Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Bad News: Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet. Good News: Sierra Leone is Ebola-Free
Turkey has shot down a Russian jet. this was the first time a NATO jet shot down a Russian one since 1952. Those who grasp the gravity of this have broken out in a cold sweat. Yes, it’s as serious as it sounds.
I don’t know exactly what happened, and truly, no one who really does is going to be talking. Given that this is the kind of thing that can — although probably won’t — expose NATO as a paper tiger, crank the current level of geopolitical hysteria up to 11, and even, in extremis, lead to direct superpower conflict, I don’t think it would be helpful for me to opine about what the United States should do, save to say that I hope wisdom prevails, and urge all concerned to back away from the precipice (as if anyone would listen to me).
Here are things others’ have written about this, but Medvedev apart, I don’t think they know more about it than anyone else. They just had deadlines and had to put words on paper.
Putin’s War on Far Too Many Fronts, By Leonid Bershidsky
Has Vladimir Putin finally overreached? The Russian president is confronting several simultaneous crises. Over the weekend, Ukrainian activists blew up high-voltage transmission towers and cut off electricity supplies to Russian-held Crimea. In St. Petersburg, his home city, on Tuesday a column of 600 heavy trucks was crawling toward the city government building to protest tolls on Russian roads (a son of a close Putin friend has a financial interest in the system). And on the Turkey-Syria border, the Turkish air force downed a Russian bomber. …
Ankara defends ISIS, Turkish officials have financial interest in oil trade with group – PM Medvedev
Some Turkish officials have ‘direct financial interest’ in the oil trade with the terrorist group Islamic State, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said as he detailed possible Russian retaliation to Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane in Syria on Tuesday.
“Turkey’s actions are de facto protection of Islamic State,” Medvedev said, calling the group formerly known as ISIS by its new name. “This is no surprise, considering the information we have about direct financial interest of some Turkish officials relating to the supply of oil products refined by plants controlled by ISIS.”
“The reckless and criminal actions of the Turkish authorities… have caused a dangerous escalation of relations between Russia and NATO, which cannot be justified by any interest, including protection of state borders,” Medvedev said.
Will Nato be drawn in? Nato held an emergency meeting of its North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s main decision-making body, at Turkey’s request. Ambassadors from 28 member countries met in Brussels for the briefing and to decide on any further action.
The alliance was expected to attempt to de-escalate tensions over Turkey’s actions, despite strong statements in recent months condemning Russian incursions into member states’ airspace in Europe. “The last thing Nato wants right now is a new conflict with Russia with everything else that’s going on,” Mr Sengupta said. ….
NATO Must Have Turkey’s Back, by Walter Russell Mead:
The rapid deterioration of global order took an ugly turn this morning and we all moved a little closer to the abyss: Two Turkish F-16s have shot down what appears to be a Russian Su-24 bomber near the Syrian border. Two Russian pilots parachuted out of the plane as it went down in flames. One pilot was captured by Turkmen fighters in Latakia province, with early reports indicating the second pilot did not survive the ordeal. Turkey is claiming the bomber was warned ten times about being in Turkish airspace before it was shot down. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called for a special consultation with Turkey’s NATO allies. …
It’s now critical that Russia not be allowed to intimidate or pressure Turkey over the episode. That means NATO support. Turkey, unlike Georgia and Ukraine, is a full-fledged NATO member, and failing to stand behind it threatens to unravel the alliance. Putin’s number one goal, we must remember, is to break NATO—or at minimum to show that it is a paper tiger. The slow-moving collapse of the political relationship between the other members and Turkey gives him an opening. The lack of trust over ISIS, and the broader disagreements over how to fight the Syrian war, have undermined Turkey’s relationship with its Western allies. But the fundamental element in the divide between the West and Turkey remains the Islamist and increasingly anti-democratic nature of the Turkish government. All this must, for now, be swept aside. If the Kremlin is prepared to engage in a reasonable and cooperative process to determine responsibility for the incident and follow diplomatic precedent and procedures, then we should meet it half-way. But if Moscow attempts to force Turkey into some kind of capitulation, Ankara needs solid backup. …
President Obama sees Syria as a quagmire ready to engulf the United States, and has believed that the less he deals with the Syrian mess the better. Those are reasonable fears, but the longer the war rages unchecked the more dangerous it becomes—and the worse the President’s choices get. Russia, for its part, has long been using Obama’s unwillingness to engage in confrontations as a tool to force American retreat. The Kremlin’s read is that President Obama is so conflict-averse that Russia can engage in behavior that would otherwise be seen as much too risky. Regardless of whether the plane was in Turkish or Russian airspace at the moment of the downing, this incident is typical of a global pattern of Russian planes testing the limits of what is possible and acceptable. Now that this pattern has produced such a clear conflict point, the U.S.—and the West, generally—must not back down.
