President/CEO @fpri; @acwpodcast host; Author: US war against ISIS @bloomsburybooks. Views are all my own
Philly - DC - Bursa
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This is hilarious
Turkish President Erdogan says he might negotiate with Elon Musk and get a better deal over Twitter's $8 blue badge v.aa.com.tr/2728415
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The entirety of the United States government doesnt have a damn clue what it is that POTUS just did with Turkey and Syria. SRS is spinning in backgrounders. Military is bewildered. No one knows.
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Turkish industry was well positioned to compete for the building & production of the SOM-J for the F-35. Seems like a good missile but its a casualty of the S-400 decision and the collapse of TR sub/weapon export products for the jet ... S-400 decision remains inexplicable
❗️🇦🇺🇳🇴🇺🇸 Australia will manufacture both the Naval Strike Missile & Joint Strike Missile!
The Australian government is investing 850 million AUD in partnership with Kongsberg Defence Australia to establish a manufacturing plant at the Newcastle Airport.
The intention to establish a NSM production line in Australia has been known since last year, but the addition of JSM is a new development. Kongsberg Defence Australia already produces launch ramps and other components for NSM.
NSM is also produced by Raytheon in the United States, out of their Arizona & Louisville, KY facilities.
This facility will be the only other aside from Kongsberg's own in Norway which can produce both NSM & JSM. I assume it will be primarily focused on final assembly and other select components. Currently other major subsystems are produced by various other European firms, such as SAFRAN 🇫🇷(Engine), TDW 🇩🇪 (Warhead) and NAMMO 🇳🇴 (Booster). Eventual localization of those components could be possible though.
Would not be surprised to see Raytheon begin production of JSM themselves too at some point down the road.
Link in alt text.
ALT https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2024-08-22/albanese-government-investment-boost-long-range-strike-adf-and-deliver-jobs-hunter-region
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The S-400 decision just looms large. Turkey could be operating F-35, block 70, have tech sharing on Patriot and have all its indigenous programs, free from CAATSA. It really was a poor decision.
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Delete your account. Stop politicizing a tragedy. You should be ashamed.
#Turkey whistle blower @fuatavni_f claims govt Intel & paramilitary groups are implicated in deadly attack in #Istanbul airport. BIG IF TRUE
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According to my interviews, VKS is now assembling much larger strike packages and pushing into Ukraine. This differs from analysis from 2-4 days ago.
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Ive been to East Jerusalem. I practiced my awful Arabic with some shop owners. I ate some food. I left. No injuries.
.@benshapiro: "If you are a Jew and you walk into East Jerusalem, your life is in danger. If you're an Arab and you walk into West Jerusalem, there's no problem at all, which signifies exactly why Jerusalem should be under Jewish control and not under Muslim control."
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Tower 22 was/is the crossing point between Jordan and Syria — on the Jordanian side of the border — and was infiltration/exfiltration point for USSOF/Intl SOF/T/E guys during IS war. It’s been around since 2015.
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I have a rather benign interpretation of the Turkish drip drip approach: 1) They are good at it. This is how the Turkish media works these days; 2) KSA killed someone in Turkey, violating sovereignty in a particularly brazen and brutal manner.
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At some point, Americans and Turks are going to have realize that Russia operates a NFZ over Idlib. Establishing a rival one means shooting at Russians.
Just in: Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham pushing for an aggressive US response in Syria amid reports of 30+ Turkish troops killed in a Russian airstrike in Idlib, calling on POTUS to establish a no-fly zone "to stop the slaughter and get ahead of a humanitarian crisis"
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Ankara paid more for its S400 than either India or China, is now squabbling over the 2nd regiment, lost its F-35, faces CAATSA, and has now asked for Patriot to do a mission it is not designed to do.
