Strategy changes gradually before it changes suddenly. Geography, including oceans, does not change; the political weather, and responses to it, do.
The disappearance of the Soviet Union removed the organising threat around which NATO maritime planning had revolved. Russia in the 1990s faced economic collapse, institutional turmoil and a navy struggling to keep vessels seaworthy. Patrol rates fell sharply, maintenance backlogs accumulated, and Western attention shifted towards expeditionary operations elsewhere. Force structures contracted across the Alliance. Escort numbers fell, and maritime focus drifted away from the North Atlantic.
The arithmetic of presence became increasingly stark. Modern warships are far more capable than their predecessors, yet a warship can only be in one place at one time, however sophisticated its sensors or weapons. The operational canvas itself never shrank: the core waters of the Greenland-Iceland-UK corridor cover on the order of six hundred thousand square miles — an area larger than France and Germany combined — far beyond the reach of continuous physical presence by even a substantial escort fleet.
When Democratic Decline Comes Through the Post Room, Not the Barricades, Recognition and Reaction are Vital
The Geopolitical impact today of Lincoln's 1862 Template for Indian Dispossession
By: Dr Agostinho Paiva da Cunha
