As I’m sure everyone, including those buried at airports trying to get home or somewhere for Thanksgiving now know, Russian and Turkish pilots played chicken yesterday and the Russian’s lost. After several previous Russian aerial incursions, and repeated warnings to clear Turkish airspace, the Turks decided to lay down a marker. And if the Turks were not members of NATO and Russia wasn’t the owner of the two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons on the planet, this would be a problem, but it would not necessarily be a crisis. In this case, however, Turkey’s NATO membership and Putin’s revanchism have created a potentially more dangerous situation.
Perhaps the biggest immediate concern is that Erdogan, in pursuit of his attempts to be the regional hegemon, decides to make this a NATO issue by invoking Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Article 5 is the portion of the treaty that deals with collective defense. In short an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all of them (the link is to NATO’s site and provides a complete description and explanation). There was an emergency NATO meeting earlier today, but my professional guesstimate is that most of the other NATO members are trying to talk sense to the Turkish representatives. There are several reasons for this, not least among them is that Turkey, specifically Erdogan and his government, have been unreliable in regards to the Syrian Civil War. Moreover, Erdogan has engaged in a number of concerning actions domestically. What appeared to start out as necessary constitutional reforms, done in the right way through the Turkish political system, quickly turned into something much more worrisome: that Erdogan is slowly seeking to try in Turkey what Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tried to do quickly in Egypt.* Turkey has been a historically important and supportive ally of the US. Under Erdogan, however, they seem to have become less so.**
Putin, and what Putin will do, is also of concern. One of the hallmarks of Putinism (h/t: Stiftung Leo Strauss***), which is itself rooted in Dugin’s philosophy/ideology (h/t: Stiftung Leo Strauss), is revanchism. Putin’s understanding of the world, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, is that the United States, as well as NATO controlled by the US and EU, has taken advantage of Russia. From Putin’s point of view a weak/weakened Russia emerged from the chaos surrounding the end of Gorbachev’s premiership and was exploited by the US and the EU. NATO expansion into Russia’s historic sphere of influence and near abroad is simply further evidence of how the US and EU abused their power at Russia’s expense. Now that Russia has grown more economically powerful, largely because of the outsize profits realized in the petroleum markets beginning in 2008, Putin has the ability to do something about this perceived abuse. The war with Georgia in 2008 was one foray. Seizing Crimea and supporting Russian ethnic/Russian linguistic separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 was another. And having Russian jets flirt with incursions into US and other NATO members airspace is just another example of Putin trying to make his point: Russia is strong again, with a strong leader, and will not simply be pushed around. And this is all before we get into the potential links between Putin and Russian organized crime***.
The real problem we are facing though is that neither Erdogan on his own, nor Putin really have the ability to make this a bigger issue. Erdogan can’t take Turkey into an actual fight against Russia. Putin’s limited assets in the Levant, as well as Turkey’s NATO membership and that pesky Article 5, potentially constrain his actions. Or we should hope they constrain his actions, while recognizing that hope is not a strategy. So what happens? As was the case with Russia’s taking of the Ukraine, I do not think there is anyone in the Obama Administration, or in the EU leadership, that would risk an interstate war with Russia over this. The reason, again, is that if that escalates we’re talking about war between the two largest nuclear powers. I would expect that cooler heads will prevail in the NATO meetings. Moreover, I estimate that when President Hollande goes to Moscow, which is on his list of stops after he leaves the US to line up international support against ISIS, that he will attempt to draw the Russians into whatever it is he is actually proposing to/discussing with his other allies. As I’ve written here before: states do not have friends, they have interests. In Syria, Russia’s interests in defeating ISIS overlap with ours and that of our EU and NATO partners, though perhaps not Erdogan’s.
I ultimately expect that cooler heads will prevail here. Finally, this is another real world example of why we do NOT want to create a no fly zone over Syria and a great argument for creating a multi-national deconfliction cell to prevent these types of things from happening again. The key to managing and mitigating the Syrian Civil War and the sectarian conflict that it reenflamed in Iraq, is containment. Deconfliction of operations is an appropriate step towards effective containment as it prevents events from spiraling out of control into related, tangential crises that have all too much chance of getting out of hand.
* Full disclosure to mark my belief’s to market: When Erdogan began his reforms I was one of the folks who believed he was making necessary constitutional adjustments and doing so in the correct manner through the existing and approved political system. Had he stopped there, not only would I and other informed observers been correct, but it would have been to Turkey’s benefit. However, he did not stop there and began to reposition Turkey against both Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional hegemony and his party and their politics domestically in a more authoritarian manner.
** Fuller disclosure: I supervised a Turkish armor officer in 2010-2011 and last year wrote a letter of recommendation for him for graduate school. He is an excellent officer, what we in the US would call and officer and a gentleman, and a credit to both the Turkish military and to the Profession of Arms.
*** I highly recommend The Stiftung Leo Strauss for analysis on Russia and Putin, as well as other issues both foreign and domestic.
**** I highly recommend Dawisha’s book, I’m about a 1/3 of the way through.
nfh
‘0 comments’ ? How can that be ? Not even some random snark ? I rarely comment here myself, but don’t recall a time in these many years a post didn’t get some kind of response from the community. Feel I must be missing something.
Richard Mayhew
@nfh: Adam is writing in the same realm I typically write in — specialized knowledge written for an educated, interested but fundamentally lay audience…, it usually is hard to snark on that.
henqiguai
@Richard Mayhew(#2):
Dude, do you *really* want to throw that sort of chum into the Balloon-Juice waters???
Adam L Silverman
@nfh: @Richard Mayhew: @henqiguai: I’m thinking it might have to do with the fact that I set it to post, or tried to, for 0600 this morning, but it had yesterday’s date. On my laptop and iPad it didn’t even show up. So I just changed it to post immediately and now it is here.
Paul in KY
Thought I saw this same post earlier. Excellent info, Adam. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
Adam L Silverman
@Richard Mayhew: Richard, did you get my email reply last week with the follow on question?
Richard Mayhew
@henqiguai: good point,
I retract my previous statements.
Richard Mayhew
@Adam L Silverman: let me look, I don’t remember seeing it.
Adam L Silverman
@Paul in KY: Again, I screwed something up in setting it to post. i wrote it after I did the pie post last night, but didn’t want to bigfoot myself. So I’m not sure it actually was showing up on the site for everyone as I, apparently, set it to post at 6 AM on 24 November upon completing its drafting at 11:45 PM on 24 November… If its showing up as a double for others, I apologize. This one isn’t on Tommy or Alain – it was operator headspace timing error on my part.
Adam L Silverman
@Richard Mayhew: I just resent it in a fresh email so you don’t have to go looking. Thanks!
Omnes Omnibus
@nfh: Since, for me, this post first appeared about six minutes ago, the lack of comments isn’t shocking. Looking at timestamps, it may have been posted and pulled or the site may just have gone weird again.
Ruviana
I’ve paged the Dawisha book from my library. I don’t know what Adam might think of it but I really liked Masha Gessen’s book Man without a Face on Putin. I’ve been watching all this stuff playing out and also Putin jerking around the Ukraine.
Steeplejack
@henqiguai:
Mmm, Levantine chicken . . . Wait, what?
Gin & Tonic
As was the case with Russia’s taking of the Ukraine
Couple of nits: Russia took a small portion of Ukraine; and Ukrainians who are conversant in English really do not like the definite article in there (the Ukraine.)
Also, I think it is important to point out that Russia was not just “supporting” the separatists of the DNR/LNR, they provided materiel and troops. There are numerous documented cases of Russian military officers and men operating (and being captured and sometimes killed) inside Ukrainian borders.
benw
@Steeplejack: forget the chicken, the Turkeys are really pushing back against Thanksgiving this year if they’re shooting down fighters! Obama better pardon all of those suckers, not just two! Wait, what?
gratuitous
I’m optimistic that this will not flame into a larger conflict as well, but what if Ertogan invokes Article 5? Does Turkey get to call the shots of any joint NATO operations, or do NATO officials decide how to proceed? If Turkey calls on the other NATO countries to join it in its defense, and NATO then takes over the show, I think it’s less likely that Ertogan calls on NATO.
Omnes Omnibus
Odds are that the Russian plane’s incursion into Turkish airspace and the Turks shooting it down gets treated as a “There’s always some dumb fuck who doesn’t get the word” moment rather than a couple of provocations. It is in no one’s best interest to ratchet up tensions in the region.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
“Levantine chicken”
Olives, tomatoes, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, oregano, olive oil, splash of lemon juice. Delicious.
shell
Aargh, Karl Rove on NPR right now. (Got a book to shill) Getting all sanctimonious about someone questioning rampant voter ID laws. He feels vaguely insulted that anyone SHOULD question it. ‘We must doe everything we can to protect it… ” And of course the old saw “You can’t cash a check in t his country without ID blah, blah..” How about citing the actual non-existence of voter fraud in this country, Rove ?
dedc79
Great post. No surprise here, but Russia was already incredibly unpopular in the middle east (64% unfavorable in Turkey) when Pew released this survey earlier in the year. Globally, the only countries surveyed where Russia was viewed favorably by over half the country were China (just barely), Ghana and Vietnam.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruviana: Haven’t gotten to that one yet.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I’m not sure what you thought I meant by support, but I meant providing logistics, personnel, etc. Not just egging them on.
And good catch on the the issue. That one’s on me. I know better. Usually I make it and catch it on read through. Last night, not so much…
Adam L Silverman
@gratuitous: Turkey does not get to call the shots NATO is, technically, already on mobilization under Article 5 in regards to the Syrian Civil War, though I can’t recall who made the initial invocation. NATO has a proper set of command and control structures and protocols already worked out.
Felonius Monk
Doesn’t the NATO treaty have some kind of a circuit breaker built into it so as to circumvent a member nation from provoking a conflict?
rikyrah
american tribalism: road to rwanda redux
By zizi2 5 Comments
by @zizii2
I have been spooked these last 10 days by the insanity that erupted here in the US since the Paris terrorist attacks. I wanted to give words to my thoughts. But I froze. Then I rediscovered this piece I began writing in April 2013, but had abandoned for being too alarmist! If only I knew….
Here is the piece completed with a few edits…
****
rwanda: a haunting lesson
April 6 marked the (21st) anniversary of the launch of the genocidal nightmare in the central African country of Rwanda that ended 100 days later with 800,000 people dead, and a nation scarred deeply. That was 11.4% of the total population of 7 million. Nearly three-quarters of those massacred were Tutsis who comprised 14% of the entire population.
The word “anniversary” seems inappropriate because although it is technically a neutral term it still invokes positive associations and anticipation. No one should anticipate a genocide nor look forward to marking milestones in its aftermath. Yet mark, we must. The lessons are not simply framed in dog-eared history tomes or award winning films about a bygone tragedy. The lessons are here. With us. Today.
****
In societies wracked by mass economic, social and political faultlines the signs are always there for a Rwanda Redux, or a Srebrenica. Hate Radio. Divide and conquer. Nihilism. Opportunistic politicians and cultural loudmouths. Group resentment. Grievance. Silence and apathy from the majority population. Now, all of these do not a genocide trigger. But they exist to be manipulated if conditions ripen.
“The Rwandan genocide resulted from the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few power holders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would reinstate the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its authority to carry out the massacre. (UnitedHumanRights.Org)”
****
The images many of us remember from Rwanda in 1994 are the International News montages of decapitated bodies loaded onto construction trucks, machete-wielding “tribesmen” chanting death to their enemies, in-between commentary from western Reporters. To our glazed eyes, all we heard were “Hutu”, “Tutsi” “tribal conflict”, “United Nations”, “evacuating Westerners”.
What we never fathomed was how eerily familiar the political soundtrack in the run up to that horror would become for us here in the US two decades later. Sure, the United States and 1994 Rwanda are structurally and culturally different. We like to think the former possesses more resilient political institutions and robust public spaces for exercising dissenting opinion, than the latter. The point here is not whether the fear mongering being spewed by politicians and radio shock jocks will lead to Americans hacking each other down with machetes. It is about the capacity for unfiltered HATE to saturate the public sphere without consequence for the peddlers, to the point of being rewarded with political ascendancy. We naively thought those things belonged elsewhere or in history books.
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/11/25/american-tribalism-road-to-rwanda-redux/
Adam L Silverman
@shell: Here’s what the Federal Judge who did the initial ruling in favor of Indiana’s voter ID Law. Let us just say he feels hoodwinked, has buyer’s remorse, and is NOT amused:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-why-voter-id-laws-are-evil-20141013-column.html
dedc79
The latest:
Is that last line necessarily true?
schrodinger's cat
@dedc79: Russia is pretty favorably viewed in India too (43% favorable vs 17% unfavorable). Not surprising considering Russia had India’s back in 1971 while the United States was in favor of the great defender of democracy, Pakistan.
debbie
All you need to know about Putin is that he used the word “impudent” against Turkey. Oh my.
Amir Khalid
@nfh:
We the Juicitariat don’t snark on posts like this one, or Richard’s post just downstairs. They are beyond our feeble ken. For now, we just gaze upon them with uncomprehending but reverent awe. But in the fullness of time, we may come to place an offering or two before them. Baby steps, you know?
I can understand Turkey’s regional ambitions. Only a century ago it had a glorious empire, the jewel of the Muslim world; whereas Persia’s empire belongs to ancient history, and the House of Saud is a Johnny-come-lately bunch of tribal yokels. I bet there’s a lot of Restoring Our Rightful Place in Erdogan’s strategic thinking.
ericblair
@gratuitous: If Turkey invokes article 5, then the rest of the NATO nations have to offer assistance, but it’s deliberately unspecified what level (theoretically, send them a container of blankets and you’re good). Operational control goes to SHAPE, which begins executing pre-approved contingency plans. Turkey does not control the response.
NATO was at pains yesterday to call the meeting an informational one, so Turkey was not asking for assistance. Nothing in Syria is currently a NATO op.
MazeDancer
NY Times has an interesting article posted from their Magazine about a Kurdish “secular utopia” that’s Straight Outta Burlington via a late revolutionary named Bookchin and the “utopia” founder named Ocalan whom he inspired.
Do not know how or if the Kurds in the NY Times article connect to the Kurds in the OP-linked New Yorker article, or Kurds anywhere, but from the Iraq War onward, the Kurds keep popping up as semi-reliable at least in the warrior department. And the people in the NY Times article sound like they’re pro-equality and pro-civilization. What’s wrong with backing them?
Further displaying my ignorance, while reading the article, couldn’t help but ask again: Why don’t the Kurds get a state of their own? That was part of Mr. Biden’s 3-state theory in Iraq, wasn’t it? No doubt there are all kinds of Kurds. But the NY Times made an effort in this piece to make this group likable enough.
Adam must know about why the Kurds are not deemed back-able as well as why they don’t get the same “they deserve their own state” support as other people. Nobody wants to give up conquered territory hardly seems reason enough.
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: Yes and no. Here’s some explanations:
http://www.rferl.org/content/explainer-nato-articles-4-and-5/24626653.html
Basically, they can go the Article 4 route:
http://www.dw.com/en/how-natos-article-5-could-work-in-the-case-of-turkey/a-17983762
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49187.htm
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Do you have a link to his remarks? I’d like to know what the word was in Russian.
Adam L Silverman
@dedc79: Technically yes. Article 5; NATO Treaty, explicitly states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members. However, it, and a members invoking Article 5 to formally receive NATO support, does not necessarily mean every NATO member will provide it. 9-11 was considered to be an Article 5 attack on NATO and the US did invoke Article 5 for a mutual NATO response. Not every NATO member actually did respond with troops or other personnel in the US responses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Read The Blood Telegram. Another excellent researched example of why Secretary Kissinger is a war criminal.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Its partially that, partially – hey, there’s a lot of ethnic Turks/Turkmen living in a lot of countries to my SW, SE, and East, we should be there protector and we are going to be regional Sunni Islamic power because we’ve got the most professional military and my partner is the only legitimately elected Islamic party.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I heard it as a translator’s overvoicing of Putin’s speech. Here’s a transcript, but you can probably find a recording somewhere on the Internet. The reference is about 2/3 down and is part of Putin’s implying that Turkey is in league with ISIS:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189428.html
Mandalay
I can certainly see the case that Russia was playing chicken, but not Turkey. Turkey was probably thrilled to be given a golden opportunity to attack those Russian jets.
I wonder WTF Putin was thinking by doing this. The downside was/is enormous, and the upside of getting away with it would have been relatively trivial.
sharl
@Amir Khalid:
There is photographic evidence that would seem to support your hypothesis.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I will. 1971 was on my mind because I was just checking the Twitter feed of Nikhil Wagle, a journalist from Mumbai who is now in the cross-hairs of Modi bhakts (devotees) and who was equally critical of Mrs Gandhi and her son’s administration. Mr. Wagle is a credit to his profession.
ETA: Nov 19 was Indira Gandhi’s anniversary.
Punchy
I think Turkey baked in this response. They seemed to be russian the encounter, didn’t give the Ruskies enough time to beet it out of there, then stuffed a missle down their exhaust pie-pe. The pie-lots ejecting meant this wasn’t the complete mash-up it could have bean, and the Stove-iets complaining seems like the kettle calling the oven pan black, but what a mess. It’s all gravy if the Russian leader decides he’s Putin this down as a mis-steak, but likely he wont. That’s not how he casseroles.
At least the pundits were ready to discuss problems with turkey all week, so this development didn’t faze them.
Adam L Silverman
@MazeDancer: Ocalan’s PKK was/is the major Kurdish thorn in the side of the Turks for decades. There are many factions and a lot of them are kinship based. On the Iraqi side the two big Kurdish powers are the Barzanis and the Talibanis. They made a decision to divide responsibility back in 2003-2004. Barzani became the Iraqi Kurdistan governor and Talibani would handle the representation on the national/government of Iraq level. The former’s peshmerga stayed in Iraqi Kurdistan and provide the bulk of the security forces there. The latter were brought into the Iraqi Army and make up one of the two big ethnic components of that Iraqi Army – the other was the Shi’a Arab exiles of the Badr Corps, which is the military wing of the al Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Council for Iraq (ISCI/SIIC). The latter was also stood up, trained, and supported in exile in Iraq by the Iranian Quds Force.
The Kurds are very good fighters, but… They are divided. By kinship and by geography. And they don’t necessarily get along between the different groups. Barzani and Talibani had been at odds for years and only worked out their differences to work together when they saw the opportunity for an independent Kurdistan in Northern Iraq as a result of the US invasion in 2003. I fully expect that should the Kurds come out of the Syrian mess with a significant amount of additional continuous Kurdish lands to create a homeland, that they will come to blows internally over who is in charge.
As for why the Biden plan didn’t work or wasn’t tried. The simple reason is that the official US policy is to keep Iraq as one, multi-ethnic, multi-Sectarian country. While the Iraqi constitution both devolves a lot of power to Iraqi Kurdistan, and has a provision to allow it to become free and independent, that would also allow the Shi’a Arab Iraqis of southern Iraq to break Basra free. The concern is that if Iraqi Kurdistan goes, then the country breaks into three. Not three semiautonomous regions under national control, but Kurdistan in the north, a Sunni Arab state in the middle, and a Shi’a Arab state in the South. The concern for the latter is that it would be scarfed up by Iran – if not formally, then at least as a catspaw.
The reason the US doesn’t talk much about a lot of this is because of relations with Turkey.
For a really good book on the Kurds, I highly recommend Quill Lawrence’s. I know Quill and he did a great job. http://www.amazon.com/Quil-Lawrence-Invisible-Statehood-Shaping/dp/B008UYU7RO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448469042&sr=1-1&keywords=quil+lawrence
JPL
@Amir Khalid:
True..
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Amir Khalid: I get that vibe from Erdogan as well. He seems to have too much of the “true believer” vibe for my tastes. I think he’s dangerous to Turkey and the region unless he changes course.
I don’t have anywhere close to the breath of knowledge of you or Adam when it comes to these issues, but I get nervous about leaders deciding that election results were wrong (as Erdogan did after the HDP gained seats in the June election).
I think there’s little doubt that Putin has been testing NATO over Ukraine, the sanctions, and other issues, and he also wants to maintain Russia’s ports in Syria. And Erdogan is much more interested in beating up on the Kurds than fighting Daesh or even Assad. I think Obama and NATO leaders know all these things and won’t let Erdogan drag us into a war with Russia. But I don’t see a quick, clean end to the various conflicts.
Cheers,
Scott.
max
After several previous Russian aerial incursions, and repeated warnings to clear Turkish airspace, the Turks decided to lay down a marker.
That’s close to, but not quite how I read it. It appears to me from reading both radar maps, that the Turks were effectively extending their airspace over Syrian territory, and were quite possibly prepared in advance to shoot down a Russian plane.
The presumption yesterday was that this was another intentional Russian violation of actual Turkish airspace, but there was flurry of those at the beginning of the Russian ramp up in Syria and then it stopped, as something appeared to have been worked out, quite possibly by the Russians adjusting their flight patterns to an extent. In any event, if the Russians were trying to deliberately violate actual Turkish airspace, they would not have sent a single Su-24, they’d have sent at least a pair of the Su-30’s they have on hand in Syria. I don’t think the Russians were looking for a fight with Turkey or prepared for one, but I’m pretty sure the Turks very much were.
They weren’t warning the Russians off of Turkish airspace, they were warning them off of northern Syrian airspace, where the Turkomen are. The additional presence of Turkomen fighters allied with al-Nusra shooting up the ejecting pilots (illegal under international law) suggests a deliberate ambush. (USG confirms the Suhkoi was hit over Syrian territory and went down in Syrian territory.)
The Turks have basically decided to extend their very own no-fly zone over Syrian territory, the Russian fighter crossed into it and the Turks eventually shot him down. It may be that the Russian pilot crossed into Turkish airspace very briefly, which was all the excuse the Turks needed, but I’m not sure of that. (I’m not going to trust the Turks or the Russians on the issue.)
Interesting data point:
Obviously there’s a long-standing dispute there, but the Turks are differently operating at a different level in terms of defending their (or ‘their’) air space. They don’t just defend their recognized airspace, they’re have to push their airspace out to their the maximum of disputed boundaries.
People have been taking in terms of airspace violations, but I think an ambush shootdown is about Erdogan protecting the Turkomen, but also about disrupting the Vienna talks because France is starting to line up with Russia against Daesh, and they want to blow that up. They want Assad gone, Russia gone, the Kurds crushed and the Syria government replace by an Ottoman-friendly Sunni Islamicist crowd.
What I haven’t made up my mind about is how extensive the Turk’s covert support for Daesh actually extends. It may be a purely opportunistic anti-Assad/Kurd move, or it may be covert passive support, or they may be actively supporting Daesh on the QT. (Which begs the question of whether they have been doing so all along.)
max
[‘I came to that suspicion entirely on my own, BTW. It surprised the fuck out of me when Putin said it outloud yesterday.’]
p.s. I hope this comment doesn’t get eated.
Ruviana
@Adam L Silverman: Okay, another one to read. Currently reading Kissenger’s Shadow.
sharl
@Adam L Silverman:
Heh, not just any Federal judge, but Richard Posner. As the author of the linked post explains, he’s a conservative, but an honest and thoughtful guy who is highly respected.
Occasionally the question is raised about where voting abuse is most likely to happen – with absentee ballots – but the questions are never raised (nor answered) by the backers of voter ID laws. Funny, that. Households like the one featured here have at least one person who gets at least two votes, although it doesn’t show up on the voter rolls that way. Why are situations like this never discussed? {/snark-irony-sarcasm}
schrodinger's cat
My comment is moderation. I have no idea why. Please help!
Cacti
Hannity was furious at Turkey for humiliating his Russian superman.
It was comedy gold.
catclub
@rikyrah: I was going to OT it, but replying to your post is fairly relevant.
Did anyone else notice the Kasich ad against Trump that goes about 98% of the way to Godwin’s land.?
link here
Is at WaPo
Mandalay
@dedc79:
No. AFAIK nothing will happen unless the attacked NATO member requests assistance.
I’m not an international lawyer, but I think that in theory the United Kingdom could have requested NATO assistance after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Luckily for NATO and the US they didn’t, and the UK only received tepid support from the Reagan Administration which was busy sucking Argentina’s cock at the time.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
But there was a recent BBC news story about Putin visiting Iran, and the outcome of discussions were all about propping up Assad, and muting any US demands on actions in the region. Not only do Putin’s interests not overlap with ours, arguably there are no EU and NATO interests in the region. Most American liberals seem to lean to the idea that the US should not be involved in the region in any way, although they have to abandon the illusion that problems in Iraq or Syria will be resolved only by the inhabitants of those countries. Regional powers and Russia insist on interfering, and the presence or absence of the US increasingly is immaterial.
How could a “multi-national deconflict cell” come together if there is no consensus on who would lead it or what its aims might be? And what would this group contain? Putin seems to be insistent on aiding Assad and crushing any Syrian opposition. What is the counter-strategy to this?
BTW: Isn’t some of Putin’s reaction and sense of inferiority understandable? The end of the Soviet Union led to crowing in some quarters that the US was left as the sole world superpower, with the implication that Russia was now largely toothless, despite its nuclear arsenal (kinda like the UK or France).
dr. bloor
@Mandalay:
I would imagine that “informational meeting” with Turkey and the rest of the NATO bros was less than laid back. Putin gets to pick at the seams in NATO alliances and do some demagogin’ for the home folks at the cost of a plane and a couple of fliers? I’ll bet he’s not putting this in the Loss column.
schrodinger's cat
Catenstein explains grabbity to celebrate 100 years of the General Theory.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for freeing my comment from WP jail.
BobS
@max: Did you get lost on your way to The Vineyard of the Saker? Your comment is clearly the product of a Putin apologist.
Your comment is also incredibly clear-headed for Ballon Juice regarding anything pertaining to Russia. The only issue I would have is your referring to Turkish support for ISIS as being “covert”.
catclub
@Brachiator: To the extent that keeping Assad in power requires that Daesh be defeated, Russia’s interests there DO overlap with ours, if our interest there is that Daesh be defeated.
They do not fully overlap.
Mandalay
Someone is not telling the truth:
I’ll believe Russia’s account when we see video of the second parachutist alive and well. My guess is that it will never happen.
catclub
Was the video of John McCain’s plane burning up the flight deck of the Forrestal?
Cacti
@BobS:
I knew our resident Putin cheerleader couldn’t stay away from this for long.
Things tend to go a little differently for Vlad when he tries to bully well-armed nations, no?
Jeffro
OT but Cruz will wear this like a badge of honor:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-climate-knowledge-kindergartener
Mandalay
@dr. bloor:
He’s a complete fool if he isn’t. He just fucked with Turkey and lost. The incident was humiliating for Putin.
JPL
The President is going to make a statement on National Security. A few hours ago two fighter jets flew over my house and scared the heck out of both me and the dog. It’s not a normal flight pattern, so I did check out the local news stations.
boatboy_srq
@MazeDancer: Part of the Kurdish problem is that what the PKK (and other groups who are at least nominally pro-Western) deems Greater Kurdistan contains territory from both sides of the conflict: parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are each included. Turkey still can’t come to terms with the Armenian slaughter a century ago; their coming to terms with a resurgent Kurdish population, committed to home rule for what it considers its own lands, is as close to impossible as it can get. Support for the Kurds presumes support for Kurdish priorities – and those priorities includes splitting off part of each of those nations to form an independent Kurdish state. Turkey has never accepted that; Iraq effectively vetoed divesting Kurdish lands after GW2, and Syria under the Assads has suppressed any non-Alawite population (of which the Kurds are just one component). Before GW2 and before Turkey’s overtures to the EU, there would have been far less angst about demanding concessions from both Iraq and Turkey on this point; as it is, the choices are only among degrees of unacceptability for the various parties at the table.
