Russian Ambassador to Turkey shot
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Anonymous
Putin may be largely in the wrong in Ukraine and Georgia but in Syria? Not really. Russia's had a naval base there for decades -- it is one of the last jewels of the day their empire was astride the world. And, appealing to past glories is always a sure-fire electoral winner. Assad is a dictator, but one that would probably win an actual fair/free election (*). He actually leaves Christians, Kurds, etc., alone, provided you don't oppose him politically. Most of the other non-Kurdish factions within the civil war aren't exactly the kindest towards non-Sunnis. (*) I'd like to 100% disown/disclaim the meme that proclaims Assad was "Syria's elected leader." That election had at best "guided opposition." Then throw in the US thinking it could moderate the anti-Assad rebels the way we did with the KLA in Kosovo (we basically told them in the late 1990s, you get help from bin Laden, we will abandon you) until around the siege of Kobani. They probably also thought Assad would fall apart the same way Colonel G did a few years earlier. "Our" militias and whatnot among the non-Islamic extremist rebels turned out to be duds or just defected to al-Nusra or whatever they're calling themselves these days. So in the fulness of time, I suspect you're seeing the West figure out that Assad's probably the least bad realistic option, given the paucity of people who'd keep the atrocities at even the Mubarak level and have the ability to actually win battles -- and let's face it, this means more to Russia than it does to us. Now we might piss off the Saudis if we were to formally abandon the rebels. Plus, most of the Gulf States are tied up in Yemen -- not sure how easily they could pivot over to trying to intervene in Syria -- they certainly wouldn't have the stomach for facing off against the Russians. Turkey has been using their presence under the NATO umbrella to try and piss wage its independent Cold War against Russia. Erdogan purged a lot of the security and civil services after the would-be coup. I'm sure the internal Russia media will initially be pitching an "Erdogan did it" line -- now if Putin and Erdogan kiss and make up (again) the line there will change. But we cannot count on it. We miscalculated on Syria, and that's on Obama, especially the "red line" farce that Obama wasn't really able to enforce. Trump's camp contains those hoping the US will return to a 1920s-style foreign policy, the 'realists' who view China as a bigger threat than Russia and hence want to splinter Russia and China, and those neocons who have decided, like Bolton, that they hate Islamic extremists/Muslims more than they hate Putin. Trump has also shown signs of being all three. Putin likes the first two, and might have a problem with the third. Of course if Putin decides the potential thaw in US-Russian relations means he gets to "protect the interests of ethnic Russians" in the Baltics, that's a whole NEW can of worms, both for him and for the West. |
Anonymous
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Takeaway from your excellent analysis
We should have kept Sadaam in Iraq The Baltics are a goner |
Anonymous
Except to the man who was senselessly murdered and his family of course. |
Anonymous
I wonder if we really investigated whether that guy Gulen was behind the coup or not. My gut tells me he knew but didn't really do anything to help/hinder it, and the coup planners failed on their own accord. If he were behind the coup, it's no skin off my back to deport him, provided we get the right under the table concessions from Erdogan and/or Putin. I mean, it is helpful in negotiating to know whether Gulen really was involved in the coup. What we do with those facts and whether we admit them or not is another issue. Now if it turns out we were helping Gulen bring down Erdogan, then shame on us for getting such a terrible return on our investment. This wasn't really a case where the ill-will we gain from being behind Coup #129,123 more than cancels out the improvement in behavior from Turkey. If Putin and any number of unpleasant leaders around the world start thinking "they're next," their attitudes towards the US will continue to decline. As for a response, I guess it's not really in our interest to see a war between Russia and Turkey, even if we were somehow able to weasel our way out of Article V (I understand if it's shown Turkey provoked the war, we are not under treaty obligation.) With that said, Putin's got several children to take care of -- Transnistria, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, etc. an actual shooting or bombing war in Turkey would be expensive