My intuition is that both powers will climb down, though. Just a gut feeling based on experience. In the absence of detailed insight about what’s really happening in today’s NATO emergency meetings, the Kremlin, and the Palace, my best guess is that we’ll see a lot of bluster — perhaps for a while, and even perhaps for years — but I don’t think the Fourth World War just began. To say much more would only be contributing to a lot of poorly- or half-informed speculation, so I won’t.
If you’ve been reading about this elsewhere and have any questions about what you’re reading, I might be able to help you sort out who some of the players are and what theories are more apt to be true and why. So feel free to ask. But basically, we won’t really know what’s happening now until the archives are open many years from now. (Or absent that, from a Wikileaks document dump, of which I would of course disapprove — even though, as a journalist, historian, and someone who like all of us would be affected by these events if they spin further out of control, I’d give anything to read what our diplomats and analysts are really thinking right now.)
This is obviously serious, and you would be right to be afraid (and in my view, right to be a lot more afraid than you should be by the relocation of vetted Syrian refugees). A direct NATO-Russian conflict has long been one of the world’s worst nightmares. ISIS is a terrifying nuisance to the West; but Russia, by virtue of the weapons it already has — not “might have,” nor “will inevitably seek” — can destroy our civilization tomorrow, through malice, or, much more likely, miscalculation. And vice-versa, of course. Russian patterns or testing our defenses and will, its aggression, and its salami tactics on the borders of NATO are by now a highly proven pattern and pose — bring on the cliché — a genuinely existential threat to the post war security order. By this, I mean that the relatively stable and prosperous postwar order in which we grew up might well disappear if this keeps up.
I don’t think the odds of this are so high that we should be shrieking and panicking (not that this has ever helped a thing), but I do think they’re high enough that if you’re not feeling a bit sick to your stomach, you’re either totally unflappable or in a bit of denial.
But it does no good to feel sick, unless you’re one of the people with the power to effect this, and I’m not. And if you are, you shouldn’t be talking about it on Ricochet, so put down the Internet and get back to work, please.
Given this depressing news, I thought it would be a good day to remind you that not everything in the world is headed straight for hell.
Twenty-two months after the Ebola outbreak began, Sierra Leone is free of the disease.* Sierra Leone was among the three West African countries hit hardest by the deadliest Ebola epidemic in history. It lasted 22 months and killed more than 11,300 people. Guinea — where the epidemic originated — also had good news; its last known Ebola patient has recovered, and if no new cases are reported, it too will soon be declared Ebola-free.
*Almost. As I wrote this, it was reported that a 15-year-old boy died of Ebola in Liberia — less than three months after the country was declared free of the virus. Given that there were 8,704 laboratory-confirmed cases in the year up to November 24, 2015, this shouldn’t diminish our sense that we have cause for great celebration. This kind of celebration, in fact:
Congratulations, Sierra Leone.
Published in Foreign Policy, General
Oops, Ball Diamond Ball beat me to it at #28.
Is Russia responding? Or is this just more of the same?
Some of those 100+ prior airspace incursions have been reported on military-related news feeds (StrategyPage in my case), though not in the wider MSM. One presumes that at one point Turkey’s protest included an explicit ‘stop or else’ and they had to show that they meant it.
Allen West thinks the stars are aligning for Armegeddon. He thinks the flurry of talks since this incident and the complicated web of alliances and interests are reminiscent of another time.
I doubt this incident is sufficient to cause WWIII. But it’s a step in the wrong direction.
http://www.allenbwest.com/2015/11/what-turkey-did-this-morning-may-just-have-started-world-war-iv/
I get most of my best Facebook notices from Col. West, so I am a fan, but he’s crackers on this one. I grant you that the ME is all fubarred up these days, and so it may look like 1914, but nothing else aligns. Let’s get real here.
The stuff West’s site publishes is a mixed bag. Some of it is mere sensationalism. And his contributors have an unethical habit of reprinting all or most of an article they cite.
I agree that he’s stretching on this one. But he raises an interesting point about the meetings. Putin is meeting with all the Middle Eastern leaders. Obama plays golf. How much is happening behind the scenes that our leadership is unaware of?
And he points out that France might be inclined to side with Russia rather than NATO. What do you think, Claire?
As you say:
These 113 or 114 incursions into Turkish airspace look like salami tactics to me – what am I missing?
