The Seven Landlocked Countries That Have Navies

TL;DR

Seven landlocked countries maintain navies to protect oil infrastructure, inland waterways, trade routes, and territorial claims despite having no ocean access.

Key Points

• 1.Three Caspian Sea nations — Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan — inherited Soviet naval bases after the USSR dissolved in 1991. The Caspian never drains to the ocean, making all three landlocked; Kazakhstan now outnumbers Russia's Caspian flotilla with smaller shallow-water vessels as the sea shrinks over 2 feet per year.
• 2.Ethiopia disbanded its navy when Eritrea gained independence in the 1990s but is rebuilding it with Russian support. The motivation is practical: as of 2018, 95% of Ethiopia's imports and exports flow through a Djibouti port they partly own, plus they operate commercial ships in the Red Sea.
• 3.Paraguay's Armada Paraguaya is the most active river navy, with sole law enforcement jurisdiction over 5,000 miles of inland waterways. 80% of Paraguay's trade moves on these rivers, which also see significant drug smuggling and gang activity; the navy even operates a school ship home to six cats.
• 4.Laos maintains a small, underfunded navy responsible for security on its inland waterways, including 1,800 km of the Mekong River. According to the Australian Army, Laos's military as a whole is 'small, poorly funded, and ineffectively resourced,' with the navy being its smallest service.
• 5.Bolivia's navy is largely symbolic, kept alive to assert that the country still considers itself a seafaring nation after losing its Pacific coastline to Chile in 1879. They operate on Amazonian rivers and Lake Titicaca, fighting drug trafficking and delivering medical supplies, and once sent 50 sailors on a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti.