Following a series of phone calls with Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia to visit Moscow on October 9 for discussions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The aim of the talks is reportedly to allow a cessation of combat in which to conduct a swap of dead bodies and prisoners.

Renewed Fighting in Nagorno Karabakh

Azerbaijan and Armenia started their most recent clashes over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on September 27. This is not the first time the two nations have fought over the disputed territory as similar incidents occurred in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July.

Both countries have imposed martial law and reported many civilian casualties.

The war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh started in February 1988, after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region declared its exit from the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic that year.

In 1992-1994, arguments between Azerbaijan and Armenia resulted in large-scale military action for control over the region.

What Does Putin Want from the Conflict?

The OSCE Minsk Group, which is led by its three co-chairs of Russia, France and the USA, has been leading talks on the territory since 1992. But considering Putin has taken the lead in calling for a peaceful settlement to the regional dispute, two questions arise: can Russia help resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute at this time; and what does the Russian President want from the region?

As Eleonora Di Franco wrote for My Country? Europe, Russia has far-reaching interests in keeping the South Caucasus inflamed with tensions. This is because Russia has been acting half as a mediator and half as an instigator of a decades-old conflict.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Provides Putin with Many Advantages

Firstly, Moscow does not provide financial or moral support to Nagorno-Karabakh and it does not have military forces situated there. Although Putin tries to portray himself as an honest broker in the peace talks, it would go against Moscow’s strategic interests to actively choose a side. This would hinder Russia’s credibility as a security guarantor. Ever since Georgia edged closer toward the US, Putin has been very careful not to lose any more friends in the South Caucasus.

Also, the status quo provides Russia with many political and economic advantages. Putin hopes to monopolize the peace process in order to increase his political clout in the region, and he wants to preserve the economic gains made through trade deals with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Kremlin could continually push for an end to the conflict if it really wanted to, but considering Russia has been a member of the OSCE Minsk Group since 1992, it’s clear that Moscow has failed to help bring lasting peace to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Putin is Battling for Influence with Turkey

One motive behind Putin’s actions could be the fact that Turkey has involved itself in the conflict. Thanks to Turkish support, Azerbaijan believes it can continue its war to recover what it sees as lost territories without submitting to Russian authority.

Compared to past scenarios, the situation for the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute really is different this time. Putin supports forcing Azerbaijan into a ceasefire that maintains Armenian territorial advantages, but such a move risks losing Baku to Turkish influence. If Moscow took Armenia’s side, then such a move could result in a terrible regional war between Turkey and Russia.

It is clear that Russia has a long history of failing to resolve the territorial spat between Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Putin will find it harder to preserve the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh this time due to increased support from Turkey for Azerbaijan’s territorial claims. As a result, the Russian President will find his influence in the South Caucasus starting to wane. Putin must choose a side before Turkey forces his hand, even if that means he must risk his relationship with Aliyev and Azerbaijan.

L'articolo Can Russia Help Resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict? proviene da InsideOver.

Some of the most important living American strategists such as Henry Kissinger and Steve Bannon have long tried to lobby the Trump administration to end its arm wrestling against Russia. Moscow is currently pursuing a powerful alliance with China, and despite several occasions to take advantage of a modern-day Sino-Soviet split, none have been exploited thus far. 

The COVID-19 pandemic might have been the West’s last opportunity to listen to Kissinger, but the die is cast: China has been blamed for letting the virus spread worldwide and allegedly hiding the truth about the experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whereas Russia has been accused of spreading disinformation and fostering divisions within the European Union and is witnessing its own growing encirclement.

The War of Narratives

Contrary to China and the US, Russia didn’t engage in a global face mask diplomacy, but limited the delivery of humanitarian aid and assistance to the countries within its own sphere of influence. But there have been some exceptions as shown by the huge operation From Russia With Love destined to Italy, and by the cargo sent to the US itself. The Kremlin has been trying to exploit the crisis not to pursue an imperialist agenda ⁠— as various other powers are trying to do ⁠— but to reset the relationship with the West.

It failed.