Also – it’s a NATO border they’re repeatedly violating. Why isn’t the rest of NATO reacting strongly? Does this happen a lot?
No?
If the Russians kept flying (114 x) across the edges of Alaskan airspace I think you’d feel the need for a strong response, no matter how distant they were from Washington DC.
I think the WW nomenclature goes like this. WW1 ended in 1918. WW2 ended in 1945. WW3 aka The Cold War ended with the reunification of Germany. WW4 started with the AUMF on 14 Sep 2001 and is ongoing.
At least that is how we are calling it in other threads.
He’s correct. It might.
Well don’t that make my brown eyes blue.
Well, France does have a history of making things easier for our adversaries.
Hollande seems to grasp that Putin’s only offering a trap.
But this is (one of) the reasons why I don’t get excited about Le Pen, and don’t understand why other Americans do. It’s possible that if she were in office, she’d get the same intelligence briefings Hollande does and come to the same conclusions, but I wouldn’t count on it. As you note, there’s a history in France of making things easier for our adversaries; her hostility toward America and enthusiasm for Putin add up — in my mind — to “something Americans wouldn’t get excited about.”
Sorry, my fault for being confusing — I don’t know how many of those incursions were Russian. I’ll try to find out. Turkey and its neighbors are pretty much constantly violating each others’ airspace. Turkish-Greek dogfights are so common they barely make the news. Usually, when the site hasn’t been hacked (as it seems to have been) you can check the TSK website to see who violated whose airspace on any given day. Not that anyone believes the TSK website is a fully reliable source of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but if you’re used to keeping an eye on it, you get used to the idea that a foreign plane in Turkish airspace would hardly be an unusual sight.
Well from what I have heard of Madame Le Pen she is a Putinophile. This is what troubles me so much about elements of the Right in Europe. I guess it must be hard to be a hardcore nationalist and know your nation is only a second rate military and economic power.
Having spent some months in Istanbul, my impression was and is that Turkey is not a European country. Only half of Istanbul is on the ass end of the continent. Geographically, religiously, culturally, genetically and politically they aren’t Europeans. I think it a mistake that Turkey is part of NATO, or a Common Market candidate.Why should NATO have to come to its defense?
I realize that this shoot down hasn’t come to military confrontation, but it could in the future.
America isn’t European either, but we have an Atlantic Coast and we’re not yet a Muslim country. So why is an unreliable country like Turkey entitled to our intervention in the event of “an attack on one being an attack on all.” Big mistake, but a bit late for correction I suppose. The Turks rely on NATO, in theory,having its back. They certainly know that NATO and the Russians will avoid confrontation, which enboldens them to take risks like the one under discussion.
mistake, but a little late I guess. This, in my opinion, emboldens the Turks to take risks, believing NATO has its back. Maybe, in fact, it doesn’t, but the Turks know NATO, and Russia, will do anything to avoid confrontation.
Interestingly, this potential confrontation is exactly the reason Turkey was brought into NATO in the first place. To maintain control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, to contain the USSR.
Putin may be courting a confrontation with Turkey, involving everybody, specifically in order to resolve it with Turkey as a new partner.
When were you there? I lived there for a long time, and would agree completely that Turkey is not at all like northern or central Europe. It’s culturally very similar in a lot of ways to its Mediterranean neighbors, however. I think it’s much more useful to think in categories of “MENA” (Middle East North Africa), “Mediterranean,” “Western Europe,” “Central Europe,” “Balkans” and “Eastern Europe.” Western Turkey is “Mediterranean,” and the further east and south you go in Turkey, the closer you get — geographically and culturally — to MENA; and the closer to the Balkans, to the Balkans. But that’s not surprising, is it?
On “genetically” (unless you meant this metaphorically), I’m absolutely certain this is wrong. (Or at least, as sure as its possible to be without actually having every Turkish citizen’s DNA samples in hand.) The more DNA testing they do, the more they find — to the embarrassment of Turkish nationalists, who would fully agree with the literal version of this statement — that the genetic mingling in this region has been thorough. This is behind a paywall, but you can see what I mean from the abstract.
Obviously, Turkey’s a Muslim-majority country, so if you define European as “not Muslim,” it’s not European, by definition. But if you go from Istanbul to, say, the Republika Srbska, you’ll definitely feel you’ve gone … how to put it … well, bluntly, you’ll think you’ve gone downhill.
If the terms of the Treaty of Versailles had been enforced, there would have been no WWII. France could have reamed Germany if they’d re-occupied the Rhineland when Hitler illegally ordered German troops there.
Yes.
As a thought exercise, imagine what would happen tomorrow if the headlines today read, “NATO dumps Article V.”