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Russia, Turkey, and Article V
Two particularly interesting comments came up at the tail end of my post about Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet. Let me reproduce them:
Pilgrim wrote:
I’ll just say it. Dump Article 5. Mutual defense obligations are either doomsday machines or paper tigers. If the treaty is wrongly considered a paper tiger, then it becomes a doomsday machine. The treaty is no stronger than the capabilities and resolve of the allies and both are open to question.
The Great War (Parts 1 and 2, with a sporting intermission to let Germany raise a new generation of young men and re-arm), was ignited by a cascade of treaties, none of which protected vital national interests, and none of which deterred the horror. In fact, the mutual defense obligations caused the horror.
And Carey J. replied:
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.
I agree entirely with Carey J. on the latter point. But the odd thing is that Pilgrim is also making a valid historical argument, particularly concerning the onset of the First World War. So this is one of those cases where we have more than one lesson of history to which to appeal — and those lessons are highly contradictory.
To put my own cards on the table, I think that yes, it’s the product of at least a decade of insane policy-making that we’ve now put ourselves in this position: NATO’s credibility is at risk because Erdoğan is insane. But this is the position we’re in.
So let’s go with this thought exercise. Suppose tomorrow’s headlines were to read:
NATO ANNOUNCES THE REVOCATION OF ARTICLE V
What do you think would happen on Sunday? Would our security and the world’s be diminished or enhanced?
Published in Foreign Policy, General
With Russian and Turkey rattling sabers Article 5 makes about as much sense as:
Attention:
All Ship’s Personnel
In case of flooding, all water-tight doors will be locked in the OPEN position to facilitate access to the flooded compartments by repair crews.
Thank you, that is all.
Oh, come on now. The US asked Turkey to help destabilize a neighboring country and, get this, install a Shia government to replace the former Sunni government (Turkey is Sunni), and allow rival Shia Iran much greater influence next door as well. And you think Turkey should be vilified for inaction on our behalf? When you consider how ISIS, and possibly even the rebellion against Assad that has disintegrated that region into a nightmarish bloodbath, was spawned by US actions, Turkey may very well have been in the right.
Are you next going to consider Switzerland a pseudo-enemy because they sat back and did nothing to help the US too?
That, and supported Kurdish autonomy which threatens the territorial integrity of SE Turkey. All considered, we were probably lucky not to have had active opposition from the Turks.
These most recent comments show how hard it is to figure out who is on which side. A won’t support us because we also support B and C is at war with A so they support us, but B hates A,… and there are 24 factions in Syria alone. So who should we support? The Kurds? Which ones? The socialist ones? The pro-Iranian Kurds? The pro-Kurd Kurds? The ones that are fighting with Turkey and buying oil from ISIS?
This is a complete mess.
MY CONSTANT QUESTION IS THIS: DEFINE THE THREAT TO VITAL AMERICAN INTEREST OR EXISTENTIAL THREAT POSED … BEFORE WE DECIDE TO ACT. THEN ACT ACCORDINGLY.
I vote with Manfred Arcane re: Turkey and our “invasion” (that’s invasion people) of Iraq. They are not an enemy. They face a certain set of problems and are pursuing their own Realpolitik – that is benefiting from NATO as much as possible, attempting to sway the EU to accept them, and generally accomodating their own population. They are also willing to trade with Russia as a great outlet for Turkish value added goods, intermediariary chemicals, textiles, machinery, etc. etc. in return for access to oil and gas.
America does not help the Turks very much with respect to these issues – so they kind of play us along and hint at anti-Americanism. We also play the same game by claiming to be friends and declaring the Armenian genocide as a fact – which is like a declaration of war on Turkey.
Bottomline: The interests of both nations are different and we both paper over it when it is convenient. But they are not our enemy. Most Sunni states are on balance willing to tolerate us in exchange for weapons and military assistance and we comply in return for some cash and a few kind words in between the tirades against us for the benefit of the Turkish domestic audience.
Members of NATO should have let us stage there to engage Iraq. They did not. They stood in our way. That is not the act of an ally.
Now, I would argue the US is not always a great Ally. Obama has seen to that for sure.
Acting accordingly to vital interests would mean a much more imperial foreign policy. Bring. It. On.
