Russian Military Basing in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean: The Central Component to the Regional Foreign Policy

In the last eight years, Russia has sent troops into Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria to further its foreign policy. This thesis describes this policy and how regional military bases fit into them. Defending these bases and maintaining Russian control over them is the impetus for military action in Russian foreign policy governing the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. I contrast this understanding of why Russia has acted in these conflicts with three competing theories of Russian foreign policy and explain why they fail to explain all three of the conflicts.