International Politics Thread - Disease and Disaster

[Samson Manhug]

Joshua Landis has been saying for a few years that the current situation in the Middle East is most similar to him to the Balkans prior to WWI. Imperial borders giving way to new nation states, great powers picking sides according to their interests, the potential for snowballing. . .

I think the difference is that in the 1910's, the great powers were primed to go at it over that lynchpin (That's more or less the exact terms of the French commitment to Russia). I don't see it here although the Ukrainian crisis is a concern as far as how heated Russian antagonism could get.

Messy situation to be sure. I imagine Shadow Mod thought of the Ottoman Empire evisceration. That statu quo is well and certainly dying.

Sure, it's not a direct parallel, but for people confused about how borders can just disappear and small-time terrorists can achieve global influence, it shows that there certainly is a modern precedent for it.

[brob]

in other news: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/anti-government-protesters-clash-police-korea-151114085804263.html

At least 30 people have been injured after police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse what was believed to be the largest anti-government protest in South Korea's capital in more than seven years, local media reported.

On Saturday up to 80,000 people in Seoul called for the resignation of President Park Geun Hye in demonstrations fuelled by growing frustration over the government's labour policies and rising youth unemployment.

[Kara]

Joshua Landis has been saying for a few years that the current situation in the Middle East is most similar to him to the Balkans prior to WWI. Imperial borders giving way to new nation states, great powers picking sides according to their interests, the potential for snowballing. . .

I think the difference is that in the 1910's, the great powers were primed to go at it over that lynchpin (That's more or less the exact terms of the French commitment to Russia). I don't see it here although the Ukrainian crisis is a concern as far as how heated Russian antagonism could get.

Messy situation to be sure. I imagine Shadow Mod thought of the Ottoman Empire evisceration. That statu quo is well and certainly dying.

Sure, it's not a direct parallel, but for people confused about how borders can just disappear and small-time terrorists can achieve global influence, it shows that there certainly is a modern precedent for it.

I guess what differentiates it for me is that the Ottoman Empire inherited a lot of long running political and cultural conflicts from preceding Islamic states and exacerbated them with defensive policies like tanzimat while Austria-Hungary's similar multiethnic problems were more of a symptom of the proliferation of nationalism after the wars of X coalitions in continental Europe. Bosnia-Herzegovina wasn't even Habsburg territory for a hundred years.

To be certain things like French policies in Mandatory Syria contributed to its present situation, but Iran's role in the war goes back to the Safavid conversion of Iran and Iraq, which itself was a common political tactic with the demise of the Rashidun. (The Abbasids played off the original, political Sunni-Shia conflict in their own campaign to seize power.)

Sure am glad Jacobin neoconservativism thinks it can just magically wade into millenium plus conflicts and wave its magic wand.

[Shadow Mod]

If magic wand is a euphemism for nukes hell yes!

[Joe Molotov]

Kill 'em all and let the comparatively greater god sort 'em out.

[jakefromstatefarm]

I guess what differentiates it for me is that the Ottoman Empire inherited a lot of long running political and cultural conflicts from preceding Islamic states and exacerbated them with defensive policies like tanzimat while Austria-Hungary's similar multiethnic problems were more of a symptom of the proliferation of nationalism after the wars of X coalitions in continental Europe. Bosnia-Herzegovina wasn't even Habsburg territory for a hundred years.

To be certain things like French policies in Mandatory Syria contributed to its present situation, but Iran's role in the war goes back to the Safavid conversion of Iran and Iraq, which itself was a common political tactic with the demise of the Rashidun. (The Abbasids played off the original, political Sunni-Shia conflict in their own campaign to seize power.)

Sure am glad Jacobin neoconservativism thinks it can just magically wade into millenium plus conflicts and wave its magic wand.