Iraq has sound reasons for retaining Iraqi Kurdish lands: they are the most stable, most profitable, and contain significant oil reserves. Assad won’t bother to distinguish Kurdish independence from any other “terrorism” within his borders. And the Turks have shown no willingness whatsoever to consider PKK as anything but bloodthirsty barbarians.
The Kurds themselves are likely reliable partners. The problem is that Kurdish aims harm everyone else at the table (friend and foe alike), and nobody else who would negotiate Kurdish requirements has any interest in making the concessions the Kurds want – and plenty of reasons to refuse.
Betty Cracker
@max: All of this. I wish NATO had dissolved the day after the Berlin Wall fell. It’s a blunt Cold War instrument that is unsuited to the current age.
Cacti
@Mandalay:
And unlike his attempt to reconstitute the Soviet Union via invading Ukraine…
The Syrian invasion is widely unpopular in Russia. Bad memories of leaving Afghanistan with their tail between their legs, I’m guessing.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
они ведут себя так дерзко и нагло
“they are behaving so daringly and insolently/arrogantly/impudently” “impudent” sounds a little saucy for this context
sorry I forgot to put in the link, i’ll get it
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay: Here you go, interview with the navigator. RT reports, you decide.
BobS
@Cacti: And the apologists for the ISIS Air Corps — let’s call them the Turks, for short — predictably emerge from the dung.
By the way, when was that Ukraine “invasion” by Putin and Russia? There has to be a photo somewhere of the invading army.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
I doubt this sentiment is shared by the former Warsaw Pact states neighboring a certain country who’d like to see them as part of Novorossiya.
I’d say they’re probably feeling pretty great about their membership considering Ukraine.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: I agree, I wouldn’t go with “impudent.” Thanks for looking that up.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
It won’t let me post the link. Anyway, he’s referring to ISIL in that quotation, not Turkey.
Cacti
@BobS:
Also nice to see that the trusty F-16 is still more than a match for any of the flying dumpsters Novorossiya is putting in the skies.
Strange that the vanguard against ISIS seems to want to bomb everybody but ISIS..
PJ
@Betty Cracker: Central and Eastern European members of NATO have an understandably different opinion. NATO is far from a blunt instrument, and has been used very sparingly (Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan).
The problem is not that NATO exists, but that the US and Europe did very little to help create democratic states operating under the rule of law in the former Soviet countries, and quite a lot to destabilize them by encouraging and facilitating the mass sale of state-owned property (i.e., basically everything worth something) on the “free market” (i.e., without securities or other market regulation or enforcement), creating the kleptocracies that control those countries today.
ETA: The Communist nomenklatura were always corrupt, but capitalism finally allowed them to become fabulously wealthy, and, in the case of Putin, ex-KGB agent, to become wealthy and a dictator.
debbie
@gogol’s wife:
Read the previous paragraph where he’s talking about ISIS sending oil in to Turkey.
debbie
@debbie:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be replying to you, but here’s the two paragraph section:
Mandalay
@Gin & Tonic:
There’s a very good reason that you don’t see the face of the “navigator”, and it’s nothing to do with security.
BobS
@Cacti: You understand that fighter aircraft and bombers have somewhat different roles, right?
And once again — would you (can you?) please point us to the photos of the Putin-led Russian “invasion” of Ukraine.
Adam L Silverman
@sharl: Yep, he is, perhaps, the most intellectually curious and hefty Federal judge we’ve got. Really sharp guy.
Frankensteinbeck
Uh… isn’t a major part of the Russian situation that Russia is not strong? Russia is, in fact, pathetically weak, with one tenth the population of the old Soviet Union, no support from the Eastern Block, and an economy in shambles? Corruption riddles their government so badly that they were humiliated at the Olympics by how the incredible amounts of money spent evaporated into grift, and their military is such a tiny, out-of-date wreck that they have not taken Ukraine, the weakest country in Europe. If Putin’s actions are because he believes Russia is strong again, then this is the same as Putin being a lunatic.
Paul in KY
@Adam L Silverman: No problem, Adam. Thanks for the explanation.
rp
Adam — fascinating analysis, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor and shut the hell up. I’m trying to enjoy thanksgiving and pretend that all is right with the world. Rainbows and unicorns and mashed potatoes for all!
Thanks!
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: So two different things here: 1) our interests overlap in that we and Russia and Iran want to see ISIS defeated. This doesn’t mean they perfectly align. My professional take on this is that we shouldn’t even worry about Assad until ISIS is dealt with. And we should only be concerned with Assad if anyone can answer the question of what/who actually replaces his government and him. Since no one can, we have a policy that can’t be supported by strategy.
2) All the deconfliction cell is going to do is make sure that everyone conducting anti-ISIS operations are aware of what everyone else is doing. This then reduces, though it may not completely prevent, accidental/incidental contact between the different forces in Syria.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Your comment both was and was not a comment. Now, we know it is, in fact, a comment…
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Probably just moving equipment around. Also it could be swamp gas or a weather balloon.
PJ
@Adam L Silverman: Actually not so sharp, if you read his opinions. He consistently (and deliberately, in my mind) misreads laws to favor the wealthy and powerful – thus his 2007 opinion supporting voter ID laws.
ETA: His basic rule of thumb seems to be: let whoever is willing to pay the most money win (i.e., the rich guy.)
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
Excellent post, and set of comments, too. Light-years ahead of the usual media coverage and discussions that most in our fair land get their information from (yes, and water is wet, I know).
To say nothing of our homegrown fascists and their propaganda arms (like FoxNews) and their wildly simplistic and flat-out wrong outlooks on all of this. Stupidity and malice, malice and stupidity, that’s all that legion of assholes have (I very much include all the millions of ordinary rightwing-supporting citizens in that legion of doom).
And we’re only Hillary Clinton losing next November away from them having essentially total control of what America does both domestically and (far more dangerously) abroad. Fucking awesome.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Betty C: There’s a well developed literature within NATO, especially its European members, of what its role should be post Soviet Union. I’ll see if I can find some links later and put them up over the long weekend. NATO has long been thinking about what it should be and how it should be relevant.
? Martin
@Adam L Silverman: That’s my sense too. Nobody was thrilled to have Stalin as a partner, but Hitler was the bigger menace. Once Germany was dealt with, that alliance would collapse and we could figure out what to do with Stalin. I don’t see why the same dynamic won’t emerge here.
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay: That’s why I said “RT reports, you decide.”
