KARADENİZ’DE GÜÇ PROJEKSİYONU VE BÖLGESEL GÜVENLİK DİNAMİKLERİ
POWER PROJECTION IN THE BLACK SEA AND REGIONAL DYNAMICS

Summary/Abstract: Throughout history, the Black Sea has been an area of sustained rivalry due to its strategic location and geoeconomic potential. With the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 and the Republic of Türkiye in 1923, the Black Sea came under the influence of two principal regional actors. The aim of this study is to analyze the changing security architecture of the Black Sea in the post–Cold War period within the context of power rivalry, regional dynamics, and the military power projection capabilities of the Black Sea littoral states. The main research question addresses which actors are capable of sustaining Black Sea security and at what level of capacity. The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits has functioned as a critical mechanism for maintaining regional balance during both peacetime and wartime. In the post–Cold War era, North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) increasing interest in the region, Bulgaria and Romania’s accession to NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007, as well as partnership policies toward Ukraine and Georgia, have significantly transformed the geopolitical balance in the Black Sea. In this context, Russia’s interventions in Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, and Ukraine in 2022 have turned the Black Sea into a theater of great power competition. Employing a qualitative research methodology, the study comparatively examines NATO and European Union perspectives alongside military capability data and national power elements of the Black Sea littoral states. The findings indicate that only Türkiye and Russia possess the capacity to sustain Black Sea security through their own national power instruments. This study is limited to analyses based on open-source military data, official statements, expert assessments, and statistical sources covering the period from 1991 to 2025. Its original contribution lies in presenting comparative military power assessments in statistical tables for the first time in the literature.

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