In both cases, the Russian engagement has been source of harsh controversies and the country has been accused of aspiring to divide the NATO and the EU from within via disinformation campaigns. Conversely, it is arguable that effective information warfare did take place ⁠— but against Russia. The Italian press tried to present the high risk humanitarian operation as the starting point of a military invasion and spread many other fake news items which crossed the national borders and received such a bitter welcome in Moscow that it sparked a diplomatic row.

The Italian press, backed by some politicians, missed the point: the Kremlin does know that Italy is unreliable and no political shift is likely to happen because of a humanitarian mission, that’s why is it possible to believe that the operation may have been truly designed for humanitarian reasons or to counter China’s over-exposition.

EU Accusations Against Russia

In the meantime, the External Action Service of the European Union claimed that Kremlin-linked media are staging information warfares across the member states with the goal of aggravating “the public health crisis, specifically by undermining public trust in national healthcare systems — thus preventing an effective response to the outbreak”.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean the things didn’t go better and it has been the US Ministry of Defense, Mark Esper, to lead the anti-Russian ⁠— and anti-Chinese ⁠— front. The Pentagon has repeatedly accused Russia of backing the Chinese efforts to spread disinformation in the West to the detriment of alliance’s cohesion, whereas the most popular newspapers are being published sensational articles whose titles are even more meaningful, like The New York Times‘ “Putin’s Long War Against American Science“.

Esper, interviewed by the Italian press, expressed his viewpoint about the Russian engagement: “Unfortunately, Russia and China are both taking advantage of a unique situation to advance their own interests. Russia provided medical assistance to Italy but then attempted to use that assistance to drive a wedge between Italy and its allies with a disinformation campaign.”

Competition Instead of Cooperation

Against the background of the disinformation-related accusations, Russia has witnessed to its growing encirclement from every front: Arctic, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Central Asia.

On May 1, the US Navy and the British Royal Navy conducted a considerably large-sized military operation near the Norwegian Arctic, officially to assert the freedom of navigation. The fleet entered the Barents Sea for the first time in the post-Cold War era, a very remarkable moment. Some 1,200 soldiers aboard three destroyers and other means, including one Poseidon P-8 and one nuclear submarine, took part in the mission. The mission is merely the US’ latest show of force in the Arctic, whose hegemonic relation represents a top-priority for the country since the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House.

Hydrocarbon → Nuclear

Moreover, in the days of the pandemic the US has extended the energy dominance doctrine from the hydrocarbon industry to the nuclear energy, releasing a plan to weaponize the uranium production and counter the Kremlin’s nuclear diplomacy in the developing and underdeveloped country.

Then, in the Balkans, Turkey is forwarding a smart mask diplomacy addressed to Russian-influenced countries like Serbia, Moldova and Bosnia, which have quickly become open-air battlefields where cargoes are delivered in accordance with ethnic and religious criteria. Whereas the Kremlin greenlights loans and aid to Chișinău, Ankara sends shipments to its little dominion, the Turkish-inhabited Gagauzia; the same scenario is repeating in Bosnia and Herzegovina where the Russians are focusing the provision of aid to the Serbian republic and the Turks to the Bosnian Muslims.

The post-pandemic destiny of both countries is being written right now as shown by the already-visible effects produced by Turkey’s mask diplomacy: Sarajevo has recently stopped the border-trespassing of a Russian mission destined to the Serb republic, pushing the Russian embassy to intervene, whereas the Gagauz authorities have accorded Turkey to open a consulate in the republic’s capital of Comrat.

The same strategy is being pursued in Central Asia via the Turkic Council and is bearing fruit. Kazakhstan has recently reached an agreement with the Turkish defense giant Aselsan for the provision of remote weapon platforms, and talks are underway to strengthen and enhance the regional infrastructure network in the post-pandemic to raise the trade among the member states. Turkey has also sent aid to Ukraine, with which the partnership is more and more intense and extended, from trade to defense, from industry to the Crimean question.

There is only one interpretation possible to explain Ankara’s engagement in the Russian space: Turkey is the instrument with which the West is entering areas otherwise hard to infiltrate. Such hypothesis is corroborated by the outcomes produced by the Turkish actions which essentially work against the Kremlin’s interest and undermine its influence.