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Eric Posner, his son is more than a little bit racist
Anoniminous
Article 5 states an attack on one Ally shall be considered an attack on all Allies not an attack by one Ally. Russia did not attack Turkey, thus Article 5 doesn’t apply.
Gin & Tonic
@Frankensteinbeck: with one tenth the population of the old Soviet Union
If I’m not mistaken you’ve said this before, and it is not true. At the time the USSR broke up, Russia had about half the population of the Soviet Union. It declined by about 5% over the next 20 years, and has started to tick up again since about 2008-2009.
Adam L Silverman
@? Martin: 24/7 cable news.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: I can appreciate that information, but am not sure what to do with it.
Brachiator
@catclub:
I don’t think it is clear that any Middle Eastern country wants to see Daesh defeated. And there is evidence that Assad has been providing support to Daesh. Further, Putin’s overtures to Iran to keep Assad in power directly contradict the stated US aim that Assad must go.
Removing Assad and stabilizing Syria, and destroying Daesh are contradictory aims. And US efforts to do either have been blunted. This is a mess that gets more confusing and complicated as more countries get involved.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gin & Tonic:
Hmmm. I looked it up, and you are correct. Dropping by 50% is a huge thing, of course, but the population figures I saw when I picked up that impression were wrong. Well, that’s the internet for you. That only makes Russia less pathetic than I thought, though. It still is far from ‘strong.’
Another Holocene Human
@sharl: The people who forget how many houses they have talk about voting in two jurisdictions all the time. Not on the national vote (I hope) but in local elections because it’s not “fair” to be taxed without a say on their second house … uh huh.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Apple may not have fallen too far from the tree? Liberals are willing to give “reasonable Republicans” too much of a pass.
Exhibits : Sully, Posner and Larison.
ETA: Wasn’t Posner senior in favor of Voter ID laws?
Steeplejack
@Ruviana:
Bad link. I fix: Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman.
When you use the FYWP link-mo-tron, you have to make sure that you get a complete—and correct—URL. It gives you an
http://to start with, but if you accept that and then append your URL that also includes thehttp://prefix FYWP goes nuts and hawks up a bad URL. It’s better to overwrite the offeredhttp://with your own (complete) URL.sparrow
@MazeDancer:
They have no significant resources to exploit, and Turkey, our ally in the region, would actually love to genocide the kurds (like Ataturk did the Armenians) if they thought they could get away with it.
Anoniminous
@MazeDancer:
Short answer: Kurds live in southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. Neither the Turks, Iranians, Iraqis, or the Assad regime want to open the door to a Kurdish state and Turkey is mad as hell about the revolutionary autonomous region of Rojava in Syria.
JPL
@Brachiator: Wouldn’t it be in Saudi’s interest to keep Daesh around?
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: I’d be interested in seeing any links you provide — you certainly understand this stuff way better than I do. Just to be clear, I’m aware that NATO has evolved since 1989, but it still strikes me as a relic that is ill-suited to a vastly changed world. Maybe burning it down and starting over would have been better than grafting new missions onto the old framework. For example, I don’t see much upside to the US being yoked so tightly to sketchy governments like Turkey’s through that sort of ultra-entangling treaty. They’ve been a shitty ally overall.
Anoniminous
@debbie:
Turkey is in league with ISIS. The main ISIS supply lines run between the Afrin and Kobane cantons of Rojava along the northern border of Syria. ISIS is selling oil in Turkey and buying logistic support in the country.
BobS
@Brachiator: Other than Erdogan’s self-serving assertions, I’m not aware of the “evidence that Assad has been providing support to Daesh”. Do you have a link, or can you at least point me in that direction?
D58826
Listening to the President talking about the campaign against Daesh. What I find frustrating about the ‘do more’ critics is their total lack of history. I’m not sure if Obama is doing all the right things but this problem isn’t going to be solved overnight, no mater how many bombs we drop. Without overstressing the analogy but between Dec. 7th, 1941 and the Battle of Midway in June of 1942, the Japanese ran wild across the Pacific and in Southeast Asia. They were ‘contained’ at Midway but it took another three long years to roll them back to the home islands. No we haven’t defeated Daesh but in the past few months they have lost about 25% of their territory, so when Obama says they have been ‘contained’ he is probably correct. Its going to take time to roll them back just like it did Japan.
Of course the folks who are mainly responsible for setting the sequence of events in motion by invading Iraq have no shame and they continue to push their wrong headed solutions usually at the top of their lungs with frequent accusations of treason on the part of Obama
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t see that Russia and Iran want to see ISIS defeated. Again, BBC news reports and other sources talk about Russia attacking Assad’s opponents, not ISIS. And supposedly in Putin’s recent talks with Iran, support for Assad, not ISIS, was the main topic of conversation.
The US keeps talking about removing Assad. Will new talks deal with a shift in US strategy?
Also, clearly the air campaign against ISIS appears to be mainly for show. But there air power efforts are met with reluctance to outright refusal of countries in the region with respect to assembling any kind of ground force to attack ISIS. And I do not think that the US should send ground forces, or even assemble any Western force to take on ISIS, if that force is not also made up of forces from countries in the region which presumably would be most vulnerable to a spread of ISIS.
I agree with you that talk about replacing Assad is worse than useless without any clear idea of who might replace him and maintain stability in Syria (and how likely is it that the US will formally shift policy here). But the continuing outflow of refugees may result in the slow collapse of Syria anyway.
Thanks for your comments.
JPL
@D58826: You can thank 24/7 news.
D58826
@Brachiator: I make no claim at being an expert on the region but as I have read various articles over the past couple of weeks, I some times wonder,. given the fractured history of the region, if there are enough people who can agree on anything to fill a phone booth let alone a long term strategy to defeat Daesh.
gogol's wife
@debbie:
Right, I just wanted to clarify that “they” in the specific quotation refers to ISIL.
Another Holocene Human
@Frankensteinbeck: So … when do the Mongols invade?
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: Ah you see but the 700 Club told me that all the Russians were dying of drink and despair because Communism fell but they still didn’t have Jesus.
Would Pat Robertson lie?
Another Holocene Human
@Another Holocene Human: Hm, I forgot to add there are people who do want to vote more than once in federal elections and think the “rotten boroughs” is a how-to guide.
catclub
@Brachiator:
Where did I say that they did? YOU stated that Russia’s interests and ours (presumably the United States)
do not overlap. I said that they did, to some extent.
I would argue that Iran fully wants Daesh to go. And they are in the middle east.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: That was the point of the article. That he ultimately realized he got burned, changed his view on the issue. That’s what makes him interesting as a conservative legal theorist and jurist. He’s actually reflective.