I see a lot of similarities between the reification of the Sunni-Shi'a divide as a centuries old conflict and the myth-making projects of 18th, 19th century European nation building. People point to the First Fitna as a formative event in modern sectarianism because it conveniently contextualizes the conflict into two eternally warring groups, despite the fact that orthodoxy within the early muslim world was poorly defined and Shi'ism as we know it today was little more than a cult of reverence for 'Ali and a penchant for anti-authoritarian rhetoric. It isn't until (early) modern institutions make cultural homogeneity possible and two competing states in the Ottoman and Safavid dynasties collide that the division between Sunni and Shi'a becomes recognizable to a 21st century observer. The Abbasids didn't have to play the conflict off, it wasn't a salient division to begin with among the vast majority of actual practitioners. The Fatimids construct the first (Ismaili) Shi'a state between the 10th-12th centuries, and find no contradiction in letting alien confessional identities, even Coptic Christians, administer for them. To ape at length:

'Shiism' or partisanship for 'Ali ibn Abi Taleb (d. 661) and the succession of Twelve Imams is as old as Islam itself. From the very beginning and throughout Islamic history, an important minority of Muslims has maintained that 'Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, father of his only grandsons Hasan and Husayn, also his spiritual successor and should have been his only political heir. The forms this partisanship took however, could vary widely, from outright rebellion against those seeking to organize and rule the Islamic community according to the Prophet's example and traditions (Sunnism), to quite acquiescence while waiting the return of a messiah-like Iman to deliver the world from iniquity. With time, Shiism became both the ideology of the disenfranchised, an intra-Islamic opposition ever ready to channel social protest against the powerful, and a religious sect or church in its own right, with a scholastic and legal tradition every bit as institutionalized as that of the rival Sunni majority.

In rural and tribal-dominated areas such as Khorasan (north-eastern Iran), where the Turkmen of Central Asia first came into contact with Islamic civilization, these differences remained largely academic. Here, 'Shiism' above all entailed a popular devotion to 'Ali and Husain as the warrior champions and tragic heroes of early Islam. Along with Abu Muslim, who in 749 CE led a the revolution from Khorasan that would install the Abbasids in Baghdad, only to be betrayed and murdered by them, and al-Hallaj, the Turko-Iranian sufi philosopher who was executed by the same dynasty for his alleged pantheism in 927, the Shiite martyrs exemplified the velour, moral rectitude and free-spiritedness so highly regarded by the Turkmen tribes. Their conversion to Islam in this period was achieved largely through the efforts not of textual scholars (ulema) expounding the finer points of Koranic exegesis and shari'a law, but by charismatic sufi dervishes whose cult of Muslim saint worship, mystical divination, and millenarianism spoke more directly to the steppe mindset. In this context, Shiite inclinations (tashayyu') and 'Alid loyalties were not an express negation of Sunni Orthodoxy but rather the natural mode of non-literature, non-sectarian folk Islam. The Turkmen whose westward migration in the medieval period would so change the course of world could very well be formally Sunni and affectively Shiite at the same same time.

This dualism or 'confessional ambiguity', to use John Woods' term, was nowhere more in evidence than among the great nomad confederations that dominated Iran and western Asia after the great Timurid conquests of the fourteenth century. Timur himself alternately presented himself as a defender of Sunnism and of Shiism; the leaders of the Karakoyunlu Turkmen whoo controlled the region from Lake Van to Baghdad were decried by contemporaries as ghulat (extreme) Shiites but never actually adopted formal Shiite doctrines; the powerful Akkoyunlu confederation, from whose ranks many of the Kızılbaş would later be drawn, patronized bother Sunni and militantly Shiite orders, including the Safavids of Ardabil. Confessional ambiguity was also the norm throughout Anatolia after the Turkmen invasions. Many mid-size artisan and trading towns such as Ankara or Kırşehir were run by the ahi brotherhoods, local craftsman corporations which, much like the medieval Islamic futuwwa guilds on which they were modeled, adhered to a code of moral conduct and urban self-governance that was replete with Shiite symbolism and values with repudiating orthodox religious practice or shari'a law. Among the tribes, the more esoteric (batini) Ismaili form of Shiism, as well as Kabbalah-like Hurufi sect and any number of nonconformist sufi movements, could fuel the periodic millenarian revolts against the Saljuq [Seljuq] dynasty in Konya, which would in retrospect be identified with Sunni Islam. 'Maybe the religious history of Anatolian and Balkan Muslims living in the frontier areas of the period from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries should be conceptualized in terms of metadoxy'. Cemal Kafadar has written in the most most fluid synthesis to date of the Ottoman Empire's religious origins, 'a state of being beyond doxies, a combination of being doxy-naive and not being doxy-minded, as well as the absence of a state that was interested in rigorously defining and strictly enforcing an orthodoxy. . . It was much later that a debate emerged among Ottoman scholar sand statesmen with respect to the correctness of some of the practices of their ancestors.'...

