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The HMS Defender Incident: Russia, the Crimea and the Insecurity of an Illegal Annexation

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HMS DEFENDER transits through the Suez Canal. Picture: LA(Phot) Dan Rosenbaum. Licensed under Creative Commons.

On the 23rd of June, when it was reported that Russian ships fired warning shots at HMS Defender, a British Type-45 destroyer several miles of the Crimean coast, the world was reminded of the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine as well as the continuous Russian occupation of Crimea since 2014. The presence of British naval forces in the Black Sea is not a new phenomenon, as NATO conducts annual exercises in the region, often hosted by Romania. While the incident saw no casualties, it has generated  novel Russian paranoia regarding its position in the Black Sea. The Kremlin has accused NATO of unprovoked aggression in the Black Sea and has pledged a strong response – although it is not clear what long-term steps Russia can take. It is important to remember that the Russian annexation of Crimea receives limited international recognition and that the peninsula is almost entirely surrounded by Ukrainian territory. Crimea is therefore vulnerable to the probes and prods of NATO forces who wish to test the Russian military. Incidents such as this expose the fact that despite the annexation being in its seventh year, Russia’s position in the region remains weaker than it appears. But is this an issue that the Kremlin can resolve? They cannot suddenly turn their illegal annexation into a legal one and NATO shows no signs of backing down in its competition with Russia in the Black Sea.

Historically, the Black Sea region has been a crucial part of Russian grand strategy, throughout the imperial, soviet and republican eras. It represents the possibility of a year-round warm water port at Sevastopol, and the ability for Russian maritime commerce and military assets to move through the Straits of the Dardanelles, into the Mediterranean. Since the reign of Catherine the Great, Russia has used numerous conflicts and crises to expand its control in the Black Sea and when this was lost during the breakup of the Soviet Union it was not long before the new Russian state sought an opportunity to regain a foothold. This was achieved in 2014 with minimal difficulty as the Russian military occupied the Crimean Peninsula, while Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine began and still continue to wage a civil war. The illegality of Russia’s annexation is straightforward: no state has the right to change the borders or territorial integrity of another, by force. Simply put, the right of conquest has no legal standing in the 21st century. Western states may have condemned the annexation and leveed sanctions against Russia, but they have taken no military steps to force Russia out of Crimea. Now that Russia once again holds a position in the Black Sea, they will not surrender it easily.

The HMS Defender incident is not an isolated occurrence. In recent days, the Dutch vessel HNLMS Evertsen had a close run in with several Russian fighter jets, described as a ‘mock attack’. This has all come as NATO commences Operation Sea Breeze 21, a series of joint naval exercises with Ukraine across the Black Sea. This year’s Sea Breeze exercises will also be the largest in the program’s history. They will involve five thousand personnel and thirty-two ships, with more than thirty countries participating. Naval incidents between Russia, NATO and its allies are nothing new as in April it was reported that Royal Navy vessels were deployed in the English Channel to escort a group of Russian ships as they passed through the Dover Strait. Individual NATO states such as the UK have also signed new naval agreements with Ukraine, providing training support as well as new defensive equipment. Rather than leave Ukraine to an uncertain and likely unpleasant fate, NATO is clearly seeking to bolster the state as a crucial partner against Russian expansionism. The new war of words between Russia and NATO over the incident with HMS Defender will likely to do nothing to deter the western allies from maintaining their position in Ukraine and the Black Sea.

The problem that Russia faces is that as its annexation of Crimea was illegal, it cannot claim jurisdiction over the region’s territorial waters, so NATO vessels can continue to move through these waters provided they have permission from Ukraine. This was the primary justification for NATO to conduct the Sea Breeze exercises so close to Russian territory. Russia has also responded to the NATO exercises with its own live fire drills in the Black Sea, these following on from the land-based exercises they conducted in Crimea in April. While it is highly unlikely that NATO or any individual power will try to reverse the Crimean annexation by force, it presents an opportunity for Russia’s opponents to demonstrate their military reach and their continued opposition to the Russian presence in Ukraine.