The Missed Opportunity

The war of narratives and the decision to put aside cooperation in favor of an ever-increasing competition have been shortsight-caused strategic mistakes whose consequences will materialize fully in the post-pandemic. The West had the opportunity to reset the damaged relation with Russia but it preferred to go on with the neo-containment, and it did so despite the awareness of some China-targeting discontent in the Kremlin with regard to the outbreak of the COVID-19.

Now, in the post-pandemic world order Russia will find itself more encircled than ever before whereas China will confront a very Chinese-unfriendly global panorama. The likely effect will be the countries’ further rapprochement. In fact, in 2020 — as in 2014 — it’s the West that is pushing the two centuries-old rivals together, prompting them to put aside their deep-rooted mutual hostilities in the name of realpolitik.

L'articolo How the West and the Pandemic are Strengthening the Russo-Chinese Axis proviene da InsideOver.

The Idlib attacks of early 2020 have shown the fragility of the marriage of convenience between Russia and Turkey. While the former seemed — and still seems — willing to de-escalate tensions with Ankara, mostly for reasons of realpolitik, the latter periodically exploits instability and worsens crises as leverage with which to oblige Moscow to re-open the negotiating tables and get new benefits and more concessions.

It’s happening right now in Syria but the truth is that Turkey is pursuing an anti-Russian agenda in every battlefield and geopolitical theater where both powers have interests: from the Balkans to the Middle East, from North Africa to Central Asia, and within the Russian territory itself as shown by the cases of Crimea, Tatarstan, and other Turkic-inhabited republics.

Dreams of the Pan-Turkic Nation

There is no the theater where the two powers share a truly common vision, that’s why for them it will prove hard to find a viable solution for a long-term peaceful co-existence. Indeed, in Putin’s times as well as in Catherine the Great’s era, Russia and Turkey have been — and still are — bitter rivals for reasons that go beyond mere geopolitics and touch on the field of geo-philosophy. Historic recurrence is relentless — and the post-Soviet Central Asia is the best example of it.

Russia keeps exerting a high degree of political influence over the -stan countries but its hegemony is now counter-balanced by ever-increasing Chinese economic engagement and by Turkey’s ethnic- and religious-oriented soft power. Central Asian countries host the world-largest Turkic community and modern-day Anatolian-living Turkish people also come from this region.

After a two-centuries-long period of Russian rule, the collapse of the Soviet Union offered new opportunities of action in the -stans for the main regional players, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, and Turkey, without forgetting the West. While China has incomparable potential in terms of know-how and economic resources, Turkey doesn’t need a lot of money to pursue its expansionist agenda: it’s a kind of spiritual and cultural point of reference for the Turkic peoples — this is enough. The only thing that Turkey is required to is to properly weaponize the “identity factor” — and it is doing this very well.

The Turkic Council

Since 2009 relations between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been regulated by the Istanbul-headquartered Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States (Türk Dili Konuşan Ülkeler İşbirliği Konseyi), also known as the Turkic Council, which is an intergovernmental international organization built for enhancing multilevel cooperation among Turkic countries.

The Turkic Council was joined by Hungary as an observer state in 2018, coherently with Fidesz’s Turanist agenda, and by Uzbekistan a year later, whose application for full membership was greenlighted in about a month.

The Turkic Council matters because its mission is to create a pan-Turkic alliance and to date it has succeeded in promoting many relevant projects and goals: the re-writing of history textbooks to give emphasis on the common ethnic heritage and on Ankara’s world-view, academic collaboration, student exchange programs, religious and cultural initiatives aimed at making Turkish-sponsored Sunni Islam an element of transnational cohesion. And it has also succeeded, more pragmatically, in increasing the volume of trade exchanges and FDIs among member countries.

Central Asian Countries are Looking For New Friends

The Soviet-era ruling elite is slowly dying and is being replaced by open-minded statesmen less interested in keeping their countries reliant on Moscow and more willing to diversify their partners. It’s the case with Uzbekistan, where the new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev is making the Kremlin nervous by playing for time with regards to the offer of joining the Eurasian Economic Union. However, Mirziyoyev entered the Turkic Council very quickly, despite the fact that it offers less opportunities in terms of economic return.