The Kizilbash revolts, a series of millenarian anti-state uprisings by the heterodox rural population of Anatolia that culminated in the establishment of a militantly Shiite rival state in neighboring Iran, forced for perhaps the first time in Islamic history the 'sharp delineation' of Sunni and Shiite doctrinal schools. In doing so, they also changed forever how the Ottoman state would define and treat Muslim heterodox minorities living within its own borders.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KGeuAeFFJCEC&pg=PA7&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=true


Eternal conflict among two fixed groups is less an explanation than a politically expedient trope. It isn't the multi-confessional/multi-ethnic nature of these states or the fact that they have large minority groups that kills them, it's the intentional limiting of access to the political process placed upon those groups.

[VomKriege]

Sarkozy : asshole extraordinaire.

Just after having left President Hollande which had invited him to speak about the current crisis, Sarkozy made a short speech for TV. In the middle of his observations about security, war, Syria, he says Europe needs "to set a new immigration policy, there's no link of course, but the problem is on the table".

[VomKriege]

The Presidency has called upon a Congress aka a full Parliament (Assembly and Senate) at Versailles tomorrow.
The National Assembly will also have to vote 25 Nov. about the continuation of French military action against IS. This was on the table before the attacks.

As you may have heard, the French airforce has conducted raids over Raqa, a Syrian town controlled by ISIS. 10 planes and 20 bombs were used, so it's a pretty big operation for the task force (France has 12 fighter planes allocated, stationed in Jordan and the Emirates). To note, reporting seems to be from both ISIS and anti-ISIS sources that the raids did hit targets and that no civilian casualties has been recorded.

Aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle should once more be sent to the area to provide 24 more planes to the Coalition. The biggest change we can expect is probably a bigger focus on Syria : France only started attacking targets here a few months ago, there was previously an understanding that we were OK for any work in Iraq, but not to play into Bachar el Assad's hands (Foreign minister was always adamant about that). The events will probably make what was remaining of the political block go. I don't expect any earth-shattering change to French or coalition strategy beyond that. I don't think anyone is really eager to really put boots on the ground and France will not go head on alone in a rash move : Quite a bit of the force projection is already allocated to several theathers and UN missions (FINUL in Lebanon being one) and the ramping up of the security plans at home in January plus now also drain some of the force pool. France loves UN mandates (especially to have their own UN sanctioned parallel operation to still keep maximum operational liberty).

As an aside, I do believe that the Guns or Butter will have to be adressed seriously at some point. In France, even though we are probably still one of the most adamant over the matter on the Old Continent (with the UK), but even more so in other European countries. There's been a longstanding claim that a lot of NATO members are freeloading US infrastructure and it is true. Considering US may have bigger Asian chickens to fry in the future, European countries should maybe well advised to not be naked considering the Ukraine crisis or what is happening in the "Near East" which share borders with (long standing despite the unease) prospective EU member Turkey.

EDIT : There's also a lot of "war" being thrown out by politics and the governement but it's a bit of empty rhetoric to be fair. For one because we are already "at war" for all intents and purpose and have been for many years.

