The Origins of New US-Turkish Relations

[matchingmole]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

this article correctly explains why President Trump was right to pull US troops out and allow Turkey to solve it's own problems by themselves. Bottom line, as i have posted here before on this subject, Turkey is by far more useful to US interests in the region and against the real threat of Russia and China and to a lessor but still important degree Iran than a bunch of feckless double dealing Kurds.



The Origins of New US-Turkish Relations

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-...ish-relations/


By
George Friedman -

October 14, 2019
Open as PDF


For several years, there has been a significant shift underway in U.S. strategy toward the Middle East, where Washington has consistently sought to avoid combat. The United States is now compelled to seek accommodation with Turkey, a regional power in its own right, based on terms that are geopolitically necessary for both. Their relationship has been turbulent, and while it may continue to be so for a while, it will decline. Their accommodation has nothing to do with mutual affection but rather with mutual necessity. The Turkish incursion into Syria and the U.S. response are part of this adjustment, one that has global origins and regional consequences.


Similarly, the U.S. decision to step aside as Turkey undertook an incursion in northeastern Syria has a geopolitical and strategic origin. The strategic origin is a clash between elements of the Defense Department and the president. The defense community has been shaped by a war that has been underway since 2001. During what is called the Long War, the U.S. has created an alliance structure of various national and subnational groups. Yet the region is still on uneven footing. The Iranians have extended a sphere of influence westward. Iraq is in chaos. The Yemeni civil war still rages, and the original Syrian war has ended, in a very Middle Eastern fashion, indecisively.


A generation of military and defense thinkers have matured fighting wars in the Middle East. The Long War has been their career. Several generations spent their careers expecting Soviet tanks to surge into the Fulda Gap. Cold Warriors believed a world without the Cold War was unthinkable. The same can be said for those shaped by Middle Eastern wars. For the Cold War generation, the NATO alliance was the foundation of their thinking. So too for the Sandbox generation, those whose careers were spent rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan or some other place, the alliances formed and the enemies fought seemed eternal. The idea that the world had moved on, and that Fulda and NATO were less important, was emotionally inconceivable. Any shift in focus and alliance structure was seen as a betrayal.


After the Cold War ended, George H.W. Bush made the decision to stand down the 24-hour B-52 air deployments in the north that were waiting for a Soviet attack. The reality had changed, and Bush made the decision a year after the Eastern European collapse began. He made it early on Sept. 21, 1991, after the Wall came down but before the Soviet Union collapsed. It was a controversial decision. I knew some serious people who thought that we should be open to the possibility that the collapse in Eastern Europe was merely a cover for a Soviet attack and were extremely agitated over the B-52 stand-down.


It is difficult to accept that an era has passed into history. Those who were shaped by that era, cling, through a combination of alarm and nostalgia, to the things that reverberate through their minds. Some (though not Europeans) spoke of a betrayal of Europe, and others deeply regretted that the weapons they had worked so hard to perfect and the strategy and tactics that had emerged over decades would never be tried.


The same has happened in different ways in the Middle East. The almost 20-year deployment has forged patterns of behavior, expectations and obligations not only among individuals but more institutionally throughout the armed forces. But the mission has changed. For now, the Islamic State is vastly diminished, as is al-Qaida. The Sunni rising in Iraq has ended, and even the Syrian civil war is not what it once was. A war against Iran has not begun, may not happen at all, and would not resemble the wars that have been fought in the region hitherto.


This inevitably generates a strategic re-evaluation, which begins by accepting that the prior era is gone. It was wrenching to shift from World War II to the Cold War and from the Cold War to a world that many believed had transcended war, and then to discover that war was suspended and has now resumed. War and strategy pretend to be coolly disengaged, but they are passionate undertakings that don’t readily take to fundamental change. But after the 18 years of war, two things have become clear. The first is that the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved, and the second is that the ultimate goal of creating something approaching liberal democracies was never really possible.


Consistency

The world has changed greatly since 2001. China has emerged as a major power, and Russia has become more active. Iran, not Sunni jihadists, has become the main challenge in the Middle East and the structure of alliances needed to deal with this has changed radically since Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. In addition, the alliances have changed in terms of capability. The massive deployments in the Middle East have ended, but some troops remain there, and to a section of the American military, the jihadist war remains at the center of their thinking. To them, the alliances created over the past 18 years remain as critical as Belgium’s air force had been during the Cold War.


There is another, increasingly powerful faction in the United States that sees the Middle East as a secondary interest. In many instances, they include Iran in this. This faction sees China or Russia (or both) as the fundamental challenger to the U.S. Its members see the Middle East as a pointless diversion and a drain of American resources.


