Dr Simon A. Waldman is a Mercator-IPC fellow at the Istanbul Policy Center and a visiting research fellow at King's College London. He is the co-author of the recently published The New Turkey and Its Discontents (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Who is Dr Simon A Waldman? * To give everyone an idea of what concerns this author you can access some of his other writing at this link * He is a fellow at the Istanbul Policy Center- link here * Partners at the Istanbul Policy Center - Link here However I will include a few partners here in this report* PC has cooperated with the following institutions in the past (partial list below):
Private FoundationsBertelsmann FoundationGerman Marshall Fund of the United StatesStiftung MercatorThomson Reuters Foundation
Think-Tanks & Research InstitutesBrookings InstitutionCenter for European Security StudiesChatham HouseIstituto Affari InternazionaliThe Aspen Institute
As we can all read for ourselves Mr Waldman has friends in high place? Or all the right connections? I'm seeing some of the biggest global think tanks and institutions all listed in one place, as cooperative partners. This background information offers us all important insights into the issues that concern those that should not lead, across the globe. Lets' get to his oped
"Trump cuts funding, Macron calls it 'brain-dead.' But neither are NATO's most pressing challenge from inside the alliance. NATO needs to show Turkey tough love - now Tuesday’s NATO summit in London marks 70 years of the world’s longest and most successful military alliance. However, behind the smiles and handshakes, there will be serious concerns about NATO’s future. U.S. President Donald Trump has NATO in his sights, recently moving to substantially cut its contribution to the NATO budget; France’s President Emmanuel Macron recently declared that NATO is becoming "brain-dead."
However, NATO’s biggest internal challenge remains Turkey. Last week, Turkey tested its newly-acquired Russian S400 missile defense system against F16 fighter jets, despite S400s being incompatible with NATO hardware. Ankara is also threatening to veto NATO’s plans for the defense of Poland and the Baltics unless NATO backs Ankara's operations in Syria against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)"
Turkey used it's own F16 jets in the test in the S-400 test. Mr. Waldman calls that provocative. I don't share that opinion.
Although the YPG contributed to the territorial defeat of ISIS, Ankara deems it indistinguishable from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), (that's obviously because they are indistinguishable, surely the author is aware of that fact?) which has been waging a separatist war against the Turkish state since the 1980s.During the Cold War, Turkey was a bulwark against Soviet expansion. Its western orientation, large military and geostrategic location made Turkey a strategic asset.Today, however, the main security concerns of NATO are Russian belligerency, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East and the associated threats of migration and terrorism. If anything, Turkey has contributed to the proliferation of these security threats.
The Globe and Mail:Tires set on fire to hamper visibility for Turkish warplanes burn behind a woman on the roadside in Tal Tamr, near the Syrian Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain, along the border with Turkey, on Oct. 16Cracks in the alliance: NATO leaders meet Tuesday amid growing tensions over Syria, spending
/arc-anglerfish-tgam-prod-tgam.s3.amazonaws.com/public/WANJDVNFQFGQFBZP4DKMFPVCHE.jpg){kind=link}
A 70-year-old military alliance already strained by three years of Trump foreign policy is now being tested by Turkey’s unpredictable behaviour and opposing views about Europe’s relationship to Russia NATO’s unity, already cracked by three years of U.S. President Donald Trump’s disdain for the alliance, has been further challenged in recent months by an increasingly rogue TurkeyWatching from afar – and almost certainly enjoying the spectacle – is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has strengthened its military ties with Turkey, selling it advanced S-400 air defence systems in defiance of warnings from Washington. Last week, Turkey provocatively tested the systems by having them track American-made F-16 fighter jets of the Turkish Air Force as they flew over Ankara.
Turkey's planes. Turkey's S-400. Not provocative.
“This is obviously a challenging time for NATO. [The meeting in London] is an opportunity where members can come together – or the result could be yet more conflict,” said Marcel Dirsus, a fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University in Germany. France, which has several hundred special-forces troops deployed alongside the Kurds as part of an anti-Islamic State coalition, was caught off guard by the rapidly changing events. “You can’t say on the one hand that we’re allies and insist on solidarity, and on the other present your allies with the fait accompli of a military intervention which endangers operations against ISIS by the coalition of which NATO is a member,” Mr. Macron said last week. In an interview last month with The Economist magazine, Mr. Macron said the Turkish incursion into Syria called into question NATO’s core principle of collective defence, which is covered by Article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty.
Mr Macaroon is off his rocker- (Clearly the man is coconuts, baked coconut, at least that's my opinion) the problem here, is the same problem that has been written about for years and years at PFYT's. NATO's betrayal of Turkey. Done by arming their enemy. A militant Sunni Muslim Kurd militia that has killed untold numbers of Turks and Kurds resident in Turkey for decades. That's the problem. This betrayal, which has been ongoing for years, is the reason Turkey moved towards Russia. Or Russia embraced Turkey? Or a mutually beneficial embrace?*You can change the window dressing, but it's still going to be the same window. PKK = YPG*