Unprecedented Tension Following Biden-Putin Summit, How Will It End?

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The Biden-Putin Geneva summit - which came after a long tour carried out by the "old" US President in the Old Continent, containing a lot of making up in an attempt to correct Trump's confrontational era and an unprecedented Atlantic mobilization - had just ended. The serious messages that are the most expressive of the beginning of the confrontation began. Destroyers, nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers, belonging to NATO, Russia, and China, with the latter's humble capabilities in comparison to those of Russia and NATO.

It's right, this is not the first time that we witnessed naval and aerial movements for those strategic capabilities of the countries above, it also isn't the first time that we witness high traffic of military exercises, but for us to witness a sensitive movement of these capabilities, and for it to coincide in the triangle of strategic sea confrontation (Baltic Sea, Black Sea, South China Sea), and the level of the confrontational capabilities, it is something remarkable. So it calls for us to stop at it.

In The Baltic Sea

According to National Interest, "The Baltic Sea can be a crowded place. 145,000 square miles of sea is shared between Russia, Finland, and Sweden, as well as the three Baltic states, Poland, Germany, and Denmark – the latter of whom are all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  This can make for tense relations," and the magazine mentioned above considered, after a fleet of Russian bombers and fighters sent an alert to NATO in light of many countries of the alliance conducting frequent flights through international airspace in the middle of the Baltic Sea, that the issue can suggest an unconventional path.

This unconventional path can be concluded due to the increase in "testing the other parties response" operations within the bombers of the NATO countries and the concerned countries including their newest strategic bombers, in preparation for a serious confrontation, which stirred up tension in the sea. Although all NATO's flights are in international airspace, the Russians see that any air or sea movement in the Baltic Sea remains a sensitive military and strategic specificity that cannot be dealt with leniently or without caution and anticipation.

Between the importance of imposing influence in the Baltic Sea and extending to the North Sea and the waters of the northern Atlantic for each of Russia on the one hand and or the NATO countries and those which the aforementioned sea embraces their coasts, on the other hand, it is expected that we won't witness any complacency by any party from the aforementioned parties in terms of proliferation, readiness, and alertness.

In the South China Sea

National Interest continues to estimate the sensitivity of the situation in the South China Sea, saying, "This kind of possible scenario (China seeking to use surprise and rapid assault to seize territory and then quickly reinforce it with long-range fires to deter any potential response) is precisely why the US Navy continues to maintain a large, steady “presence” of forces in the Pacific, in part so it can respond quickly and appropriately in the event that China was to try to take over Taiwan or key areas of the South China Sea." The sea that China never fails to remind everyone, especially the Americans, that it will impose influence on the sea that is "historically named after it."

In a report on the conflict in that most sensitive maritime region in the world today, the mentioned magazine indicated that China is seeking to seize Taiwan at a pace that could be faster than the United States' ability to respond.

The rapid US response came through the USS Ronald Reagan sailing in the South China Sea as part of the US fleet's efforts to confirm the determination of the United States and its allies to continue to sail their ships freely in areas where international law allows sailing. It is not as China is trying to impose as a fait accompli. The free-sailing operations carried out by the US and its allies' warships also aim to confirm that these countries do not agree to China's declaration of sovereignty over the South China Sea.

With China's insistence on ending the "Taiwan renegade," and with the Americans and their allies' insistence on thwarting China's attempts to impose its sovereignty in the South China Sea and Taiwan, it is no longer ruled out that any military confrontation will occur between the United States and China in the South China Sea.

In the Black Sea

The Black Sea witnessed unprecedented tensions, which seem not to be nearing an end anytime soon or without repercussions whose shape or level are unclear. This comes after the Russian Ministry of Defense announced Wednesday that a warplane and two Russian patrol ships fired warning shots toward a British missile destroyer, Defender, which had entered Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea (practically close to Crimea).

While the Russian Ministry of Defense indicated in its statement that “the destroyer received a warning and did not respond to it,” which prompted a “border patrol boat” and a Su-24M aircraft to fire “warning shots,” adding that the British ship left Russian territorial waters after that. The UK government rejected Russia's account of the incident and denied that any warning shots had been fired.
The British authorities also said that they did not violate international law and that its sailing was legal in the territorial waters of Ukraine, not Russia.

While the basis of the dispute between NATO and Russia lies on determining the territorial waters of the latter, after it reclaimed Crimea, it considered that this would entail the expansion of its territorial waters in the northwest of the Black Sea, which the NATO countries do not recognize at all, as they consider that these the waters are under Ukrainian sovereignty.

With each party insisting on its vision of sovereignty over Crimea, it seems that this dispute is likely to develop. As a result, it has become not excluded that things will tumble towards a military maneuver by Moscow, not far from the one that resulted in the restoration of Crimea.

With this tripartite international turmoil (South China Sea, Baltic Sea, Black Sea), will the coincidence of this high-sensitivity clash, and in these vital areas, which are considered the most likely to host any expected strategic confrontation between the mentioned parties (Russia, China, and NATO), with the aim of raising the ceiling and the expansion of the level and location of the clash, in order to avoid confrontation and open all the cards of the clash in public, or with the aim of choosing each party’s weakest spot and pounce on it and seize it to win and achieve hegemony and influence?