At home, there's talks of creating the necessary apparatus to "dissolve" extremist mosques. Can it be effective ? Can't fault the governement there, it is a very real issue that some places do serve to relay heinous preach (if not worse) to young people.

[benjipwns]

It will be interesting to see if these attacks will have any major impact on the Marshall Islands elections tomorrow. And the first part of the New Zealand flag referendum on Friday.

Also, btw, Successful Croatia won one seat. Which is 1/4th as many as the parties had before they formed the coalition.

And the non-junta opposition party won a complete majority in both houses in Myanmar even counting the military appointed seats.

[Samson Manhug]

Polish minister suggests conscripting Syrian refugees, turning them into a foreign legion, and sending them back to fight. Points for originality?

"They can go to fight to liberate their country with our help," said Witold Waszczykowski, who was set to take office on Monday.

"Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have come to Europe recently. We can help them form an army," he said on public television over the weekend. "Tens of thousands of young men disembark from their rubber dinghies with iPad in hand and instead of asking for drink or food, they ask where they can charge their cellphones."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/16/polish-foreign-minister-suggests-turning-syrian-refugees-into-an-army/

[Samson Manhug]

Netanyahu a wanted man in Spain



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-issues-arrest-warrant-for-israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-over-2010-gaza-flotilla-a6736436.html

[Brehvolution]

From that same page: http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-picture-of-donald-trump-is-made-entirely-out-of-500-penises--b1iioBNDYx

 

[Samson Manhug]

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-1.686408

Within a few days Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb where the population is in some neighborhoods 80-percent Muslim, has become one of the most maligned places in Europe. Local security forces have been working nonstop since the mass terror attacks in Paris on Friday in a locale that has been dubbed “a jihadi base.” The same is true of the media, which want to learn more about the three local residents, the Abdeslam brothers, who apparently took part in planning and carrying out the attacks, and reportedly were “a few days earlier, walking around the neighborhood as though it was business as usual…” At the same time, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel declared Sunday that his government intends to act to regain control of Molenbeek.

Apparently in the first stage there is a plan to transfer authority for handling the locale to the Belgian national police chief, Catherine De Bolle.
For his part, Michel declared, with respect to terror activity, “I have become aware that there’s almost always a connection to Molenbeek." His Interior Minister Jan Jambon added that, “the situation in Molenbeek has spiraled out of control. We must invest efforts there in order to restore control over what is going on.”

Meanwhile, in Belgium – which awoke Sunday to headlines to the effect that the country is “the home-front base of extremist Islam in Europe” – debate and mutual accusations were heard among politicians.

Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans, a member of the prime minister’s Liberal Party, claimed in an interview to the local La Libre newspaper that the Jihadis “don’t all come from here, a large percentage are only in transit… It’s easy for them to hide. In some districts, the population is very dense, with 80 percent of the people from North African origin. Anonymity is easier for people passing through with very bad intentions.”

Schepmans, who took office in 2012, went on to point an accusing finger at her predecessor: “Immigrants arrived here, where the ground was ripe for processes of religious extremism, because there was no policy for receiving them or integrating them into community life. One should have been firmer from the start," she added, with respect to the newcomers' obligations to the society in which they came to live.

The mayor's predecessor, Philippe Moreaux, a history professor and member of the Socialist Party, served in that capacity for about 20 years.
One member of the city council said Sunday that “since the end of the period of the major immigration in the 1970s, and until the beginning of the second millennium, the population from North Africa grew fourfold as a result of the law enabling family reunification. The mayor saw it as an opportunity to conduct ‘a social-multicultural laboratory experiment’ … and failed in a big way.’”

It should be noted that Belgium's Socialist Party relies largely on the votes of Muslim residents, and therefore its leaders’ approach to the issue is very complex.

[...]

"Complex" 

Seems like a generous way to put it in a piece basically blaming the Belgian Socialist Party for the attacks.