For all its shows of strength in Ukraine, Russian policy is flailing . The separatists they back in eastern Ukraine may still hold territory, but they have not achieved a resounding victory. The government in Kiev continues to enjoy western backing, which shows no signs of declining and while NATO views Russian Black Sea presence as vulnerable, they will continue to conduct naval exercises. Essentially, this issue is unresolvable for the Kremlin: Russian strategic aims prevent scaling back their position in Crimea and western policy, alongside international law, hampers their attempts to solidify their hold on the region. Under international law, Crimea is Ukrainian, therefore the waters surrounding Crimea are Ukrainian. It does not matter how much military hardware Russia dispatches to the Crimea, it will not change this legal reality. Ultimately, it will be this fact that Russia will continue to be unable to escape.

A second Crimean War is not on the horizon. The five hundred will not charge again into the valley of death and the Thin Red Line will not have to hold. However, the ongoing disputes over Crimea will continue to simmer, with incidents similar to HMS Defender bound to happen again. This is something that the Russians will likely be forced to tolerate, while still displaying its military strength, both in response to NATO actions and their domestic audience. The impasse between the two sides shows no signs of being resolved. Neither Ukraine nor NATO will use force to expel Russia from Crimea, but they’re sure to make the annexation as uncomfortable for the Kremlin as possible.

Ruling the Waves: What role will the Royal Navy play in Britain’s future?

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by Jack Cross

Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate HMS Northumberland
Photo Credit: Defence Images, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

If one were to take a cursory look at a historical narrative on British power over the past several hundred years, there is always one recurring theme: the role of the Royal Navy. From the defeat of the Spanish Armada to victory in the Falklands War, naval power has played a key role in defining British power. But now that Britain seeks to carve out a new role for itself in the post-Brexit landscape, what role should the navy play in this? Back in November 2020, Boris Johnson declared that the most clear cut route to strengthen British power was in ‘building more ships for the Royal Navy’. The effective deployment of naval resources can help promote a nation’s global presence and Britain already has significant naval commitments around the world. But while a reenergised Royal Navy may certainly score some nostalgia points with calls to Britannia and the waves she ruled, it is unclear if there a want or a need for another major naval power on the world stage. Nor is it clear whether British policymakers have a clear vision for exactly how expanding the Royal Navy can further the country’s foreign policy aims.

It is important to first look at the current state of the Royal Navy. Throughout the period since the end of the Second World War, British naval capacity has been in steady decline with fewer vessels in use today than in any time in the past fifty years. Since the end of the Falklands War, Britain’s last conflict with a significant naval theatre, the number of submarines, destroyers and frigates possessed by the Royal Navy has more than halved. However in more recent times, the Royal Navy has seen some significant additions to its surface fleet, including two new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, launched in 2017 and 2020 respectively. Ships such as these are particularly useful in helping to enhance Britain’s global presence as it allows for a combined deployment of sea and airpower. It is yet to be seen if the necessary aircraft and support vessels will also be built to protect these new carriers. Britain is also able to maintain a naval presence around the world, through its various naval bases such as those in Cyprus, Bahrain and its Overseas Territories. The new defence funding announced last year includes significant benefits for the navy, with new ship building projects and upgrades to existing vessels. But none of this is going to have an immediate practical impact on British diplomacy, given that large naval ships can take several years to build. Nevertheless, from this position, the future of the Royal Navy look promising; it has established itself as one of the most powerful navies in Europe, with a total of seventy seven operational vessels as of August 2020. This is in spite of the decision taken to suspend the Naval Reserve until April 2021, which had domestic rather than broader strategic implications, with an impact on border patrols in the Channel. By comparison, the French Navy only possesses twenty-two ships and while the Italian Navy has more vessels than the British, it has far fewer aircraft.

While the current trajectory of naval expansion is positive purely in terms of military capacity, it is unclear how the British government is going to use this as part of a wider strategy to further Britain’s foreign policy objectives. Already British naval forces take part in a wide range of NATO and other allied exercises, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. This also covers a wide range of objectives, from anti-piracy operations to the enforcement of arms embargos. Withdrawal from the EU prevents British participation in operations Atalanta (protecting commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean) and Sophia (enforcing the UN arms embargo against Libya), thus reducing the country’s global presence. The challenge here is for the new naval expansion to be put to use, rather than purely exist as a signal of British re-engagement. Existing government publications on Global Britain include aims for greater naval deployments, however it is unclear as to exactly where these will be. The British government’s announcement to seek membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership could potentially see a significant reorientation of British strategic interests, with naval applications as well. This year the Carrier Strike Group, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth will take part in exercises in the Pacific Region, as part of the Five Powers Defence Arrangements. These exercises will involve visits to key players in Asia, such as India, Japan and South Korea, highlighting the diplomatic nature of this venture, in demonstrating British security capabilities to foreign governments.  Only time will tell if this military participation will translate into political influence.

