There’s a strongman holding NATO hostage. And it’s not Putin.

[Gunny]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/nato-kremlin-turkey-00042756

There is so much wrong with so many players in this game, just have to read the article. It has everything. Putin, Erdogan, Biden. NATO. War in Ukraine.

It needs a weekday, 1:00 PM EST timeslot on CBS :rolleyes:

[Kathianne]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/nato-kremlin-turkey-00042756

There is so much wrong with so many players in this game, just have to read the article. It has everything. Putin, Erdogan, Biden. NATO. War in Ukraine.

It needs a weekday, 1:00 PM EST timeslot on CBS :rolleyes:

Turkey no longer belongs in NATO, if it ever did.

[Gunny]

Turkey no longer belongs in NATO, if it ever did.Turkey is strategically useful to NATO. Especially during the Cold War when surveillance was done with a BIG radio antenna. AWCS made the listening posts that close to the Soviets obsolete. We still have Incirlik AS with nukes a rock's throw from Russia.

Rather, let's say that piece of land the Turks currently occupy has been strategic gold since antiquity.

Politically, Turkey is out for Turkey's best interest only. They are just enough not a pain in the ass that their value outweighs the reason to dump them. For all his bluster, Erdogan isn't that big a fool. Leaving NATO leaves him on the doorstep of a Russian who is working on invading his second neighboring country at the moment.

[Gunny]

I would also point out, historically since the Cold War, France has been as big a PIA as anyone. It plays only when it wants to and only by its own rules. An official stance I wish we would adopt. We should have dropped out of NATO when the coast was clear.

Speaking of ... we need to just walk on the UN. Some educated idiots from South African, China-proxy countries, India, and/or the ME shouldn't have a vote to support their butt buddies when they'd be the first squealing for help if they were attacked. I'm okay with not getting support from these idiots because I don't forget. Unfortunately, politicians' memories are shorter than infants'.

My opinion has adjusted since this war started. The biggest mouths in Western Europe don't look a whole bunch like they're worth saving to me. They're sitting and watching Putin destroy an entire nation one pile of rubble at a time standing on the semantics of "NATO member" instead of the ideal of democracy.

Putin is right about one thing: the West is weak, resting on its laurels of a war won half a century ago, when nothing has been over between East and West since the 8th century at least. In fact, the post-Cold War era has been the longest relative peace in the region in at least a thousand years.

Erdogan is licking his chops and I have to wonder what he got to agree to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The blind eye has been turned toward his actions in Norther Syria/Iraq against the Kurds, and his continual encroachments on Greek territory in the Aegean islands.

[Gunny]

Answer to my own question: Turkey wants new F-16s and update kits for its existing ones. Joe says no quid pro quo.

Joe agreed and Erdogan backed off of Sweden and Finland at the same, lame conference. Nothing to see here.:rolleyes: