Russia's Caspian Sea Flotilla as well as his USNI blog article about that subject. This episode was edited and produced by Keegan Ingersoll. At SimSec, we believe victory in the maritime domain starts with great ideas communicated compellingly. Write, fight, win. Beginning with Giving Tuesday and going through December, we are holding our annual Write, Fight, Win holiday donation campaign

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wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Our guest today is midshipman first class Benoit Gorgemans, and we're going to discuss his August contribution to proceedings, the Caspian Flotilla, Russia's offensive reinvention. Benoit, welcome. Thanks for coming on. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about your background? Sir, thank you for having me. Benoit Gorgements. I'm from Boulder, Colorado, and I'm a first class

midshipman at the Naval Academy studying political science. And just always been interested in this kind of stuff. So really happy to be on your podcast. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. As a reminder, all opinions are our own and not representative of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. Let me start easy. How did you get interested in the Caspian Flotilla? So I think my primary interest in this kind of topic started with my year at CU Boulder prior to the Naval Academy. I was a political science major at CU Boulder and took a class on Russian politics, actually. And in this Russian politics class, we talked a bit about Russia's modernization efforts and their naval fleets, and mostly through the 21st century.

And I thought it was just fascinating looking through some of the recent news about the conflict in the Mediterranean to hear that the Caspian Fertilla had been involved in strikes on Syria. So at this point, I really started to look into the Caspian Fertilla and started to focus in on this kind of force that was in the backwater. I'd never heard of it before. And I thought, wow, it's pretty crazy that Russia has such a potent force sitting in their own territorial waters. So that's when I started to look into it more, to the point where I, you know, wanted to write a proceedings article about it, because I found it so interesting, and so unknown at the time. Yeah, it really seems like an odd place to assemble this amount of naval power. So what are

the flotilla's origins? Yeah, absolutely. So this force actually started as a squadron under Peter the Great, one of the great emperors of Russia in 1722. And at this point in the 18th century, it was mostly used as a way for Russia to essentially further their conflict against Persia on the south. So Persia being modern-day Iran, this is a method for them to expand southward and eastward as well. And essentially, it's the largest landlocked body of saltwater on earth. So essentially a large lake, but that acts as an ocean or a sea. So I think Russia really had a great potential here to make a fleet. And ever since that point, it's been a fleet command as well, along with the Black Sea Fleet in Russia. From Peter the Great onwards, it served kind of

as a small-scale coastal defense and search and rescue force. So certainly involved in large wars of the 18th century, but it kind of took a backseat until more recent times when it was rejuvenated under President Putin. I'll ask you to expand a little bit on that last question. You wrote that Russia started to transform the flotilla in 2011. What role had it had before that, and how has it changed since 2011? Yeah, so apart from the major conflicts that it was used under for Peter the Great in the 18th century and Russian expansion policies, it was essentially used just as a coastal defense and search and rescue force, and it was actually downsized quite a bit after the collapse of the USSR. So I found that very interesting that it was essentially used

here and there, and then it kind of dropped off the map when it comes to Russian defense politics. And then in 2011, there was a massive initiative from President Putin to rejuvenate the Russian Navy and to make it into a potent 21st century force. And this is really when the Caspian Flotilla starts to come into our purview and the fact that it becomes much more powerful. Why would Russia upgrade the strike capability so significantly? So I think, first of all, Russia kind of capitalized on the fact that they have the largest landlocked body of saltwater in its own territory. And this is a huge asset for it, because not only is the Caspian flotilla located within this massive, essentially, lake, but it's

also located at a critical juncture. So if you look directly to the west, you have the Black Sea. Further south is the Persian Gulf, and a bit southwest of the Caspian Sea is the Mediterranean. So I think essentially Russia decided to park a fleet here where they were totally protected in their own territorial waters, in their own territorial zone. And this would essentially give them a chance to weigh in on security affairs in these three regions, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean. And I think this gives Russia essentially a countermeasure to the U.S. 5th and 6th fleets, which also operate in the same area, and the fact that neither the U.S. nor NATO forces can really access this fleet. So essentially,