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Bored? An excerpt of my forthcoming book is in this week’s @AviationWeek. I have the full picture of the Wagner incident in Syria, including the unreported USAF— VKS skirmish. Enjoy. CC: @TheDEWLine
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I’ll make it official: I’m headed to @FPRI, where I’ll be the next Middle East Director. Looking forward to the challenge and working with awesome people. Thanks to everyone that wished we well during my self imposed twitter hiatus. fpri.org/news/2018/12/fpri-n…
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At some point Turks covering F-35 are going to have to accept that Ankara breached their contract and breaching your contract comes with consequences
A bit weird that the US had asked for aircraft storage rent from Turkey for undelivered F-35s, which were held by the US government in the first place
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We keep running into this: No one views the PKK as a threat except Turkey. So you have this incongruity of interests. This latest just magnifies it. RTE is overtly saying PKK > threat than Russia. No one else thinks this. Nor, will they ever.
Crisis.
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The results are considerable and should be studied: Ankara has created a single point of contact, controls the information, and has managed to get the NYT, WaPo, MEE, Sabah, and Yeni Safak to all write the same exact thing.
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Ankara and Moscow both share one critical overlapping interest: They don’t welcome a western role in conflicts in their near abroad. This makes them natural — if sometimes uncomfortable — symbiotic actors.
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I get that people are wondering why, if Turkey’s gains are so modest, did we have to go through all of this, and therefore there must be some hidden hand thing we cant see on, say, F-16. But there isnt. We went through all of this for Ankara to get minimal gains and that’s that
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Real people live in Turkey. Real people are suffering because the leader has lost the plot. We can debate foreign policy, a Syria incursion, F-16s, S-400, while many people now have to carefully plan how to afford basic necessities. Really a tragedy.
BREAKING: Turkey’s central bank delivers a shock rate cut despite inflation soaring to a 24-year high and the lira trading near a record low
trib.al/47z9FSI
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It still remains remarkable to me that Romania will now operate F-35, but Turkey will not. The S-400 purchase remains inexplicable. Just baffling beyond words.
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Ankara and Moscow have closer ties than Ankara and Paris. Russia killed dozens of Turkish troops in March and Ankara chose to pretend the Syrians did it.
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At the Seam of of Three Regions: The Case for More Basing and Access in Greece and Cyprus @WarOnTheRocks warontherocks.com/2022/07/at…
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Now the entirety of the system is trying to backpedal POTUS. POTUS hasn’t issued any guidance beyond incoherent tweets. Turkey says what it wants. This is madness.
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Ankara had $12 billion a year in contracts to support the F-35, a program slated to run for ~40 years + was in negotiations for Patriot, which would've led to offsets/investment + F-16.
But it chose S-400 and voila. We all said something. We dont make decisions in Turkey.
Really? I would love this logic to be applied on.....#Türkiye!
Accordingly, the US should hv sold more weapons 2 #Ankara in order not 2 let #Russia hv influence on 🇹🇷.
----
Instead , some lobbies in #Washington decided that they should block weapons to 🇹🇷 2 push it 2ward Russia!
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One hiccup is, of course, how to release more information without betraying sources and methods. Although, in releasing details about recordings Turkey has signaled it monitors diplomatic missions (Im shocked!)
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They were shooting into the heart of the airbase. Lets dispense with the notion that they were aiming at sand.
The Iranian missile strike destroyed several buildings/structures at Ain Al Assad Airbase. @planetlabs has images from this morning that @DaveSchmerler analyzed.
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My son woke up at 2:54 am last night. He had a nightmare. Monsters in the bed, he said. He screamed daddy, daddy. I comforted him. Sat with him until he calmed down and went back to sleep. We woke up at 6:24. I changed him. Fed him. Kids need parents. End this madness. Shameful
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This process has also allowed Erdogan to remain above it all, even though much of — if not all — of the information is coming from subordinates in his office.
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At some point this can’t be hand waved as electoral politics. Athens takes it seriously and has to worst case scenario plan. Those plans include buying more weapons. Tr points to these purchases as destabilizing, and says stuff like below. Stability/Instability paradox.