[VomKriege]

Expect to see those debate to pop up more and more in European countries with a large muslim population. Le Parisien newspaper has a piece about the Paris Transport Autonomous Authority (Public owned) where one of the suspected bombers worked 15 months not some long ago, centered into problematic religious behaviours by certain employees. The story went out in 2013 when female employees accused some of their coworkers of not talking to them or refusing to shake hands or greet up to the point of the zealous bus drivers to refuse maning a bus just operated by a women previous, and has been confirmed by union sources although it is hard exactly to quantify how many people are guilty of this. Also talks of employees praying in spite of the work schedule, asking for praying rooms, informal peer pressure directed towards less observant muslims to respect Ramadan and similar things. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate similar stories can be found in the national railways, airports and a variety of subcontractors (cleaning, baggage handling and transit) where muslim employees are a big part of the workforce.

I won't take a definitive stance on whether employers should accomodate some demands of that nature but refusing to communicate (even on purely professionnal basis) with coworkers because of their gender sounds very disturbing, all the more for public employees of a secular country. On the whole, there's a suspicion that local public authorities are turning a blind eye not to shake the hornet's nest in what, without much surprise, are often poor districts.

With regards to Moleenbeek Saint Jean, the brother of two suspects (One alleged to be a suicide bomber last Friday, the other on the run and wanted, both residents in that Brussels suburb) is working for the city. I want to make clear that he was freed by police and claims he knew nothing of the criminal enterprise. It still at the very least exemplifies just how deep and close potential recruitment in a jihadist cell has become in some places even among people apparently well adjusted.

[Rufus]

'More suicides' in government disability test areas

Onwards, backwards.

[Samson Manhug]

Germany cancelled today's friendly against the Netherlands, evacuating the fans already there:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/34849263

[brob]

'More suicides' in government disability test areas

Onwards, backwards.

French workers have been engaging in suicide as protest for over ten years at this point. Britons gonna have to adapt quicker if they hope to remain a player in the globalized market.

[brawndolicious]

Russia’s FSB security service said investigators had concluded from traces of explosives in the wreckage that an improvised bomb had caused the crash.

Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, said the plane crash was “unequivocally a terrorist act”. Investigators had studied the personal belongings, baggage and debris from the plane wreckage, he said. “According to our experts, a homemade explosive device equivalent to 1kg of TNT went off onboard, which caused the plane to break up in the air, which explains why the fuselage was scattered over such a large territory.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/egypt-plane-crash-bomb-jet-russia-security-service

Scary that such a little bomb could bring down a plane.

[CatsCatsCats]

Isn't a stick of dynamite like a half pound? A kilo of TNT isn't exactly that small

[Samson Manhug]

For perspective, a 60mm mortar is the equivalent of 1 kg or so of TNT and has a blast radius of 25 meters:



But they are likely just guesstimating by the damage. I haven't seen anything released even hinting what kind of explosive it was.

[VomKriege]

Isn't a stick of dynamite like a half pound? A kilo of TNT isn't exactly that small

The wording is a bit stilted, maybe the translation. They're using equivalency to TNT as a scale, but the materials used may have been anything else and more compact.

[brawndolicious]

Actually a mortar round sounds like the type of thing they would have used in such an IED. A 60 mm one looks small enough to be in a carry on or even a coat pocket.

Isn't a stick of dynamite like a half pound? A kilo of TNT isn't exactly that small

Lemme justify a year of o-chem: Dynamite uses nitroglycerin that's soaked into clay to make it less likely to accidentally explode, TNT is short for trinitrotoluene and it's a newer explosive that's even safer to handle. A lot of explosives including nukes are judged by their equivalent weight of TNT.

[VomKriege]

The IS has advertised what they claim is the explosive device used against the Russian plane :
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/11/islamic-state-releases-photograph-of-bomb-that-brought-down-russian-airliner.php

Muslims today have a loud, thundering statement, and possess heavy boots. They will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism, and boots that will trample the idol of nationalism, destroy the idol of democracy, and uncover its deviant nature.