it's just parked back in the background, and it has the capability to weigh in with strikes and through also amphibious measures as well. And additionally, I think it's very interesting to see that Russia's upgraded a lot of the amphibious capabilities, which we'll talk about later, but I just find it fascinating that Russia has really decided to upgrade this force, which was a backwater in the past. It really makes you wonder about what Russia's goals are moving forward with this fleet. And also, I want to mention as well that I think a reason for Russia to upgrade here would be to potentially consolidate hegemony over their post-Soviet Central Asian nations. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan all have a coast on the Caspian Sea, and these

were all, you know, coincidentally, former Soviet republics. So, I think part of this might be Russia's way to essentially bully their fellow neighbors into submission, and also to keep them under their sphere of influence, as opposed to going towards NATO or more Western powers. And also we have Georgia and Armenia right next door, which have been involved in recent conflicts as well. So I think this is really a way for Russia to weigh in on affairs that are far beyond its doorstep. How has Russia increased the flotilla's amphibious capabilities, and why have they done that? So I think the first thing to look at here is the addition of the yugon class landing craft so this is the russian navy's newest version of landing craft they've

added to this fleet and in addition to that they've also added 32 amphibious armored personnel vehicles and i think truly that the reason for this is like we previously mentioned to i guess kind of keep in check um their their post-soviet nation neighbors in central asia and i think russia really wants to consolidate their position as the leader of central asian politics and kind of the the default power in this region so i think that this is kind of more of um more of an insurance policy in case that Russia would find it necessary potentially one day to conduct, I guess, a landing or to consolidate their control of this area. And I think truly this just demonstrates their ability to conduct landings anywhere on the shoreline. I don't

think we can foresee any major conflict happening in the area of the Caspian Sea among these Central Asian nations, but I think that it exists just as an insurance policy and just for Russia to kind of flex their muscles. So if I had to make a guess, that's probably what it would be for. And also, I think it's interesting to note that this fleet is also connected to the Black Sea through the Volgodon Canal. And this could essentially be a way to have some amphibious vehicles kind of stored in the background

in the case that Russia wanted to expand its invasion of Ukraine one day. And this would be an easy way for Russia to transport all these amphibious assets uncontested from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. So I think we should keep an eye on that for the future as well. I just have a follow-up question

about the scale of the amphibious fleet upgrade. You're talking about landings, but are they actually, I understand they bought new vehicles, but have they bought them in sufficient quantity to make a difference? So from where it appears, 32 armored personnel vehicles is quite a large number,

given that Russia does not really have a history of large amphibious landings the way that the U.S. Navy did in the Pacific campaign of World War II. So I think this is certainly a force that can make a difference in the area. And I think if we also consider the geographic size, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea,

which are both connected by the Volgodon Canal, are both very large bodies of water, but nowhere near as large as the Pacific, for example. So I think that 32 amphibious vehicles in this case and the rollout of the Diogon-class landing craft is certainly a move to be watched because this is not a huge area. So I think that these amphibious armored vehicles could really make a difference if there were to be a conflict one day. So I think Russia is certainly planning for this eventuality, if I had to guess. And then how is the Caspian flotilla able to affect operations

outside of Russia? And where has the flotilla been active recently? You've talked about some of these, we've covered them in other questions, but if you could kind of tie it all together here. Yeah, absolutely. So most recently, actually last week, the Caspian Flotilla was involved in a naval strike group exercise in which they fired their caliber NK cruise missiles. And in the first sentence of my article, I actually mentioned that these are the same missiles that were used to strike Syrian targets during the ongoing conflict back in 2015. So I think we see here a trend of Russia continuing to use their Caspian Flotilla as a methods to conduct strike operations. And this is very obvious given that it happened last

