The first of three main challenges to US and European interests is Russia, whose military buildup amounts to a geographically broad “arc of steel,” Navy staff director Vice Adm. James Foggo said at a US Naval Institute event in Washington, DC.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Foggo said that Russia has introduced advanced air defense, cruise-missile systems and new platforms, including coastal mines, and more deployments in the maritime domain since the Cold War.
"The remilitarization of Russian security policy is evident by the construction of an arc of steel from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, starting from their new Arctic bases, to Leningrad in the Baltic and Crimea in the Black Sea,” Foggo told his audience on Wednesday.Foggo, a former submariner and until September the commander of the US Navy's 6th Fleet, based in Italy, added: "Russian maritime expansion in the North Atlantic and peninsulas of Europe is the most significant in 30 years. Russia is set to field six more submarines in the Black Sea, and submarine operations in the Mediterranean have increased."
Nevertheless, the US Navy must keep channels open with Russia in order to reduce the risk of maritime military accidents, the admiral asserted.