 

[Samson Manhug]

Not much to that picture. The tape hides any clues to how it was triggered or what type of explosive was used. Part of me thinks IS is still full of shit, but I won't say it's impossible.

[Madrun Badrun]

http://qz.com/553713/the-paris-attacks-changed-the-most-crucial-relationship-in-the-russian-economy/

[VomKriege]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/22/robert-mugabe-to-rule-zimbabwe-from-special-wheelchair-says-wife

Never give up.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Mugabe to become a Dalek confirmed

[benjipwns]

This was from earlier in the year: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mugabe-falls-27-bodyguards-punished-after-zimbabwe-president-stumbles-carpet-1487334

I've read rumors that there's a bit of an internal battle (like duh, of course there is) between his wife and some others as to his succession and that he refuses to pick a side. Last story I read was about her trying to place her people in key places to consolidate her power, Hillary style. And that one dope who was led to believe he was the obvious successor got shuffled off to some diplomatic post in Asia.

[Mandark]

There's some incentive as a leader with failing health to make your succession uncertain.  Everyone's still jockeying for your favor, there's no heir apparent who can get impatient, etc.  Not quite so great for the stability of the government in the long term, but you'll be dead then anyways.

[benjipwns]

It would be fairly interesting to see a female succession though, she's relatively young too. I don't think there's been a "popularly elected" female President for Life in post-colonization Africa. I suppose that would depend on Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's conduct over the next few years.

Political science would have a field day...

[VomKriege]

Two decents articles on current French overall military doctrine and strategy :

http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/frogs-of-war-explaining-the-new-french-military-interventionism/?

http://www.rand.org/blog/2015/11/the-french-way-of-war.html?

I think it highlights well the ambiguous continuation between modern day humanitarian ideals, former colonialism and Western exceptionalism.
With regards to the RAND article, it is touched upon already but it's important to keep in mind with regards to "modest objectives" and "scarcity of means" that bar the US it is pretty much the maximum that major military powers can afford now in terms of projected manpower. Hopes of major political transition in foreign lands through a "benevolent" occupation should probably be thrown to the bin out of sheer impossibility. The powers that be should do well to remember that... because it is not immediatly apparent in their speeches that they do.

[VomKriege]

AQ has not been neutralized

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/11/al-qaeda-has-not-been-neutralized.php

[brob]

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/669066088035020800

 

[VomKriege]

Seems farfetched Russian Air Force would be so uncautious. All their fighters operate from within Syria IIRC. We'll see.

Pilots appear to have ejected.

Edit: Russian SU24, apparently confirmed by both parties. It's gonna be a jolly good back and forth to know who's at fault. It's a dangerous game they are playing.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Fuuuuuu just what the world needs now 

[brob]

while on the subject of military plane crashes

Mukhtiar is the first female pilot of the Pakistan air force to be killed while on duty. The air force had 19 women pilots in 2013, the last year for which the figure was immediately available.

[VomKriege]

Fuuuuuu just what the world needs now 

It should not amount to a serious threat of escalation between NATO and Russia, if the higher interest prevails (whatever the truth of the incident...). Lots of negative talk about Turkey dealings (IS oil black markets, etc...) in Western press recently, I could see them being pressured in aligning more closely with NATO policy if they fucked up somehow.

[T-Short]

topical week for the headline "Turkey gets into trouble" tho

[VomKriege]

http://warontherocks.com/2015/11/how-the-islamic-states-favorite-strategy-book-explains-recent-terrorist-attacks/

A couple thoughts on IS force projection doctrine.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/middleeast/warplane-crashes-near-syria-turkey-border/index.html


Video at this link. Definitely hit by a missile manufactured by the US they are saying.

Anyway bad move on Turkey's part. Really bad move.

