Politics

The GIUK Gap is an abbreviation for the Greenland, Iceland, UK gap.

It’s a naval choke point, difficult for a navy to get past if there are defenders set against it.

What would likely happen in a conflict between Russia and the West?

In a war, the primary task of the Russian fleet in the Atlantic would be to stop the US fleet coming to the aid of Europe.

If the Russian navy wants to get into the Atlantic, it has two choices.

The Black Sea Route

One is to get the Black Sea fleet out of Black Sea, through the Bosphorus, and into the Mediterranean.

Russia has a naval base at Tartus in Syria, so if the Black Sea fleet could get there, it would be able to refuel for the trip along the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic. But that scenario is threatened by the fall of Asad.

Who knows who is going to be friends with whom in the new Syria.

But backing up a bit, Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea makes sense because it gives Russia a warm-water port free from ice in winter in the north of the Black Sea.

But supposing Russia negotiates the Bosphorus and gets out into the Mediterranean, it has to face the narrow strait at Gibralter which is covered by the British.

The Murmansk Run

The other option is for the Russian Northern fleet to come down from Murmansk, past Norway, and into the Atlantic.

That’s where the GIUK Gap comes in.

Submarines have got the obvious advantage of not being able to hide, and the deeper they can go the better chance they have of evading detection.

Look at this bathymetric map of the GIUK gap from the Department of Mathematics at Oslo University. It shows how comparatively shallow the gap is between Scotland and Iceland.

That lessens the chance of a Russian submarine being able to sneak past on its way to The Atlantic.

The Russian fleet could skirt around to the west of Iceland and run the gap between Iceland and Greenland. It is a longer journey but it takes the fleet further away from the British area of influence.

And while the gap is still not that deep, it is deeper than to the east of Iceland, if the Russian fleet were take this western route.

The US Navy has taken into account the possibility that Russia would choose to take the Greenland route.

Its 2017 Navy plan includes upgrading its port at Keflavík on the west coast of Iceland. That decision to upgrade the base came about as a result of board games that the US Navy and its allies carried out the year before.

Update 2024-26

So now Trump is upping the ante because if the USA has Greenland then it commands the entire route that Russia could take to get into the Atlantic.

Germany, France, and the UK have a lot invested in Iran – a lot of ongoing projects for the supply of major infrastructure.

You don’t have to wonder therefore about the opposition of Europe to the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement. First of all, it cannot have come as a great surprise bearing in mind what Trump said about Iran in his Riyadh speech.

The European deals were all done when the Iran agreement was in place – so nothing underhand there. But it does raise the question over the motives of the Europeans in wanting to preserve the Iran agreement when their financial stake is at risk.

By the same token, one can be pretty sure that Trump knew of the likely poor consequences for these Europeans if the USA withdrew from the Iran agreement and imposed sanctions that the Europeans had to follow – and that he knew that the US would benefit from the Europeans’ losses.

So a bit of financial thinking on both sides, probably.

Of course, with Iran’s declared intentions in the region, it makes one wonder why the Europeans invested so much in what was probably going to turn out badly in the end?

And it also makes one wonder why the Europeans didn’t see the writing on the wall with the Riyadh speech, and make preparations to pull back from heavy investment in Iran.

I don’t get it. I don’t get the attitude of those who are pleading with Trump to keep the Iran nuclear deal. They cannot have that short memories, can they? Back in 2017, when Trump was in Ryadh, he spoke at length about the newly cemented relationships, and about the country that was out in the cold.

I transcribed the whole of his speech in the post Trump in Ryadh, but here are a couple of paragraphs that should make his position clear:

Starving terrorists of their territory, of their funding, and the false allure of the craven ideology will be the basis for easily defeating them. But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three — safe harbour, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in that region. I am speaking, of course, of Iran.

From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds arms and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fuelled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this very room.

And yet commentators think if they plead then that he might want to continue the work of his predecessor, and keep the Iran nuclear deal?

I was imagining a scene. It’s the grandees of the Conservative party, mostly men and older. They are watching television in the privacy of their club or a private room at the House Of Commons.

They are beaming. I can hear exclamations of pleasure at what is happening on the screen.

It is an episode of Victoria – about Queen Victoria. She is telling her beastly German in-laws not to try to treat her like a cow, fit only to produce children. She tells them off and they step back, abashed. Oh, she is magnificent even in her youth. And now she is on board the deck of HMS Trafalgar and she is telling the crowds how the defeat in Afghanistan is bad, but the Britain has the strongest army and navy in the world and will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Ah, so like Brexit. Germany is that horrid EU, and Trafalgar is to be our victory in the new trade alliances that our new (as yet unfound) partners are hungry for.

The production of the TV programme is first rate – with a big budget.

A thought crossed my mind – that when the producers proposed Victoria, that someone in a corridor of power thought it would be just the ticket to prop up the failing morale of the populace.