President @RTErdogan:
"(Greece) They have islands in possession, they have bases on these islands; if illegitimate threats against us continue based on them, our patience has a limit."
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Personal announcement: I am headed to @MetamorphicMdia, where I will oversee content for @WarOnTheRocks and the launch of new publications and podcasts in the near future. I start next week. Ready to roll.
We are pleased to announce that @aaronstein1 will be joining our team as Metamorphic Media’s chief content officer.
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Erdogan’s PR firm should review the Cuban Missile Crisis. How does this error make it through editing?
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Personal news: All great things must come to an end. This is my last week at @warontherocks. @EvansRyan202 is a friend and mentor and I am proud of what we have built together during my run as chief content officer.
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Take that Turks will be happy with Assad back in charge of Kurdish controlled areas is slightly off. TR will only accept this if Assad cracks down on the YPG. If not, we’re back to a pre-1998 status quo that Ankara used coercive diplomacy to upend. Moscow now holds the cards
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What President Trump and his core Syria team have done to US soldiers in Syria is unforgivable
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In the old days, its a squadron of F-111s doing a bomb run over Tripoli. Now it is a JSOC Task Force hunting someone down. US doesnt forget this stuff. Look at how the Benghazi perpetrators were hunted and rolled up years later. Focusing on the initial booms is often shortsighted
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Biggest take away: Never assume there is a strategy when the simplest answer is men do dumb things.
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Periodic reminder: Russia is not executing a visionary or coherent plan in Syria. Latest example: Tel Rifaat. Moscow has no idea how to end this civil war on its own terms, just like everyone else.
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Turkey is in the situation it is in because it purchased a S-400, and then was booted from the F-35 program. The Block 70 purchase and upgrade is a fail safe plan to “bridge the gap” between the current inventory and the MMU .. but
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This is going to be a long one. <thread>
A primer on Turkish air and missile defense, given the S-400 kerfuffle and the constant noise about a lack of American interest in selling Patriot
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And nobody — and I mean absolutely nobody — can still answer the basic question: How can the US address through its presence in Syria Turkish concerns without letting Ankara attack the SDF? And, again, for those saying for the SDF to cut a deal with TR. One question: How?
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As a thought exercise, try and come up with a viable target for a Russian nuclear weapon in Ukraine. What target would need to be nuked that cannot be attacked with conventional munitions. I have yet to come up with anything.
NEW: U.S. does NOT assess that there is a threat of Russia's use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine: senior U.S. defense official
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Turkey’s military operation suggests Ankara is casualty averse. It has been odd to watch them offload this operation — which is so simple to execute — to poorly trained militias. It has come at such a political cost to TR and slowed the invasion considerably
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Turkey is now the only major (Muslim majority) country in the Middle East that is not bombing ISIS
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.@mike_pence Your son is a Marine. Marines relied on Iraqi translators. This ban hurts our troops in Iraq & Syria. Rethink your support
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Im seeing recommendations to offer Patriot to Turkey. The US has offered Patriot to Turkey. Many, many times. These articles have to ask “why Turkey chose not to purchase Patriot”. Ankara had generous financing options + tech transfer. It chose the S-400.
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you can’t analyze the shoot down without acknowledging that a Turkish drone shot at US forces in Suli. The circumstance may be open to debate, the action is not. So US officials have to take TR drone threats seriously — Fidan’s statement — and be cautious in issuing roe guidance
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Your policy proposal was “fix” or “nix”. Trump took your advice and “nixed”, and now you pretend to be some moderate voice. He did exactly what you said to do. Own it.
I am being attacked by the right for being a fixer & by the left for being a nixer. Welcome to Washington where anyone in the middle of the policy & political street gets run over. I will continue to work on policy solutions w/o fear or favor.