[VomKriege]

Putin straight up speaking of stab in the back and calling Turkey accomplices to terrorism.
Fun times ahead. Especially in Ankara.

EDIT : A russian chopper looking for the pilots, may have been brought down by rebel fire.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

View at your own behest  (NSFL) https://twitter.com/allsory_allhor/status/669093496624689152

They rebels killed both pilots.


This is not going to end well for Turkey. Not at all.

[Yulwei]

There's another video floating around of some fighters shooting at a parachuting pilot, but apparently that one is not from today's incident.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

There's another video floating around of some fighters shooting at a parachuting pilot, but apparently that one is not from today's incident.

Correct that is from some time ago.

[Samson Manhug]

View at your own behest  (NSFL) https://twitter.com/allsory_allhor/status/669093496624689152

They rebels killed both pilots.


This is not going to end well for Turkey. Not at all.

Russia can't do anything and everyone knows it. That Article V

[Am_I_Anonymous]

View at your own behest  (NSFL) https://twitter.com/allsory_allhor/status/669093496624689152

They rebels killed both pilots.


This is not going to end well for Turkey. Not at all.

Russia can't do anything and everyone knows it. That Article V

 


Sure because Putin gives two fucks about some backwater ass ISIL sympathizing president thinks, surely. And as for respect for NATO....Ukraine is all I have to say. 

Edit:

“Today’s loss is linked with a stab in our back delivered by terrorism accomplices. I can’t characterize otherwise what has happened today,”

 

[Madrun Badrun]

Russia also has a pretty long history of entering other's air space.  Its something they routinely do to the U.K. 

It would be interesting to know if it was a deliberate thing and if not, which side fucked up, which is something we probably will never find out, at least not in this century. 

https://i.imgur.com/iARdJtM.jpg

this is from two days ago, showing the UK escorting the russian bombers along its airspace. 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11861425/russian-bombers-fly-british-skies.html

[Madrun Badrun]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-says-russian-fighter-jet-violated-its-airspace-with-syria-1444040488
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_123392.htm

Turkey claimed Russia violated their airspace on October 3rd and 4th as well.  Makes it more likely this was a message to Russia saying stop fucking with us. 

[VomKriege]

Russia also has a pretty long history of entering other's air space.  Its something they routinely do to the U.K. 

It would be interesting to know if it was a deliberate thing and if not, which side fucked up, which is something we probably will never find out, at least not in this century. 
https://i.imgur.com/iARdJtM.jpg

this is from two days ago, showing the UK escorting the russian bombers along its airspace. 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11861425/russian-bombers-fly-british-skies.html

They have a reputation to do that but I tend to take it with a grain of salt considering that during the Cold War the most ridiculous sovereign air space violations were probably the ones done by U2 and SR71 recons.

As for who is at fault... It seems like a cut and dried question of whether the plane infringed on Turkey air space but all elements so far make it a muddy question.

- Turkey is doing the same shit over Greece routinely.
- Russian planes have infringed on Turkish air space recently and received warnings not to do that. It seems that at least once the Russian plane locked on his aiming system on Turkish planes, which is a provocative gesture.
- Turkey claims it has given ample forewarning to that specific plane.
- Judging by radar data given so far, Russian plane may have been over Turkey for only a handful of seconds.
- Turkish governement have decided some time ago that their air command should consider a 5km zone into Syrian air as buffer and start warnings to incoming planes at that point.
- Turkey and Syria have both lost planes to each other (One Turkish F4 in 2012, one Syrian Mig23 in 2014)

Hell if I know who's at fault. Did Turkey know it was a Russia craft ? If they did, they knew what they were getting into (esp. since the Prime Minister has said he gave the direct order) and I'd say it was a blunder. It will only put Turkey under pressure from either their NATO partners or Russia.
-

[Samson Manhug]

Sure because Putin gives two fucks about some backwater ass ISIL sympathizing president thinks, surely. And as for respect for NATO....Ukraine is all I have to say. 