Soft power doesn’t require huge investments. Turkey’s strategy to conquer the -stans is based on a model already successfully tested in other countries: soap operas, mass media indoctrination, culture centres, coranic schools, mosques, tourism, trade and investments. As regards the last point, Turkey is today one of the most important trading partners of, and investors in, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Turkic Council’s Predecessor: the International Organization of Turkic Culture

But long before the establishment of the Turkic Council, in 1993 the International Organization of Turkic Culture (IOTC) was founded with the statutory mission to “protect Turkic culture, art, language and historical heritage”. It’s this entity that firstly promoted student exchange programs and university-level collaboration among Turkic-speaking countries.

The IOTC supervised the construction of hundreds of educational institutions in the -stans, from universities to high schools, from research centers to primary schools, and all of them are Ankara-funded and, naturally, they are megaphones for the promotion and the engraftment in society, culture, and politics, of neo-Ottomanism, pan-Turkism and Turkish-friendly conservative Sunni islam.

One of Kazakhstan’s top universities was opened in the context of the IOCT’s agenda, the International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi University, and the country alone hosts over than 30 Kazakh-Turkish high schools; the same in Kyrgyzistan where the Manas University, the country’s most popular, is Turkish-financed. What is really curious is that all these entities which today stand for high status symbol and prestige used to be targeted by Soviet-trained rulers for their allegedly suspicious and malicious activities, including radicalization, extremism, espionage in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

What to Expect for the Pan-Turkic Alliance Going Forward

Two years ago the pan-Turkic network was enlarged by the establishment of the Diyanet-funded and intelligence-linked World Turks Qurultai, another organization whose aim is to make the Turkic peoples closer.

Russia should worry about the fact that some Turkic-inhabited republics have joined the body, like Yakutia and Tuva. Indeed, the World Turks Qurultai works for the “cultural and spiritual integration” of Turkic peoples and it wouldn’t be an unexpected outcome the appearance of separatist movements and feelings in the above-mentioned Russian republics.

As the great power competition intensifies, Russia risks experiencing a new season of foreign-masterminded internal ethnic conflicts and, if this scenario happens, Turkey is very likely to play a key-role in it. Believed-to-be-dead disputes seem on the road to reappearance both in historically war-plagued republics, like Chechnya, Dagestan and Tatarstan, and in less conflictual realities, like Bashkortostan and Buryatia, with Turkish-backed entities allegedly behind their rebirth.

The same scenario is likely to occur in Central Asia, where the growing radicalization of Muslim youth is widely attributable to the presence of foreign-funded culture centres, religious schools, and mosques, essentially backed by Turkey and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies. The more the civil society and the intellectual intellighenzia are tied to Turkey and likeminded Muslim powers, the harder will be — for the Kremlin — to keep the -stans in the Russian world (Russkiy Mir).

US Policy Is to Take Advantage of Turkey’s Central Asian Ambitions

Turkey doesn’t act alone and many of its actions, from the 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown to the warlike behavior towards the European Union, can be explained as part of a contain-and-blowback agreement with the US. It is no secret that the US is “at war” with the German-led EU the same way it aspires to front-rank the Great Game 2.0. In such a context, Ankara might help Washington decrease Moscow’s influence over the -stans by exporting Islam and pan-Turkism.

By using Ankara as a fifth column in the -stans, Washington would protect itself from any accusation coming from Moscow and, at the same time, it might achieve the goal of setting foot in the region. Some events will prove fundamental to understand whether the US is set to use Turkey to enter the -stans and, thus, are to be monitored very carefully: from the countries’ position as regard to the Xinjiang to their evolving relation with Russia and the EEU.

Russia’s Perspective

The Russian perspective is, of course, entirely different. Despite Turkey’s advances in the region, the -stans keep being very close to the Kremlin, they still host important Russian minorities, and the self-identification with the Russkiy Mir is high; therefore Russia has all the cards to win the game and should opt for a Turkish-model soft power strategy in order to get high benefits at a low cost.

Cultural centers and educational institutions spreading pan-Russian beliefs, in the Kremlin’s view, might prove useful to counter-balance the growing pan-Turkism and would serve to complete what the EEU has started, against the background of the weaponization of everything Russia has: from the control of the region’s infrastructure system to economic hegemony. The Great Game 2.0 has begun.

L'articolo Why Russia Should Worry About Turkey’s Growing Presence in the -stans proviene da InsideOver.