If Turkey trades Northern Cyprus (and Hatay Province) to Russia for Crimea would that solve everything?
What exactly do you see as our vital interests these days, out of curiosity? Ones that would require any amount of imperial actions?
I believe the WWII analogy is more applicable in a Russia v. NATO conflict because:
In short, Russia’s position today is closer to Germany in 1936 than 1914. And Germany in 1936 was a pushover, had Britain and/or France had the will to push.
I can’t exactly like the comment, but I agree.
I’m finding myself in a certain amount of low, unspoken conflict these days with people who want me, for their own reasons, to be cheerful — and who want this so much that they subtly suggest that my concern about geopolitics must be the product of a neurotic, anxious mind.
I have a neurotic, anxious mind, for sure. I freely admit it, and while I wish it weren’t true, it’s just how I was born. It’s like having brown eyes and size 8 feet.
But I haven’t lost my grip on reality. I know when my neurotic mind is telling me nonsense — and best ignored — and when it’s not. When I freak out about a broken computer, that’s the product of a neurotic, anxious mind.
But when I’m unable to be cheerful because the world has become drastically more violent and disordered since 2008, when I’m horrified by the extremely violent fighting in Syria and Iraq and increasing deaths in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of western combat troops; when I’m sickened by fighting in Libya, Yemen and Central African Republic; sickened because I know civilian populations mostly pay the price of conflicts in short-term and permanent dislocation and the longer-term impact of the collapse of government services, particularly education, healthcare and economic development; when I’m anxious because anyone with any knowledge of the past century’s history sees tremendously dangerous patterns repeating, and terrified because I see no sign of leadership arising in the West that even begins to grasp how serious that is; devastated because that conflict has now reached my neighborhood, in the form of mass murder in the nightclubs and on the terraces of the cafes in my neighborhood — that’s not because I’m neurotic, wallowing in melodrama, and unwilling to be happy and cheerful. That’s because I’m unwilling to deny that these are facts. I’d rather live in the world as it is and be anxious and unhappy than pretend it’s not happening and be cheerful. It’s more important to be in touch with reality than to be cheery.
I may be anxious and neurotic, but I’m not delusional. It’s not just my depression talking when I say that objectively, there’s much to be depressed about.
If only it were so clear. My friend Dov wrote a very sensible article in the National Interest about Turkey; I agree with him and endorse his conclusion;
This is the argument posited by the SOP model of foreign relations, in which Germany invaded France because Hungary militarized their border with Russia.
I’m not sure I understand the applicability of Article V in this situation. Russia hasn’t declared war or attacked Turkey otherwise. Russia is so far only raising economic sanctions in retaliation. Turkey has demostrated the ability to defend itself, as member states ought to be expected to do. Turkey doesn’t need any help from NATO defending itself in this situation. And the economic sanctions are likely to cause more harm to Russia than Turkey in the long run.
Is your point that NATO should stand divided and weaken its commitment to the defense of member states merely because one reckless Russian leader is rattling his sabers while imposing economic sanctions on a member state? This would definitely weaken the security of the world, because if that gambit / tactic works to divide NATO, such a tactic could continue to be employed wherever and whenever it suits him. From where and when would balance be restored?
Rather than making a case for the exit of Turkey from NATO, I would say this is one more example that justifies why Russia ought never be accepted into NATO.
The current Russa/Turkey situation is a catalyst to discuss what is gained or lost by NATO, specifically Article 5 insofar as A5 is taken to be an automatic invocation of a state of war when “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
If a mutual defense treaty like Article 5 fails to deter aggression, the rational response would be “OK, that didn’t work, now do I want to go to war or don’t I? No, I don’t, not this time, over this issue”
Vital interests should be protected by overwhelming defensive capability and clear red lines communicated by unambiguous actions. US troop strength in S. Korea, and formerly in Germany, is not sufficient to fight back a determined attack but serves as a “trip-wire” that guarantees the US will be in any war. Nuclear missiles in Poland says Poland is not up for grabs.
Quietly tripling the number of US warplanes at Incirlik Air Base says that we have Turkey’s back. Absent that nothing President “Red Line” Obama says would make a difference.
With the movement of assets Obama need not say anything, though he doubtless could not resist saying “I have sent two USAF squadrons to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey but I want to assure the world community that these aircraft will not be used and will return to their US bases in 30 days.”