So, will any of this naval activity to have a serious impact on Britain’s diplomatic fortunes? Naval power on its own can no longer turn a nation into a great power, especially in the post-colonial era. In seeking to ensure power in the future it is natural to look to past success for inspiration however it is rarely so simple as to write the past into the present. Just as with much of the rhetoric around Global Britain, there is a risk that the government is trying to recreate a world which no longer exists. Historically, British naval power was focused on the protection of trade and empire. But now the seas are largely free of pirates, colonialism is at an end and so, what role is there for the Royal Navy? While it nonetheless provides an excellent tool to help Britain retain its global role, one shouldn’t get carried away and think that it can become a panacea to cure all of the country’s diplomatic ills. With poor relations with the EU and a US administration which is not positively predisposed towards the UK, the British government must take every opportunity to improve its international standing. A more vigorous naval policy could allow Britain to take on greater security commitments around the world, establishing a position as an indispensable ally.

Jack Cross is currently pursuing a masters in the History of War in the War Studies Department at King’s College London. His main research interests are diplomatic history, the role of great and middle powers within current international politics, as well as the politics of the Balkans and Middle East.

The Somaliland Campaign and the Origins of British Counterinsurgency Airstrikes

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By: James A. Fargher

HMS Ark Royal
HMS Ark Royal, the world’s first seaplane carrier. Source: Wikimedia

In response to an effective Islamist insurgency which threatened British interests in the Greater Middle East, the Cabinet sent a carrier-based strike force to commence an air campaign to disrupt and degrade the insurrection.[1] A radical Somali cleric, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, had inspired the uprising, which threatened to spread and to radicalise British subjects elsewhere. With a newly-formed special forces unit[2] and an RAF squadron, codenamed ‘Z-Force,’ the Admiralty dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Gulf of Aden to conduct surgical strikes against the militants. Displaying many parallels with the present day, the ensuing campaign fought in northern Somalia in 1920 marked the first time that carrier-based airpower was used to fight in an asymmetric war.

The ship was HMS Ark Royal, the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier,[3] and the bombers on board were Airco DH.9A single-engine biplanes which had recently served on the Western Front. The special forces unit was the Somaliland Camel Corps, which had been created in 1914, and now formed the ground component of the British government’s strategy to destroy the self-proclaimed Dervish State with simultaneous attacks from the land and from the air. Its plan pioneered the use of airpower in asymmetric warfare, and the RAF bombers were used successfully to locate enemy forces and to bombard them from the air. This innovation contributed to bringing a twenty-year insurgency to an end in three weeks, and persuaded the British government to use airpower in future imperial counterinsurgency campaigns, such as Iraq in 1921.

The Dervish Revolt

The uprising began in 1899, only twelve years after Britain had declared a protectorate over Somaliland, and would continue with varying degrees of intensity until 1920. Inspired by the Mahdist uprising in Sudan which had briefly established an Islamic empire in the 19th century before being crushed by Lord Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan gathered a band of followers and declared a jihad against the British government.[4] Nick-named the ‘Mad Mullah’ by the British, Hassan was a skilled leader, and his Dervish forces conducted raids largely unchecked throughout British Somaliland.[5] British infantry punitive expeditions struggled to find and to engage Dervish militants, who could withdraw to their fortified bases deep in the arid and rugged Somali interior. By 1914, the British administration had withdrawn to the protectorate’s capital in Berbera on the coast, leaving much of Somaliland in the hands of the insurgents.[6]

In the ensuing crisis of the Great War, the Dervish uprising in Somaliland was all but forgotten, and by the time the armistice was signed in 1918, the British public was in no mood for a protracted military campaign on the Empire’s fringes.[7] Nevertheless, the protectorate’s governor, Geoffrey Archer, was keen to use the armistice in Europe as an opportunity to finish the insurgency once and for all. In fact, his petition to the Colonial Office came at a propitious time for the infant Royal Air Force, which was then fighting for its existence as an independent service during a time of severe budget cuts and hostility from the Army and the Navy.[8] The Air Ministry presented a plan to the government to crush the insurgency from the air, and assured the Treasury that it could do so at a fraction of the cost of an Army-led operation.