At least 35 Turkish army officers and soldiers have been killed in joint Russian-Syrian air strikes. There have also been direct clashes between the Syrian army and Turkish forces in Idlib over the past 3 days. Some Turkish sites, including the DemokraticPress, have put the number of Turkish military fatalities at 150, in the fiercest showdown so far between the two sides.

Fighting Intensified Ahead of Erdogan’s Deadline

The violence surged as the deadline set by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expired on Saturday night. Erdogan demanded that Syrian troops pull back from vast sways of land the SAA has conquered in its major offensive in Idlib by that time. The Syrian army has liberated over 175 towns, villages and strategic hills in recent weeks and reopened the main M4 Damascus-Aleppo highway.

Heavy Losses Stir Turkish Resentment Against Erdogan’s Military Adventurism

The highest number of Turkish military fatalities in the war so far took place when Syrian and Russian jets pounded terror bases in Bailoun, Idlib on Monday night. Turkish forces were apparently mingling with rebel fighters in the area. The incident has sent strong shock waves across Erdogan’s circles and Turkey at large. The Turkish army responded with extensive drone and rocket attacks against SAA positions, including a first-of-a-kind Turkish attack on major military targets in Aleppo, killing some 40 Syrian officers and troops. Syrian air defense systems shot down a Turkish drone and most of the incoming missiles.

Reports coming from Idlib confirm that there were some of the most veracious direct clashes between SAA forces and their allied factions on the one side, and Turkish troops and their proxy militias on the other. Under the 2018 Sochi agreement between Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Turkey maintains some 13 observation posts in Syria intended to oversee adherence to the ceasefire deal.

However, those posts have become a safe haven for terrorists’ support and a springboard for recurrent attacks on Syrian civilian areas as well as military positions. Most of these Turkish outposts have become isolated and surrounded by Syrian army forces. The Russian President and his top officials have reiterated that any Turkish force or troops that venture out of the parameters of these outposts will render themselves as legitimate targets for attack.

Balance-Tipping Battle Rages On With Neither Side Prepared to Accept  Defeat

With direct Turkish military support, Erdogan’s proxy fighters have managed to score some limited successes over the past three days by retaking Saraqib which straddles along the M4 highway to Aleppo, and Nayrab which lies on the M5 from Aleppo to the Mediterranean city of Latakia. The forsaken town has become a killing field for terrorists who lost hundreds of their fighters in the suicidal offensive there. Conflicting reports about who controls what in the area keep flooding in, as the Syrian army launched a large-scale counter attack aided by Russian missile boats firing a barrage of Kalibr-NK terrain missiles with pinpoint accuracy against key targets in Idlib’s strategic Jabal al Zawiya.

After a series of fruitless Russian-Turkish military and security meetings held over the past two weeks in Ankara and Moscow, the two sides have just announced an agreement to reduce tension in Idlib; a step too little too late as many Syrians believe, given the scale of deep Turkish military involvement in the Syrian war. Despite desperate efforts to avoid any direct military showdown between the Syrian and Turkish armies, this week’s developments reflect that this is exactly what is going on. A bone-breaking battle has just started between the two neighbors.

The Idlib scene seems set for a major military escalation that could threaten stability and security in the region and far beyond, unless Putin succeeds in calming down Erdogan. Turkey’s leader is deeply sinking into the Syrian as well as the Libyan quagmires and there is a disappearing lifeline rope that the Turkish Don Quixote badly needs to grab, quickly, if he wants to climb down the burning tree in Syria before things get worse.

L'articolo Hundreds Of Turkish Soldiers Killed And Injured In Syria proviene da InsideOver.

According to a recent story from Bloomberg, Turkey has asked for US Patriot missiles to be deployed in the Turkish border with northern Syria. This request has been made on the grounds that several Turkish servicemen have been killed over the last weeks in the region, and Patriots could work as a deterrence measure to potential airstrikes from the Syrian or Russian Air force. Official US sources, on the base of anonymity, have allegedly confirmed the request.

What Is Ankara’s Strategy in This Case?

