The Black Sea – Europe’s New Flashpoint

Pipelines criss-crossing the seabed, extraction platforms dotting the coastlines, U.S. missile defense cruisers and destroyers patrolling the surface and paying visits to ports of call, while the Russian Navy anchors at its Ukrainian rent-a-port at Sevastopol: As the decade unfolds, the Black Sea is about to become a busy place.

[via New York Times Ideas]