As for Sully and Larison: Larison is hit or miss. Some stuff good, some stuff is just glorified apologetics. Sully is simply horrid. I think of Hannah Arendt’s remarks on the actual Leo Strauss (paraphrased) : he wanted to join a party (the NAZIs) that did not want him and when this was explained to him and why, he still wanted to join.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: It is. The Saudis are playing a very, very dangerous game in the pursuit of regional hegemony and to be the leader of Sunni Islam.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Happy to help. There are two immediate issues from your comment: 1) given how Congress has institutionally devolved, there is no way that one could reasonably expect to get a new treaty to establish a new alliance through. Also, it is actually unclear how America can go about actually abrogating a treaty. The second is being yoked to Turkey. The developments there, under Erdogan’s rule, are recent. Prior to that Turkey had been a very reliable ally.
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: The real issue here, and one we’ve learned the hard way over the past decade, is that the US has real trouble with anything that isn’t interstate war or that can just be done by special operations. Once you bring the conventional Army and the civilian agencies into the mix, we have trouble. One reason is that despite what has been planned or discussed or put out as guidance, we do not have a real plan for regionally aligning the conventional force. Nor do we have any real assets for making that force even barely competent in conducting operations that aren’t interstate war where they have to operate in ambiguous environments among the host country nation populace. Another is that the interagency process we have seems to be impossible to plan for winning the peace once conflict has been successfully concluded. And our political process makes it impossible to get the funding to either generate the conventional forces we would need to do what needs to be done in the 21st century, a cadre of civil servants across government that could and would make meaningful contributions, and any interest at all in attempting to win the peace.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: My understanding is that Iran has made it very clear that they wish to remove ISIS. It is also my understanding that that is part of Putin’s objectives in providing support to Assad.
As for the efficacy of what we’re doing. We are seeing the limits of Air Power. It is something that the promoters of Air Power (Air Power theorists) have repeatedly refused to accept: ultimately wars are won on the ground, because that’s where people live.
debbie
@gogol’s wife:
It was a surprise hearing the word “impudent” in that context. It made me think of Kurt in “Brideshead Revisited” complaining that the Moroccan servant didn’t obey him the way he obeyed Sebastian. “Such an impudent boy.”
BobS
Mr. Silverman, in your post you alluded to “Russia’s taking of the Ukraine”, an assertion someone else made a bit more forcefully in the comments as an “invasion”. Can you mark the date that this occurred as well as providing any photographic evidence?
Also (& not to hold you responsible for anything in the comments), but it was asserted that there is “evidence that Assad has been providing support to Daesh”. Are you aware of any evidence pointing to that support?
gogol's wife
@debbie:
It’s a really hard word to translate. If you look in the dictionary, you’ll get “impudent,” and it can mean that, but it can also be more serious. If I had to give a spectrum of meanings, it would include rude, insulting, in-your-face, as well as the usual insolent and impudent.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: I am not Adam Silverman, but 18 March, 2014 was the date Russia “formally” absorbed Crimea, as a direct consequence of Russian military action that began in February. The source for this is none other than Vladimir Putin.
I had hoped to think you were too smart to be playing semantic games like this. Russia annexed territory that was part of Ukraine, that is and has been clear to everyone.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, “semantic games” — would you remind us all of the date of the Crimean status referendum?
And please, this will be several times I’ve asked — what was the day in February 2014 of that “Russian military action” (or “invasion”)? And if you would please, provide us a link to some photos of the “invasion”.
By the way, I’m pretty sure no one will mistake you for Adam Silverman.
Brachiator
@BobS:
From an Atlantic Monthly article from September 2015:
A former military guy, Bryan Suits, who fought in Kuwait, Bosnia and Iraq does commentary on Los Angeles based KFI radio. His shows can be streamed or podcast. I don’t think he is always correct, but his comments often lead me to search for info beyond the standard mainstream sources, and he has also noted Assad’s double dealing.
BobS
@Brachiator: Thanks — that’s an interesting (and credible) hypothesis. Of course, I’d like to know the source of the ‘reported’ and ‘alleged’ claims he relies on – for instance, the “Syrian opposition” have been known to have made some spurious and self-serving accusations.
Nina
The Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Turkey controls the way out of Russia’s only vaguely warm water port. That has been the dream of every czar, ever. It’s why they couldn’t let the Crimea go. Istanbul sits squarely on the channel.
Geography is history.
Brachiator
@catclub:
Obviously, opinions about this vary. From a very current Newsweek article:
Turkey, Iran, the Saudis see their own individual national interests as more important than battling ISIS. I do not see any Middle Eastern nation taking firm steps to oppose ISIS.
And stories I see on BBC news, the Guardian and elsewhere indicate that Russia is far more interested in supporting Assad than in supporting US goals in the region or even eliminating ISIS. Further, as much as I respect Obama, I do not see that his current policy with respect to Syria or ISIS is coherent, apart from steadfastly attempting to keep US military forces from being the main basis of any ground forces. The reports that US intelligence agencies have been dishonest about the effectiveness of air operations in the area also undermines confidence in Administration policy.
My reading of what is happening is not that US and Russian interests overlap, but that Putin is advocating an alternative policy that counters and ultimately nullifies stated US goals. The US is being outplayed, and maybe that is OK if the sentiment is that the US has no business trying to interfere in the region’s affairs, and cannot effectively do so.
Adam L Silverman
@BobS: The phrase “the taking of the Ukraine” was a reference to this in the previous paragraph where I clearly stated what occurred: “Seizing Crimea and supporting Russian ethnic/Russian linguistic separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 was another. And having Russian jets flirt with incursions into US and other NATO members airspace is just another example of Putin trying to make his point: Russia is strong again, with a strong leader, and will not simply be pushed around.” Had I not written that in the preceding paragraph, I would not have referenced Russia taking (any portion of) Ukraine. Does that clear things up for you?
As for Assad providing support to ISIS, I’ve not seen anything to that effect. I did take note of the link to the Atlantic article subsequently posted in a comment, but I’ve got no real way to evaluate how accurate that article is.
BobS
@Brachiator: That countries act in “their own individual national interests” (and lie about motivations as well as effectiveness) is a universal truth. Even the United States and – gasp- Saint Obama.
Iran hasn’t taken “firm steps” to battle ISIS in both Iraq and Syria?
sharl
Some more items for the pile of reading material, one written by John Dolan (aka The War Nerd) a few years ago, the other posted by Mark Ames yesterday (and recommended by his Pando colleague Dolan).
I’m still chewing on both of these. I inherently trust Dolan more than Ames, but while he often lets his passionate advocacy for a point-of-view rule his writing, IMO Ames has an innate understanding of Russian grass root political attitudes from his time working there. On the other hand, Dolan’s 2012 piece addresses Turkish political attitudes, including the depth of the nationalism within the citizenry. It kind of backs up what Amir said in the second paragraph of his comment at #30.
Ames (goes behind the Pando paywall tomorrow): Turkey shoots down Russian plane: Wars have a funny way of taking on a life of their own
Dolan’s 2012 piece: The War Nerd: Cleanse Thy Neighbor
ETA: I highly recommend the map near the bottom of this Al-Jazeera post that Ames linked in his piece. It adds some good perspective to the discussion IMO.