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One has to assume that USAF ROE changed after the Turkish drone strike outside Suli airport -- and then coupled with the warning issued yesterday by Fidan -- you end up with USAF (I think Viper) pilots using self defense ROE to splash an Anka-S.
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Delusional
Sen. Graham says US is looking to launch a joint-venture with the Kurdish forces in Syria and run the oil fields together. Also says US wants a DMZ between Turkey and Kurds, patrolled by international forces, with US air support: video.foxnews.com/v/60962630…
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Who cares what Ankara says.
The text is an official US statement from the White House nitter.app/DavidKenner/status/956…
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We really are in the super silly season
Turkish military releases surveillance video footage of Greek submarines – touted by Greek media as undetectable – in the Eastern Mediterranean
sabahdai.ly/_gl4
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Beyond S-400, the issues are: 1) Libya; 2) Black Sea; 3) Middle East; 4) on-going Turkish veto of NATO partnership w/ UAE, Egypt, Israel; 5) East Med
“By the end of the meeting, it was clear that Turkey was virtually isolated among the alliance’s 30 members.” politico.eu/article/us-turke…
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As promised 👇-- I spoke with @JohnLechner1 for @WarOnTheRocks members about the rise of Prigozhin from Soviet-era prisoner to catering magnate to mercenary leader that mutinied
warontherocks.com/episode/un…
🚨New Content Coming for War on the Rocks Members🚨
I spoke this morning with @JohnLechner1 about the life of Yevgeny Prighozin, his rise to power, his relationship with Dmitry Utkin, and his -- literal -- fall from power.
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Turkish national security elites view Finland and Sweden as semi-hostile, given the presence of PKK and Gulenists. Its gonna take arm twisting to get sign off.
Broadly analogous to this episode -> reuters.com/article/us-nato-…
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.@Jack_Watling is spot on. The TB2 has been flying low to get below horizon + get lost in ground clutter for protection from patrolling fighters. They also have the western bastion in SAMland. They are used for decoys/to drag Su-series into the MEZ/strike
abcnews.go.com/International…
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Imamoglu campaigning in the Black Sea makes a lot of sense: 1) Its Bayram people go home to visit family; 2) he is from there; 3) Black Sea - Istanbul connex (see #1) 4) He’s flexing, signaling he can compete with reis on national level.
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My basic assesment remains unchanged from April 13th: Iranian ballistic missiles at this range are poor tools for conventional strikes/military effect
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Turkey has given an end of Feb deadline to Assad (Ankara has been very precise in its language to exclude Russia in its rhetoric). My #1 rule is take RTE seriously. RTE’s demands of Assad, to withdraw to the Sochi line, wont happen. Knowing this: What will TR action look like?
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If this spirals I would not want to be the night watch at IRGC HQ inside Iran. Let’s not downplay how dangerous this is and how a series of tremendously arrogant decisions have led us to this point. The arrogance is stupefying
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Latest @FPRI podcast with @RALee85 :: Examining Russia's Invasion of Ukraine - Foreign Policy Research Institute fpri.org/multimedia/2022/03/…
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Ha ha! Don’t use logic my friend. In Iraq, if we had a weapons problem, we’d send ground forces to confiscate and collect those weapons to protect our people. In this debate, we are told we need more of the problem weapons. It’s a logical fallacy
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One of these days Ankara is gonna succeed in killing US personnel
CONFIRMED: A drone strike targeted the convoy of Syrian Kurdish commander Mazlum Abdi in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq today.
3 US military personnel were in the convoy - no injuries, per US @CENTCOM spox Col. Joe Buccino.
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The successful use of air power is an interlinked system. That system, fundamentally, begins with with target selection, which should ideally begin with deep study of patterns of life and a concept of fires and the building of the strike plan. That could take well over a year.
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It took 16 years, but the anti-RTE bloc of opposition parties in Turkey actually have a coherent strategy for June 24, 2018. It is two-pronged, focused on parliament and the presidency. It actually all makes perfect sense and is well thought out.