Hulusi Akar, the Turkish Defence Minister, stated on 20 February 2020, during an interview with CNN Turk that some of the threats posed in the region, by Syria — or Russia — could be efficiently dealt with after the deployment of the Patriot system. Akar clarified that there is no suggestion whatsoever for the assignment of US troops in the area, a rather obvious conclusion one could say, given the US policy towards Syria and the Turkey-US thorny relations, in the recent past. The Turkish Defense Minister also mentioned that talks between Ankara and Washington about the acquisition of the Patriot system were still ongoing, a highly unlikely scenario under the current circumstances, as will be further explained shortly.

The Patriot statements should not take us by surprise at all, as President Erdogan himself has brought up the issue at least three times after the S-400 agreement. This aligns with the typical — and productive — Turkish strategy of never excluding any of the big players from the table and always trying to achieve a modus vivendi even with diametrically opposing powers. Erdogan seems to be using the Patriot and S-400 cards interchangeably, in order to create the appropriate leverage towards US and Russia. The way the story has been presented by Bloomberg and reproduced by the Turkish state-run News Agency, Anadolu, indicates that Turkey is probably trying to create a context of unpredictability about Erdogan’s next moves and hint at the idea of a rapprochement with the US and the Western block. To this end, Akar in his interview has emphasized the idea that an allied country could provide the Patriot batteries to Turkey as a coordinated effort to protect a NATO member from an external threat.

The T‐LORAMIDS Program: a Long, Complex Story

Still the question must arise: how exactly did Turkey get itself in this current situation? The T-LORAMIDS or (Long-Range Air-and Missile-Defense System) program has been a key aspect of the Turkish strategic defense. Ankara has shifted sides several times since the program was launched. Chinese HQ‐9 SAM have been initially selected back in 2013, considering the efficiency, the cost and the engagement of the Turkish industry in the production and other phases of the project, a critical factor for Ankara. The plan had to be cancelled, though, in 2015, with official sources quoting technical difficulties; the US and European reaction to Turkey deploying such a sophisticated strategic weapon from China should be actually considered as the primary reason.

Another T-LORAMIDS program started in 2016 with the US Raytheon Patriot and Russian Almaz-Antey S-400, being among the bidders. A Turkey-Russia agreement had been signed by mid-2017, for the deployment of four S-400 batteries within the Turkish territory. This deal has provoked most of the NATO allies, and especially the US, who have vigorously opposed this deal since its very beginning. Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has confirmed that since May, 2019 Turkish personnel has been sent to Russia to receive training on the new missile system. Additionally, Erdogan stated in May, 2019 that a joint project for procurement and production of the enhanced S-500 system, was among the top priorities for Ankara and Moscow. The first two S-400 batteries have been delivered to Turkey in July and September 2019 respectively. According to Akar, the weapon will be fully operational by April 2020.

The Patriot system has been offered twice to Turkey, in the context of the T-LORAMIDS programme in 2013 and in 2017 respectively; both times it has been rejected. However, Ankara has been trying to keep open channels with Raytheon and the US defense industry and has suggested in several occasions that a revised offer regarding the Patriot system would be considered.

Talks about the potential sale to Turkey of 20 M903 Launching Stations and four Engagement Control Stations alongside AN/MPQ-65 radar sets have been taking place in December 2018 within the US State Department; however, such a deal did not move forward, due to the acquisition of the S-400 system from Russia. Since then, President Erdogan has repeated his intention to discuss an updated Patriot deal on February and November, 2019, but so far, the US side has made clear that the concurrent use of the S-400 and specific NATO strategic weapons is out of the question; therefore the planned S-400 deployment in April should be a no-go for any Turkish proposals from a US perspective.

Conclusion: Erdogan’s Gambit

The latest developments indicate that Turkey is not looking at these missile systems simply as a strategic weapon that could significantly affect the defense capabilities of the country; instead, Erdogan is using the attention drawn and the debate over these weapons as a geopolitical tool, a means to balance between the East and the West and to put pressure on each side according to the Turkish strategic interests. At this point, it would be interesting to wait for the US reaction, even though Ankara should not anticipate a very accommodating stance from Washington. The current circumstances seem far from ideal for the Turkish side, as the Turkish President has probably already played most of his cards and there is no room for further maneuvers in this power struggle with Russia.

L'articolo Ankara Requests Patriot Support On Syrian Border proviene da InsideOver.