and more importantly, not be swiftly won the way his wars have been won so far. He's got some sort of built-in incentive to not escalate this TOO much. The risk-return on "protecting ethnic Russians" in the Baltics would be much higher as the Baltics have few natural defenses, only Estonia bothers to spend 2%/GDP on defense, and Russian tanks would be in Riga before NATO forces in Germany could get their act together. I'm sure there's all sorts of Forest Brothers plans developed in Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn that would get put into effect if Russia were to actually invade for reals -- they are relatives of Israel's Operation Samson albeit with less nukes. On the other hand, an attack on the Baltics would be much more strongly condemned, and I suspect nearly all of his lingering sympathy in the West would evaporate. If Putin or Erdogan just wanna circle around and mutter threats at each other like two high school kids who want to look tough but not really fight each other ... well, I guess we're obligated under some secret treaty to make loud tsk-tsk noises. |
Anonymous
On the first, precisely. Obama's (relative) success in Libya probably got to his head. I mean, the bad guy was overthrown, at the cost of zero American lives and only low ten figures in dollars. There was even an opposition that seemed to have its act together in a way that had NOT been the case when we were first deciding whether to intervene in Syria. Granted, they fell out pretty quickly after Colonel G was overthrown, but c'est la guerre. Compare and contrast to Bush, who needed four figures worth of American lives lost, five figures worth of Americans physically maimed, high five/low six figures worth of Americans mentally maimed, and low thirteen figures in dollars to get rid of the bad guy in Iraq. Hell that alone kept me in Hillary's camp in November -- that she wouldn't commit an Iraq-level screwup. I mean, the Bush I voted for in 2000 was going to get us OUT of all these foreign entanglements and could also see Putin's soul. As for the second, not quite. There is a large risk for Putin. First off, I think Western Europeans regard the Baltics as one of their own in a way that they really don't with Ukraine and especially Georgia. Putin's friends in the West would be hard-pressed to remain so, or to try and point out how Estonia was being so mean to Russia beforehand. I mean, Estonians will give ethnic Russians citizenship if they learn Estonian and swear allegiance to the Estonian government. It'd be like the publication of the Gulag Archipelago was to the reputation of the USSR in Europe -- most outside the most hardcore hardcore stopped really supporting the USSR. Second off, Putin runs the risk of triggering Article V for real. Third off, occupying those countries is pricey. He may hope for the victory of the Harmony (Latvia) and Centre (Estonia) parties but I don't know if that will happen anytime soon. Both parties are stuck between 20-30% of the vote. I'm sure we -- or western Europe -- could invest several billion in researching how to more safely transport LNG, which would almost immediately make Putin's pipelines worthless. |
Anonymous
Hey, I wanted to congratulate in advance the 2017 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.
This is going up there with the picture of Elian at Gunpoint, Flag Raising at Ground Zero, and Face-Down Refugee Kid in the public consciousness. |
Anonymous
And the thousands of innocents slaughtered in Aleppo as the result of the indiscriminate Russian bombings? |
Anonymous
| and also, to those pro-Russians crowing about how they're winning in Aleppo ... just as ISIS is defeated we now have the Army of Aleppo who will go forth and do terrorist things. |
Anonymous
I wonder about the effectiveness of modern day coups. Once upon a time there was a clear understanding of who held power. Topple that person and that problem is over. Now each "leader" has so many entanglements, that if you topple him, the other heads of the hydra continue to cause different problems |
Anonymous
Gulen is just the convenient scapegoat for Erdogan's authoritarian power grab, just a convenient excuse for silencing his critics and political opposition. |
Anonymous
Trump's problem now. |
Anonymous
Skinny Turkish millennial takes down The Bear |
Anonymous
You mean in January 20, not December 20? |
Anonymous
Not the stereotypical millennial, this one actually did something other than just complain and list the things that the world owes him. |
Anonymous
No, I mean it's Trump's problem now. I'm sure Obama will do what he can to keep the powderkeg from exploding but there's no way that this all gets resolved between now and January 20. |