Turkey: Putin’s Ally in NATO?

Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, and its military love affair with Russia may be in its infancy now, but it undermines NATO’s military deterrence against Russia. Pictured: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on March 10, 2017. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

 

  • On March 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey would never turn back from the S-400 missile deal with Russia. He even added that Ankara may subsequently look into buying the more advanced S-500 systems now under construction in Russia.
  • With the S-400 deal, Turkey is simply telling its theoretical Western allies that it views “them,” and “not Russia,” as a security threat. Given that Russia is widely considered a security threat to NATO, Turkey’s odd-one-out position inevitably calls for questioning its official NATO identity.
  • Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, and its military love affair with Russia may be in its infancy now, but it undermines NATO’s military deterrence against Russia.

On September 17, 1950, more than 68 years ago, the first Turkish brigade left the port of Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, arriving, 26 days later, at Busan in Korea. Turkey was the first country, after the United States, to answer the United Nations’ call for military aid to South Korea after the North attacked that year. Turkey sent four brigades (a total of 21,212 soldiers) to a country that is 7,785 km away. By the end of the Korean War, Turkey had lost 741 soldiers killed in action. The U.N. Memorial Cemetery in Busan embraces 462 Turkish soldiers. Continue reading

Turkey could choose China’s missile defense system by end of year: report

This is a follow-up story to what was posted in July of 2013. They’re fed up with delays on being admitted as a member of the EU and want to threaten the security of the NATO alliance should they not get their way. The painful truth being, the EU doesn’t want a nation of 77 million that’s 99% islamic flooding the European continent. Therefore, a split is foreseable.

 

Turkey will likely end up choosing China’s long-range missile system and complete a deal by the end of the year if US and European arms manufacturers continue to refuse amending their offers to meet Ankara’s demands, reports Turkey’s Daily Sabah.

In 2013, Turkey accepted a bid from the China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation (CPMIEC) for its first anti-missile system at a price tag of US$3.4 billion, though the agreement is yet to be signed. Continue reading

By removing Assad, Obama may be declaring war on China

President Obama is not the only actor with a red line on Syria. China, Russia and Iran also have their own red line on Damascus.

CNN on 12 November reported Obama administration is suddenly focused on removing Assad as the core of its anti-ISIS strategy, once again submitting to Turkey and Arab Gulf states that enabled ISIS to begin with, and are actually contributing very little to the anti-ISIS efforts to be dictating such orders to Washington.

Moreover, these demands are harmful to US security interests—redefining US anti-ISIS mission to one of anti-Assad mission—and thereby potentially drawing in Eurasian powers of China, Russia and Iran into open military conflict against the US. Continue reading

Turkey joins Saudis in showing displeasure over US policy on Syria

Ankara chooses Chinese firm over US, European firms to co-produce long-range air, missiles defense systems.

There is an international failure in dealing with the Syrian crisis, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said on Thursday.

Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance, said in September it had chosen the FD-2000 missile defense system from China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp, or CPMIEC, over rival systems from Russian, US and European firms. Continue reading

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows

After what the current US administration had done (and admitted) to overthrow Mubarak from Egypt, we now see the predicted result. Scuds today, ICBMs tomorrow.

Chinese missile technicians spotted in Egypt working with North Koreans to upgrade Scuds

China is covertly working with North Koreans to modernize Egypt’s short-range missile systems, raising new concerns among United States intelligence officials about the arms programs of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government in Egypt. Continue reading