For them, bringing the conflict to a conclusion was critical. Those who made their careers in this war and in its alliances were appalled. The view of President Donald Trump has been consistent. In general, he thought that the use of military force anywhere must be the exception rather than the rule. He declined to begin combat in North Korea. He did not attack Iran after it shot down an American drone or after it seized oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. After the attack on the Saudi oil facility, he increased Saudi air defenses but refused offensive actions against the Iranians.


Given the shift in American strategy, three missions emerge. The first is the containment of China. The second is the containment of Russia. The third is the containment of Iran. In the case of China, the alliance structure required by the United States is primarily the archipelago stretching from Japan to Indonesia and Singapore – and including South Korea. In dealing with Russia, there are two interests. One is the North European Plain; the other is the Black Sea. Poland is the American ally in the north, Romania in the south. But the inclusion of Turkey in this framework would strengthen the anti-Russia framework. In addition, it would provide a significant counter to Iranian expansion.


Turkey’s importance is clear. It is courted by both Russia and Iran. Turkey is not the country it was a decade ago. Its economy surged and then went into crisis. It has passed through an attempted coup, and internal stress has been massive. But such crises are common in emerging powers. The U.S. had a civil war in the 1860s but by 1900 was producing half of the manufactured goods in the world while boasting a navy second only to the British. Internal crises do not necessarily mean national decline. They can mean strategic emergence.


Turkey’s alignment with Iran and Russia is always tense. Iran and Russia have at various times waged war with Turkey and have consistently seen Iraq as a threat. For the moment, both have other interests and Turkey is prepared to work with them. But Turkey is well aware of history. It is also aware that the U.S. guaranteed Turkish sovereignty in the face of Soviet threats in the Cold War, and that the U.S., unlike Russia and Iran, has no territorial ambitions or needs in Turkey. Already allied through NATO and historical bilateral ties, a relationship with Turkey is in the American interest because it creates a structure that threatens Iran’s line to the Mediterranean and compliments the Romanian-U.S. Black Sea alliance. The U.S. and Turkey are also hostile to the Syrian government. For Turkey, in the long term, Russia and Iran are unpredictable, and they can threaten Turkey when they work together. The American interest in an independent Turkey that blocks Russia and Iran coincides with long-term Turkish interests.


Enter the Kurds

This is where the Kurds come into the equation. Eastern Turkey is Kurdish, and maintaining stability there is a geopolitical imperative for Ankara. Elements of Turkey’s Kurds, grouped around the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have carried out militant attacks. Therefore it is in Turkey’s interest to clear its immediate frontiers from a Kurdish threat. The United States has no overriding interest in doing so and, indeed, has worked together with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. But for the Turks, having Kurds on their border is an unpredictable threat. American dependency on the Kurds declines as U.S. involvement in the Middle East declines. Turkey becomes much more important to the United States in relation to Iran than the Kurds.


Trump clearly feels that the wars in the Middle East must be wound down and that a relationship with Turkey is critical. The faction that is still focused on the Middle East sees this as a fundamental betrayal of the Kurds. Foreign policy is a ruthless and unsentimental process. The Kurds want to establish a Kurdish nation. The U.S. can’t and doesn’t back that. On occasion, the U.S. will join in a mutually advantageous alliance with the Kurds to achieve certain common goals. But feelings aside, the U.S. has geopolitical interests that sometimes include the Kurds and sometimes don’t – and the same can be said of the Kurds.


At the moment, the issue is not al-Qaida but China and Russia, and Turkey is critical to the U.S. for Russia. The U.S. is critical for Turkey as well, but it cannot simply fall into American arms. It has grown too powerful in the region for that, and it has time to do it right. So Trump’s actions on the Syrian border will result in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington and, in due course, a realignment in the region between the global power and the regional power.


George Friedman



George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Dr. Friedman is a New York Times bestselling author and his most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

The Oranges of New US-Turkish Relations

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by matchingmole

The Oranges of New US-Turkish Relations

[matchingmole]

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by matchingmole

[matchingmole]

Bovine perspiration?????????????