Meet China’s aggressive posture with our own for one. Support our allies like Poland and put missile defense there. Tell Russia that we are not going to tolerate their expansion.
If all that is too much, tell nations where our troops are that we will use our rules not theirs, and if they don’t like our troops having a Bud, too damn bad. If they don’t like our women wearing t-shirts, tough. And if they want to rape boys in front of our troops, expect we will shoot them dead.
In short, do whatever is needed to advance our interests around the world, such that the future is at maximum security for America and Americans.
How supporting the current dictator in Turkey does that is beyond me. How kowtowing to China does that is beyond me.
What then is the “right” engagement with Turkey, which appears to be sliding into Islamic Dictatorship?
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What if we offered NATO membership to Russia? Seriously. What might we get in exchange? Although it was not your intention maybe, I think this notion that you surfaced (though opposed) might be the cleverest morsel from all the comments in this thread.
You have to be very careful with that last suggestion. Are you seriously considering something like the Pershing missile to be deployed into Poland? Because, if so (and sorry if I misconstrue your remark), this would push Russia into a full war footing. Imagine if Russia installed similar missiles in Cuba, or Mexico, both of which are probably further away from downtown Washington, DC than Polish nuclear tipped missiles would be from Moscow.
Poland is a country that needs its own nuclear deterrent. It may be less heavily penetrated by Russian agents than Ukraine and thus able to maintain a deterrent against Russia.
I doubt they are up to the task of clandestine creation of one. They have little to buy one with.
Unless Russia really ticks off India, India won’t sell anyhow. China probably won’t (for fear that Russia retaliates by giving the RoK and/or RoC nukes).
I’m not getting a sense of where you draw the line between vital and non-vital interests, which is my question. For example, maybe we can tolerate, even be supportive, of some Russian ‘expansion’. In the Central Asian countries, Russian military forces might help police the ISIS type elements there. (See, “A Russian Role in Central Asia that America Can Live With“)
WikiLeaks leaked some of StratFor’s thinking on the possibility of Poland going nuclear. Peter Zeihan, their top analyst, broke away and started his own strategic analysis firm a year or so ago, and recently asserted that he thought Japan, Sweden and Poland would all develop nuclear weapons in the not too distant future.
You could get me started on this and never hear the end of it … the opportunities we’ve missed have been beyond belief. To the point that I could write a book about it. And don’t know if I can sum it up in a short, pithy sentence, but if you’re interested in a really long response, I have a very serious answer to that question. I watched our engagement with Turkey through most of the AKP period very closely, and saw opportunity after opportunity to do the right thing lost. And in many cases “the right thing” would have been simple: We should have had observers from NATO watching every day of the Balyoz trial, for example. Just to show that indeed, we were watching. Dictatorship, in this case, was a matter of RTE testing, over and over, to see what he could get away with — and discovering that the answer was, “anything.”
And thus our lack of leadership adds nukes to the world.
But, on the other hand, resulting in less exposure of our military folks to foreign battle, on the other side of the world. And, because of the “You would not trade New York for Krakow” syndrome, these nuclear additions might improve world stability and avert conventional arms mischief, or contain said mischief if it ever occurs.
Which is why we won’t see that under this administration. Poland has been thrown to the wolves.
Is this consistent with NATO’s mission?
The alliance isn’t for meddling in the internal affairs member nations and monitoring their legal system. I have no doubt your recommendation is sound and perhaps member nations participating individually is appropriate, but I think it is tenuous to extend this kind of authority to NATO.
Where would it stop? Could other NATO send ‘observers’ to monitor/support BlackLivesMatters protests?
Oh, if the argument is that the American People are short sighted and mush brained on foreign policy, you get no disagreement from me here.
What we have is a republican foreign policy, and an imperial domestic one. All backwards.
No, I guess not. You are right that offensive capability might be more provocative than protective. The US wouldn’t release the missiles unless the US homeland was attacked because doubtless Russia doctrine would be that a missile fired from any NATO country was a missile fired from all NATO countries.
The Russian corollary to Article 5.
But she does have a point; NATO can’t just extend its membership to just any kind of government.
Japan, Sweden, Poland, they don’t need nukes. The US is the cop on this beat