week, they actually used these targets towards practice coastal targets. So a very concerning update here that Russia is continuing to use this fleet as a strike operation. And also, as I mentioned previously, the Volga Don Canal provides access to the Black Sea essentially through the Volga River, which goes through most of South Central Russia. So I think that's also a very interesting use of this fleet. And I think in 2017 as well, the Caspian Flotilla was involved in a parade that had them going through, a parade and naval review actually, had them going through the Volgodon Canal and ending up in the Black Sea. And most recently as well, there were port calls in Baku from this Caspian flotilla. And also there was a 2017 naval parade in which the Caspian

flotilla was one of the main forces to be reviewed by the president of the Russian Federation. So I think we certainly see that the echelon of this force is certainly getting higher and higher for Russia. And I think the Russian Navy and fleet commands are finding more and more ways to utilize this force, as we can evidence through the Black Sea and through all these strike exercises and through the employment of actual kinetic force against targets in 2015. I don't know if you can speak to this or not, and if you can't, just wave off on the question. But how is the Caspian flotilla viewed within the Russian Navy from a prestige perspective? Yeah, I think I can take a stab at that one.

I think that it used to be a backwater, essentially, because as we mentioned, it was a coastal defense force and a search and rescue force basically until 2011. So I think it certainly wavered off for probably the last 50 or 60 years at least. And I think most recently it's become a much more coveted command. Additionally, I should mention that the fleet's headquarters actually moved 550 miles south, actually down the coast of the Caspian Sea to be closer to this Mediterranean and Middle Eastern focus point. So I think it's certainly becoming a bigger command.

And also, I know the Black Sea Fleet has been a very large command for Russia in the past as well, along with their Baltic Fleet. And I think that now we can see the Caspian Fleet becoming more prestigious as evidenced through all these recent operations. So I think it certainly used to be a bit of a backwater, but it's certainly gaining prestige and momentum right now, as we can see through its involvement as the top fleet, actually, to be reviewed at that naval review back in 2017. So I think it's certainly starting to become more important for the Russian Navy. Where was the headquarters located previously, if you don't mind? So previously it was located in Astrakhan.

It was moved southwards to Kaspisk, I believe is the correct pronunciation. So it was moved 550 miles southwards to be closer to this strike zone, essentially, where they're using these targets in Syria as cannon fodder. And then what's the concern for NATO with this force? So I think NATO should be very concerned about this because it challenges the integrity of the eastern Mediterranean. So previously, before the Caspian flotilla, there was not really another, you know, inaccessible naval force in this case that could launch strikes that could reach this region. So I think this definitely complicates both U.S. and NATO operations in the Middle East. It certainly is a thing that we should keep in consideration, you know, in our rearview mirror, knowing that there's a force right here that we cannot access that has tremendous strike capabilities. And I think it also threatens NATO promised invitation members.

So they're not currently part of NATO, but they've been promised an invitation. That's Ukraine and Georgia. Those are two very important U.S. and NATO allies in the fight against Russian aggression. And these two countries are located right next to the Caspian Sea, not with a shoreline, but certainly within striking distance and within potential amphibious assault region of the Caspian flotilla. And I think I just want to mention lastly as well that the Volga-Don Canal transit, meaning that the Caspian flotilla can go directly from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, certainly

poses a threat to our NATO partners in Romania and Bulgaria, both of which have a large Black Sea coastline. So I think certainly this is an issue that affects not only NATO, but also the U.S. in our fifth and sixth fleet. And certainly, everyone should be aware of this, but there's a tremendous strike force capability that occurs in an area that we cannot contest. And I think that just really struck me when I was first learning about this flotilla. It's just its force, its potency, and also the fact that we don't really have an answer for it. So I think that's a very good point to bring up.

Well, I know you're busy. I want to thank you for taking the time to join us today. It's Mitchum in first class, Benoit Gorgeman. So Benoit, where can we find you online? What are you working on next? Thank you, sir, for having me. I really appreciated it. And I think I'll continue to contribute to proceedings whenever I have time. And I'm definitely interested in continuing this conversation. So thank you so much for having me today. Thanks.

And to the listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 We'll be right back.