BobS
@Adam L Silverman: That does clear things up for me — thank you. Annexation of Crimea (where Russia already had a considerable number of troops located by mutual agreement with the legal government of Ukraine, i.e. there was no “invasion”) after a referendum of the Crimean people is somewhat different than “the taking of the Ukraine”, particularly when that annexation occurs in the context of an extra-constitutional change of government (some would say a coup) and it’s lack of endorsement by the population of eastern Ukraine that took place in Kiev the previous month.
nfh
@Adam L Silverman: @Adam L Silverman: Think you’re right. Healthy response, and interesting debate now.
gorram
I haven’t gotten to the comments yet, but I’m curious, what a deconflictment cell would look like?
jl
@gorram: If AS is still monitoring this thread, I would like to know what a deconflictment cell means too.
My hunch is that it means an alternative to NATO to manage international conflicts, or maybe some new gimmick added to the UN.
I think NATO is outmoded after fall of Soviet Union, and may soon get to the point where its provisions are increasing risk of conflict just as much as reducing it through deterrence. Under Orban (Hungary) and Turkey (Erdogan), I think we have two countries in NATO that are just as sketchy in terms of acting in good faith and being responsible as Russia under Putin. Maybe if like Span under their old dictator (name escapes me right now… OK it was Franco) these countries were far away from volatile border and satellite disputes, it would be sketchiness that the US could overlook. But they are not far away.
Adam L Silverman
@gorram: @jl: Nope, all it means is someone set up an office and staffs it with an officer/representative from the US and its coalition allies and the Russians and their allies. These folks then provide notification in advance to each other of what they’re going to do and where so that you can deconflict operations and prevent accidents from happening. That’s it. Its pretty standard stuff.
jl
Heard news report that Russia did some ceremonial retaliation against Turkey, involving cancelling joint investment deals, and is signalling it wants to shrug off this incident and concentrate on working towards a deal to solve the Syria mess with US and EU, through France. So that calms my nerves a bit.
The US seems to have been indicating that it it not happy with what Turkey did over what was apparently a two or three second violation of airspace over a sliver of Turkish territory. I agree with that.
I don’t see the game Turkey is playing in the mess as all that much different from what Russia is doing, so I think best to deal with both of them as problematic potential allies in the struggle against Daesh, that need to be persuaded to behave well enough to be helpful and both watched very carefully.
Edit: and I am surprised at the myopia, and refusal to leave the good old days of Superpower Cold War rivalry of some people in worrying about stuff like whether Russia has a military base or naval port in Syria. Just because the US has decided that Assad is a bad man who should go (which is true, but so what? We have no feasible plan to get rid of him, let alone manage what will come after), or unilateral right to ignore Syrian sovereignty. So, for better or worse, it is still ‘his’ country and he has the right to decide who gets to be there.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: where Russia already had a considerable number of troops located by mutual agreement with the legal government of Ukraine
I don’t have the text of any version of that agreement in front of me right now, but it certainly did not extend to permitting those Russian troops stationed in Crimea to engage in activity in support of the annexation of Crimea by a foreign power.
J R in WV
@Punchy:
And so much for the theory that sober analysis of geopolitical issues and insurance brokerage analysis is proof against snark!!
Fruitless efforts to make Balloon-Juice Snark-free results in pomegranite-juice cocktails while cranberry sauce simmers in the distance.
I also got crab-dip for the dinner party tomorrow, I hope it goes with the bag-piping, it’s trrible when the key of the piping and the key of the crab don’t match!
BobS
@jl:Has NATO, which certainly has been “outdated” for several decades now, been “acting in good faith” with it’s steady spread eastward, despite the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ offered by H.W.Bush & Baker? Was it “acting in good faith” in what used to be Yugoslavia (leading to the somewhat controversial independence for Kosovo in 2008, cited as precedent by Putin in 2014) or in Libya in 2011? Was it’s leading member “acting in good faith” in Panama in 1989 or Iraq in 2003? Really, where would anyone get a foolish idea like ‘might makes right’?
@Gin & Tonic: “…in support of the annexation of Crimea” after a vote of the Crimean people who were more than a little concerned for their fate after the coup in Kiev — I fixed that for you.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: But this wasn’t an accident. Turkey and Russia are coming into conflict while they use the pretext of fighting Daesh to pursue their own agendas in the region.
Russia seems willing to do some symbolic stuff, and I just read they are stationing some more military assets as a deterrent to another attack on its planes from Turkey, and has indicated it wants to shrug off the incident with Turkey and forge ahead with US and EU on finding a solution to the Syria problem. But if the conflict of local interests between the two countries continues, it could result in more incidents and more risk of serious problems between NATO and Russia.
BobS
@sharl: Thanks for those links to Pando — they made for interesting reading.
MazeDancer
@Adam L Silverman:
Many thanks, Adam. We certainly have to be grateful this T-day for your knowledge.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: Even leaving aside the questionable legality (and counting) of that referendum, their hostile activity started well before 16 March. If you wish to justify the presence of Russian troops in Sevastopol by calling on the bilateral agreement, then look at what that agreement permitted and prohibited. They clearly violated both the bilateral agreement and international law by their actions between the end of February and the middle of March (i.e. blockading the Ukrainian troops in their bases.)
But now, for me, it’s “over the river and through the woods” time, so here’s wishing you and anyone still left in this thread a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.
agorabum
Perfect video accompaniment; had been thinking the exact same thing.
gorram
@JPL: No? The KSA’s claim to fame is that they’re watching Mecca+Medina until the end of history, and the caliphate rising from its grave begs the question: why them? That’s part of why the KSA tries pretty hard to get radicals on its side is because then their legitimacy rubs off on them. The rise of an Islamic State (rather than just any Islamic state, you see) reverses the process and actually threatens them.
At least, that’s my reading of the situation, admittedly informed by events like the Grand Mosque seizure.
lonesomerobot
I really enjoy your posts. They are informative and come from a place of knowledge.
However, I wish you would learn how to use an apostrophe.
Brachiator
I don’t see that this is meaningful. Russia and Iran have currently blocked any further attempt by the US and Western powers to remove Assad. And even US allies are suggesting that Assad’s assistance should be sought in (theoretically) stopping ISIS. There is evidence that Russia has attacked Syrian rebels. This is not containment; this is giving Assad an advantage. A consensus is growing that dealing with Assad is secondary to defeating ISIS.
The idea of containment conflicts with the idea, supported by many progressives, that the US cease all military efforts in the region, and limit its efforts to humanitarian support of refugees.
In the UK, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbin has said that the official position of the party is to oppose airstrikes, but has allowed individual MPs to “vote their conscience” on the issue.
Meanwhile Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was killed in public on November 28 in Turkey, dashing hopes that there might ever be a peaceful solution to the conflict between Turkey and the PKK.
The bottom line is that US influence and the ability of the West to suggest solutions or impose its will is being neutralized. Sadly, this only means that other powers will rush in to fill the vacuum. The US seems to be scrambling to save face and not make it look as though it is a toothless lion. The wild card is whether Republican presidential contenders will blunder in with strident warmongering.