The Campaign

After some wrangling with the War Office, in October 1919 the government agreed to the plan, and following initial preparations, HMS Ark Royal set sail from Malta to Berbera in December.[9] Royal Engineers had prepared an aerodrome in Berbera from which the bombers would operate, but Ark Royal stayed on in the harbour to act as a depot and repair ship for the aircraft. Archer, appointed to be Commander-in-Chief of the operation, devised a combined arms offensive, using the aircraft to locate and strafe Dervish formations whilst pre-positioned regular troops and friendly auxiliaries would interdict retreating forces and mop up any remaining resistance. Z-Force would also bomb the Dervish capital and forts to break enemy morale and to soften up positions before they were stormed by the Camel Corps’ mounted infantry.[10]  In this campaign, the aircraft would play a key role in locating enemy positions over a huge area of operations and in providing the 1920s equivalent of ‘shock and awe.’ The infantry, by contrast, were the means to establish control over the territory out of which Hassan and his forces operated.

On 19 January 1920, the bombers took off for their first attack mission. Although only one plane actually found the target, one of Hassan’s fortified compounds, it dropped eight 20 lbs bombs into the fort, wounding Hassan himself and killing one of his sisters and ten fighters.[11] Increasingly effective bombing missions continued regularly after this raid, hitting the fortified camps which Hassan had established across Somaliland and machine-gunning flocks of sheep and camels – the main source of food, transportation, and revenue for the group. In a concerted attack on the 27th, four planes bombarded one of the Dervishes’ main forts before it was stormed by waiting infantry.

These attacks forced Hassan to retreat south towards his fortress-capital of Taleh, deep in the Somali hinterland and close to the frontier with Italian Somaliland. Z-Force was able to identify the Dervish line of retreat, and on 4 February Taleh was bombed. Heavy bombs landed on the main gate and an incendiary bomb set the huts clustered around the outer walls ablaze.[12] Once the Camel Corps had advanced through the desert, the British launched a combined aerial-ground attack on Taleh on 9 February, capturing the city and large herds of camels, killing large numbers of Dervish militants.

The victory at Taleh drove Hassan into the Ogaden desert in Ethiopia, where he died several months later. The bombers returned to Ark Royal, and the Dervish insurgency collapsed. The use of aircraft was critical for the success of this campaign, as it allowed the British to locate and destroy Hassan’s forces and to cut off their access to revenue in what had proven to be a difficult environment.[13]

The significance of this campaign is that it represents the first time that carrier-based airpower was used in fighting a counterinsurgency operation. Moreover, it was launched from the world’s first aircraft carrier and it was the RAF’s first mission as an independent branch of the Armed Forces after the First World War. During a time of constrained military budgets, Sir Hugh Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff, effectively demonstrated that the RAF could be used as an imperial police force to patrol the huge, unguarded hinterlands of the Empire such as north-west India and territories in the Middle East.[14] This victory in Somaliland would preserve the RAF’s independence, and airpower go on to become a fixture in Britain’s counterinsurgency campaigns.

 

 

James A. Fargher is a doctoral candidate in the Laughton Naval History Unit in the Department of War Studies, specialising in British naval and Imperial history.

 

 

 

Notes:

[1] David E. Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919-1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 39.

[2] ‘News in Brief,’ Times, 12 Aug. 1913: 8, The Times Digital Archive. Web.

[3] Norman Polmar, Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events, vol. I: 1909-1945 (Herndon: Potomac Books, 2006), 15.

[4] Randal Gray, ‘Bombing the “Mad Mullah” – 1920,’ Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 125.4 (1980): 41.

[5] ‘Another Little War,’ Times, 17 Feb. 1920: 17, The Times Digital Archive. Web.

[6] Chaz Bowyer, RAF Operations 1918-38 (London: William Kimber, 1988), 56.

[7] Ibid.

[8] David Killingray, ‘A Swift Agent of Government: Air Power in British Colonial Africa,’ Journal of African History, 25.4 (1984): 432.

[9] ‘Mullah’s Overthrow,’ Times, 19 Feb. 1920: 13. The Times Digital Archive. Web.

[10] Gray, ‘Bombing the “Mad Mullah” – 1920,’ 43.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 45.

[13] ‘Somaliland Operations,’ Times, 20 Feb. 1920: 13. The Times Digital Archive. Web.

[14] Michael Paris, ‘Air Power and Imperial Defence 1880-1919’, Journal of Contemporary History 24.2 (1989): 209.