The loss of the submarine Kursk in August 2000 exposed the fragile condition of Russia's navy at the start of the century. All 118 crew died. Ageing equipment, maintenance shortcomings and a rescue capability so degraded that Norway and Britain had to be asked for help combined to reveal how far the fleet had declined since the Soviet collapse. The disaster did not in itself trigger reform — that required the political will and the revenues that came later — but it became the most visible symbol of neglect and reinforced the case for reinvestment in maritime power that Putin had already begun to make.

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Strategy changes gradually before it changes suddenly. Geography, including oceans, does not change; the political weather, and responses to it, do.

The disappearance of the Soviet Union removed the organising threat around which NATO maritime planning had revolved for four decades. Russia in the 1990s faced economic collapse, institutional turmoil and a navy struggling to keep vessels seaworthy. Patrol rates fell sharply, maintenance backlogs accumulated, and Western attention shifted towards expeditionary operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Force structures contracted across the Alliance. Escort numbers fell, and maritime focus drifted away from the North Atlantic and the High North that feeds into it.

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