[The_Waco_Kid]

reading comments on yahoo, where i also post, i am amazed at the stupidity of posters. not only do these idiots actually favor supporting the Kurds over a NATO ally, they consistently claim Trump backed Turkey to protect his "property" in Turkey, Trump Towers Istanbul. there's only one problem here ... Trump does not own Trump Towers Istanbul. a Turk named Aydın Doğan owns it and pays Trump a licensing fee for his name. and since Trump was elected the Turks have been screaming to have Trump's name removed from the property.

the stupidity of liberals has no end to it. smh


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Towers_Istanbul


Trump name controversy

The Turkish owner of Trump Towers Istanbul, who pays Trump for the use of his name, was reported in December 2015 to be exploring legal means to dissociate the property after the candidate's call to "temporarily bar Muslims from specific countries from entering the U.S." [4]


In June 2016, Turkish President Erdogan called for the removal of the Trump name from the towers, saying "Trump has no tolerance for Muslims living in the US. And on top of that they used a brand in Istanbul with his name. The ones who put that brand on their building should immediately remove it."[5]


In December 2015, Trump stated in a radio interview that he had a "conflict of interest" in dealing with Turkey because of his property, saying "I have a little conflict of interest, because I have a major, major building in Istanbul ... It’s called Trump Towers. Two towers, instead of one. Not the usual one, it’s two. And I’ve gotten to know Turkey very well."[6]


even Turkish politicians are fucking stupid and don't realize Trump does not own the towers. like this idiot below who doesn't realize "seizing" Trump Towers Istanbul would be taking it from the TURKISH developer that actually owns it, not Trump.


In August 2018, Aytun Ciray, general secretary of the Iyi Party, a major opposition party in Turkey, called on the government of President Erdogan to "seize the Trump Towers” in protest the Trump Administration's declaration of sanctions on Turkey’s ministers of justice and the interior.[7]

[matchingmole]

[rexdutchman]

OOH -Liberals they know it all ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[The_Waco_Kid]

still think Orange Man BAD? bahhaa. Trump dropped a hot potato right in Putin's lap. Russia is now on the hook for whatever clusterfuck enviably happens. it will cost Vlad money he doesn't have and troops he needs elsewhere. meanwhile the US moves away from this clusterfuck laughing all the way.


Trump Outsmarts Putin With Syria Retreat

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump...070024339.html




Zev Chafets

Bloomberg October 25, 2019


(Bloomberg Opinion) -- After U.S. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution denouncing it as “a benefit to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran and Russia."


Six days later, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, introduced a similar resolution. “If not arrested,” he said, “withdrawing from Syria will invite more of the chaos that breeds terrorism and create a vacuum our adversaries will certainly fill.”


Such bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days. But it underestimates the wisdom of Trump’s decision, the benefits for U.S. interests in the Middle East and the nasty trick he has played on Russian President Vladimir Putin.


Trump calls Syria a “bloody sandbox.” He’s right about that. It is also a briar patch of warring tribes and sects, inexplicable ancient animosities and irreconcilable differences.


The president is not prepared to take responsibility for this complicated place, or to get caught up in it. If leaving creates an opportunity for Russia to fill the vacuum, as American lawmakers believe, then it is one Trump is happy to cede. The Russian leader struts on the world stage, but he has not exactly won a victory.


Sooner or later, al-Qaeda, Islamic State or the next iteration of jihad will break loose in Syria. When that happens, the Russians will be the new Satan on the block. Their diplomats in Damascus will come under attack, as will Russian troops. More troops will be sent to defend them. Putin’s much-prized Mediterranean naval installations will require reinforcement. And so on. Soon enough, jihad will inflame Russia’s large Muslim population. Moscow itself will become a terrorist target.


The “safety zone” that Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have recently carved from northern Syria will collapse. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad rightly considers it a violation of his country’s sovereignty, and if he can persuade his Russian patrons to shut down the zone, Erdogan will threaten another invasion. If Putin then sides with Turkey, Assad will take matters into his own hands. His army may not be fit for fighting armed opponents, but the Kurds are and can act as Assad’s proxies.


If and when such a border fight develops, Putin will find himself between Assad and Erdogan. Whatever he does, he will wind up in that most vulnerable of Middle Eastern positions, the friend of somebody’s enemy.


As the big power in charge, Russia also will be expected to help its Syrian client rebuild the damage from the civil war. Physical reconstruction alone is expected to cost $400-500 billion. This is a bill Trump had no intention of paying — and one more reason he was glad to hand northern Syria to Putin.


Russia cannot afford a project of this magnitude. It’s possible that Putin expects EU countries to foot the bill — motivated either by humanitarian impulses or by the desire to forestall another wave of destitute immigrants. But this is wishful thinking. Faced with a potential influx of Syrian refugees, Europe is more likely to raise barriers on its southern and eastern borders than to invest in affordable housing in the ruins of Aleppo and Homs.


What’s more, Syria needs more than new housing. It needs an entire economy. Tourism, once a major industry, has vanished. The country’s relatively insignificant oilfields are inoperable or in the hands of the tiny contingent of U.S. troops that’s left to guard them. And the country’s biggest export product is spice seeds.


Another headache for Putin is the ongoing Israel-Iran war, which is being fought largely in Syrian territory. So far, Russia has been studiously neutral. The powerful Israel Defense Forces are engaged against what their leaders regard as a strategic threat. And, unlike the Kurds, Israel is not a disposable American ally. Putin knows this and will not risk a military confrontation no matter how many Syrian-based Iranian munitions warehouses Israel destroys or how hard Assad pushes him to retaliate.


Critics who see the U.S. withdrawal as an act of weakness that will hurt American prestige and influence in the Middle East are wrong. The Arab world understands realpolitik and will read Trump’s indifference to the fate of Syria as the self-serving behavior of the strong horse.


For that is what the U.S. is. It has far more naval power, air dominance, strategic weaponry and intelligence assets than any other country in the region, including Russia. And its allies are the richest, best situated and most militarily potent countries in the Middle East. Not one of them will trade its relationship with Washington for an alliance with Moscow, and Trump knows this. As far as he’s concerned, Putin is welcome to the sandbox and the briar patch.


To contact the author of this story: Zev Chafets at zchafets@gmail.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

[oeb11]

TWK - thank for posting an interesting analysis.
Surprised bloomberg published anything at all positive about Trump

[dilbert firestorm]

It seems Trump had a different idea regarding the Russians. stick it to them.


lol! its now their problem as it should be.

[The_Waco_Kid]

so Trump was a fool to pull out of Syria and let Vlad control it, yeah? apparently not!


Putin Faces Syria Money Crunch After U.S. Keeps Control of Oil

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-fac...040000435.html


(Bloomberg) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing an unwelcome new financial challenge in Syria after the U.S. pullback enabled his ally Bashar al-Assad to reclaim the biggest chunk of territory in the country still outside his control.


The U.S. decision to keep forces in northeastern Syria to guard oil fields denies Assad access to desperately needed funds to rebuild the Middle East state after eight years of civil war. That’s adding to the urgency of United Nations-led talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups in Geneva starting Wednesday, that Putin has said could be “decisive” in settling the conflict.


While agreement is far from certain, the negotiations on constitutional changes could help unlock money from U.S. allies in the Gulf and Europe, which have withheld aid because of Assad’s close ties to Iran and his refusal to loosen his grip on power by making space for opposition groups.


“If we see some political progress there could be more interest in supporting reconstruction,” said Yury Barmin, a Middle East expert from the Moscow Policy Group, a consultancy. At the same time, the Syrian authorities “clearly feel they are winning,” he said.


Russia’s military intervention in Syria since 2015 succeeded in shoring up Assad at a time when he was at risk of being overthrown in a rebellion backed by the U.S. and its allies. The UN estimates reconstruction costs in Syria at $250 billion and the Syrian leadership can’t count on either of its two main backers, Iran and Russia, for significant financing.


Saudi Arabia has softened its demand for Assad’s immediate departure as the Russian role in Syria has grown increasingly dominant and the U.S. presence has reduced. That accelerated when President Donald Trump last month ordered out U.S. troops protecting Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, leading to a Turkish offensive that forced the Kurds to turn to Damascus for protection by pledging loyalty to Assad. Russia and Turkey struck a deal last week for joint patrols of a border zone in northern Syria.


The U.S. then announced it was deploying forces in the vicinity of the oil-producing Deir Ezzor region to deny access to Islamic State as well as Syrian and Russian forces, a move the Defense Ministry in Moscow denounced as “international state banditry.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned Monday of an “overwhelming” response to any threat to U.S. forces there.


The American maneuver came even as Trump thanked Russia for its assistance with the U.S. raid that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained that the White House had told the Kremlin about the operation in advance while keeping it secret from Congressional leaders.


Political Process


Russia, which has been preparing for an offensive to capture Idlib from jihadist control, may feel encouraged by the confirmation that Islamic State has taken root there, said Barmin of the Moscow Policy Group. But it’s unlikely to risk international condemnation by unleashing massive civilian casualties just as the political process in Syria is getting under way, he said.


The work of the so-called constitutional committee, made up of 150 members from the government, opposition and civil society, is a “step in the right direction, a step along the difficult path out of this conflict,” UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said Monday in Geneva. “It could be a door-opener to a broader political process.”


Saudi Arabia will likely continue to keeps its purse-strings firmly shut until after the UN has overseen presidential elections in Syria that are due in 2021, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political expert based in the United Arab Emirates.


While Saudi leaders view Russia as the best chance of countering Iran in Syria and the Syrian opposition is unlikely to win any real power, Riyadh still wants to see some international stamp of legitimacy before it considers contributing to the Syrian regime, according to Abdulla.


“It’s going to be a long, long process for sure,” he said by phone. “Assad has to arrange for an election supervised by the UN and the outcome will then determine at what stage and what kind of Gulf help will be provided to Syria.”



©2019 Bloomberg L.P.