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Arrow is exo-atmospheric whereas Patriot operates in a lower tier (endo-atmospheric). Hence the term “layered” missile defense. Iron dome is for rockets/slow movers (drones). It has no role for ballistic missile defense.
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The B-61 nuclear weapons in Turkey need maintenance and to be upgraded. In short, the weapons in Turkey will get a new tail kit to make the “dumb” bombs “smart” and more precise. These weapons will receive this upgrade in the US. Not Turkey. So they were coming out
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There is a tendency — and I genuinely do not understand it — to not take Erdogan seriously. He says stuff. He usually means what he says. He is incredibly stubborn. The whole system moves in lock step with him. And, yet, there is this idea that he is always bargaining.
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Article makes a pretty credible case that Ukraine had 34 TB2s in March, following a Jan. 27 decision to “rush” the back end of the original 48 TB2 order.
W/ attrition, perhaps there are 30 or so TB2 in Ukraine …
Question is will TR go beyond the 48 total number?
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US violation of JCPOA simply cedes all leverage to Iran. Its aggressively dumb to violate an agreement the US negotiated. The JCPOA imposes extraordinary inspection on Iran until 2040.
Ill also make a bet. The US wont be able to “push back” on Iran in Syria or Iraq, either.
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Russia, Iran, the US, the regime, and the SDF all agreed that they would like to keep Turkey to within 5km of the border. I always found this rare point of convergence to be noteworthy.
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Turkey’s space program may prompt many to joke, but the interest in motors and missile technology isn’t some lark. We are the outset of a major change in regional missile proliferation cc: @ArmsControlWonk
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Remember the 24 day inspection hoopla. Well, now the US cant even demand an inspection and would need an ally to do it. Yeah, those allies that asked us not to do this.
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There is the murmur from inside Turkey that Ankara and Yerevan could normalize relations. I’ve always thought that naive. I more confident in my assessment today
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev today, at a newly opened exhibition displaying the helmets of Armenian soldiers killed in last year's Second Karabakh War
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Sinan Ogan is not a "king maker". He needs to catch a ride and Reis is driving the tram. Lots will be written. He has an incentive to cut a deal because Reis doesnt really need Ogan votes. Reis has the cards and the leverage here.
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Biden cannot snap his fingers on this issue. As of now, the man in charge is a Democrat from NJ, in a safe seat, and who will stay on the committee even if Oz wins in PA and the Senate flips. Dont ask Biden, ask Menendez what he thinks … and we'll have our answer.
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I joined @RAlee85 to discuss the Kharkiv offensive and Ukraine’s on-going manpower shortages :: Russia Launches New Offensive in Ukraine - Foreign Policy Research Institute fpri.org/multimedia/2024/05/…
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My latest :: You Go to War with the Turkey You Have, Not the Turkey You Want @WarOnTheRocks warontherocks.com/2022/05/yo…
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S-400 test may not change things immediately. W/ Trump more likely than not to lose, the senate more likely than not to flip, we'll enter a lame duck period — and Biden admin will want to do a Turkey review. But the arms embargo is going to continue; F-35 is gone; CAATSA in play
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I spent 4 years writing my dissertation about this: the simple answer is Russia owns Turkey’s nuclear program, so there is simply no pathway in the short term. The tell, of course, is if Ankara starts to chafe against the Russian ownership it signed up for (for economic reasons)
Turkey doesn't like Iran, but it likes Israel even less. Ankara isn't unhappy that Iran's wings are being clipped, but it's also alarmed by Israel's overwhelming deterrence. If Turkey wasn't already making plans to go nuclear, the week's events may have put it over that threshold
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I get that it’s fun to speculate about intel cooperation, but Biden pretty much spelled it out: JSOC locked on to a courier, established POL, tracked him to a house in Idlib, watched house, flew to house, Qurayshi killed himself & his family, & a dude downstairs got killed
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