Naval Forces Europe-Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command Naples from 2017-2020, said that it was frustrating to see wavering allied presence in the Black Sea, “depending on what crisis or what tension is building up in any given (situation).” Alliance members Germany, Poland and Netherlands made intermittent Black Sea patrols from 2014 to 2021, the data show. Representation from a few other NATO countries has picked up in recent years but has been inconsistent. warships had not spent more than about 126 days in the sea annually since 2016 until last year, when tensions rose along the Ukrainian-Russian border. ship data with Navy press releases and news reports, finding rare variances of a day or two. Two years later, that number was about 58 days. ships spent about 210 collective days in the sea in 2014, a Stars and Stripes analysis of data from the Istanbul-based ship-watching website found. “If you’re not there one way or another, then the assumption is you don’t care about it.” “(With) the Black Sea specifically, so much of deterrence and dealing with other nations geopolitically has do with presence,” said Jim Townsend, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and a former Defense Department undersecretary for European and NATO policy. Navy patrols, military drills and port calls are critical in sending a deterrent signal to Russia, military and security experts say. The area could soon become a flashpoint again as Russian ships transit eastward through the Mediterranean Sea, while its forces on land surround Ukraine.
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