Do you think Ukraine is a NATO member or are you just otherwise confused?

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Sure because Putin gives two fucks about some backwater ass ISIL sympathizing president thinks, surely. And as for respect for NATO....Ukraine is all I have to say. 

Do you think Ukraine is a NATO member or are you just otherwise confused?

Nope but I think NATO warned Russia to which we got a "fuck you" in return essentially. To which of course we turned our tails and ran.


http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/10/nato-publics-blame-russia-for-ukrainian-crisis-but-reluctant-to-provide-military-aid/

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Russia also has a pretty long history of entering other's air space.  Its something they routinely do to the U.K. 

It would be interesting to know if it was a deliberate thing and if not, which side fucked up, which is something we probably will never find out, at least not in this century. 

https://i.imgur.com/iARdJtM.jpg

this is from two days ago, showing the UK escorting the russian bombers along its airspace. 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11861425/russian-bombers-fly-british-skies.html

I think it's a monthly event in Alaska.

[Samson Manhug]

Sure because Putin gives two fucks about some backwater ass ISIL sympathizing president thinks, surely. And as for respect for NATO....Ukraine is all I have to say. 

Do you think Ukraine is a NATO member or are you just otherwise confused?

Nope but I think NATO warned Russia to which we got a "fuck you" in return essentially. To which of course we turned our tails and ran.


http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/10/nato-publics-blame-russia-for-ukrainian-crisis-but-reluctant-to-provide-military-aid/

NATO was reluctant to provide military aid because Ukraine is not a member state. However, when a NATO member is attacked Article V states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. It has only been invoked once (after the September 11th, 2001 attacks) thus the creation of ISAF.

Turkey is a member state so were Russia to attack them in retaliation, the other member states are sworn to defend Turkey. Yay for WW1 tangled alliances shenanigans!

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Sure because Putin gives two fucks about some backwater ass ISIL sympathizing president thinks, surely. And as for respect for NATO....Ukraine is all I have to say. 

Do you think Ukraine is a NATO member or are you just otherwise confused?

Nope but I think NATO warned Russia to which we got a "fuck you" in return essentially. To which of course we turned our tails and ran.


http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/10/nato-publics-blame-russia-for-ukrainian-crisis-but-reluctant-to-provide-military-aid/

NATO was reluctant to provide military aid because Ukraine is not a member state. However, when a NATO member is attacked Article V states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. It has only been invoked once (after the September 11th, 2001 attacks) thus the creation of ISAF.

Turkey is a member state so were Russia to attack them in retaliation, the other member states are sworn to defend Turkey. Yay for WW1 tangled alliances shenanigans!

No I get it. My point is Russia doesn't care. If Putin wants to fuck with Turkey, he will.

[Samson Manhug]

Your first sentence might be a bit of an overstatement. This isn't Georgia or Ukraine. We're talking Cuban Missile Crisis levels of East/West tension at the moment.

[Madrun Badrun]

Yep there is a big difference between fucking with soft-allies and NATO members.  Attacking NATO would even make Putin supporters nervous, just like everyone else.

That being said my guess is there will be direct retaliation if Turkish planes ever get close to russian airspace or even indirect retaliation with Russian increasing kurdish support. 

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Your first sentence might be a bit of an overstatement. This isn't Georgia or Ukraine. We're talking Cuban Missile Crisis levels of East/West tension at the moment.

I didn't say he'd invade the fucking place. But lets see how armed Russia can make that territory via other non-country tied outlets.


Also in the latest edition of who needs a history lesson we have this asshole:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=186622895&postcount=982

[Samson Manhug]

Man, no matter what happens in that part of the world the Kurds just keep #winning.

[Samson Manhug]

"[L]ets see how armed Russia can make that territory via other non-country tied outlets."

[VomKriege]

Meanwhile, a bomb attack against a Presidential Guard bus in Tunis. At least 6 dead.