Kinda regret starting a current events / political thread, but... This is big.
Turkey just killed a russian pilot (maybe two) who was bombing Syrian Islamists. Direct conflict between NATO and Russia hasnt happened since, the Korean War?
If WW3 breaks out before I wake up tomorrow, I'll miss u guize.
NATO attacks Russia for the first time since the cold war
The headline there is a bit sensationalist, don't you think?
"NATO attacks Russia" would indeed be quite a major news update.
Unless I missed something big, that is quite different from what I've been hearing.
Turkish air force pilots (not NATO) shot down a single Russian fighter jet (not Russia) on the Syrian/Turkey border. Turkey is claiming the jet was inside their borders and did not respond to radio contact.
Sad for the people involved and problematic for their international relationships, but I can think of many scenarios that would explain it without the need for more conflict. The simplest include variations on radio problems, mechanical problems on the Russian jet, and translation problems between pilots.
Good, really, it shows that Turkey's willing to defend their airspace. This shouldn't happen in the future because Russia will avoid violating NATO airspace.
Also, there's 2 parts to the issue. The Russian jet was shot down, yes, however, the pilot ejected safely, and was then shot to death by Turkish forces as he was descending (Can't get the video right now, but google it and it should turn up). I think there's something in NATO's agreement about not shooting down stranded parachuters... Maybe I'm wrong on that.
The irony that many are currently missing is that the USA have recently formed an historical alliance with Turkey against ISIS only a few months back, and now a mitigated "alliance" even with Russia to faceoff ISIS, but that despite being all "allies in the face of ISIS", these "Allies" are all secretly enemies.
Begs the question: what happens when ISIS is gone?
I don't buy into the WWIII theory because I believe the MAD is still pretty much prevalent despite Russia's many tests in Ukraine this year alone, but the tension is certainly rising and Turkey has demonstrated quite clearly that they will not let anyone "puppeteer" their borders.
I Live In a country near Turkey and we were told that no pilots were killed.
I think that this is not ?going to be a big deal.
Direct conflict between NATO and Russia hasnt happened since, the Korean War?
Turkey hasn't invoked NATO Article 5, so for now its just "Turkey vs Russia".
it shows that Turkey's willing to defend their airspace
the turks have historically always shown a lot of backbone when it comes to military matters once they get involved in something. if it was intentional and not a nav error/comm malfunction (the likely scenario), i'd say russia really picked the wrong country to test the waters against, .but russia isn't stupid. they know better than to intentionally provoke the turks.
odds are this is just an example of the sort of thing that can happen with many military forces in close proximity but operating independently of one another . accidents and incidents are bound to happen sooner or later. that's what makes the situation dangerous. the fact that the major factions support opposite sides in the syrian civil war doesn't help much either.
The headline there is a bit sensationalist, don't you think?
"NATO attacks Russia" would indeed be quite a major news update.
Unless I missed something big, that is quite different from what I've been hearing.
Turkish air force pilots (not NATO) shot down a single Russian fighter jet (not Russia) on the Syrian/Turkey border. Turkey is claiming the jet was inside their borders and did not respond to radio contact.
Turkish jets are NATO jets. A NATO plane has not shot down a Russian plane since the Korean war. That is a sensational event. It's unprecedented in modern times.
Turkey previously warned Russia to stop attacking ISIS targets close to the Turkish border. According to the evidence Turkey sent to the UN, the "unknown" jets glanced across the border laterally for 17 seconds before being shot at (and Russia says they didn't cross the border at all), while they were repeatedly flying the same route to attack said targets (that they were warned earlier to leave alone). That is extremely hostile. Especially coming from a country that has a policy of provocatively violating Greek airspace 1000 times a month...
And meanwhile, Turkish, US, Australian, Israeli, etc, planes are constantly violating Syrian airspace, and could all completely legally be shot down by Russia (who actually has legal permission to fly over Syria)!
Turkey hasn't invoked NATO Article 5, so for now its just "Turkey vs Russia".
Article 5 is collective defense -- it would be invoked if Russia attacked Turkey, not the other way around.
That's also somewhat different that what the headline implies.Turkish jets are NATO jets. A NATO plane has not shot down a Russian plane since the Korean war. That is a sensational event. It's unprecedented in modern times.
When I see "NATO attacks Russia" to me that invokes an image of a NATO meeting with most of the 28 nation's representatives agreeing that they need to attack the nation of Russia. Effectively it says WW3 has begun.
Instead, I see headlines like "Turkey shoots down Russian jet it says violated its airspace". That is a very different conflict than NATO vs Russia and WW3, something that can be described as an unfortunate misunderstanding or governmental posturing.
Turkey previously warned Russia to stop attacking ISIS targets close to the Turkish border.
Here is where things become a bit murky. While Russia certainly enthusiastically claims to attack ISIS a lot of their targets are actually people strongly opposed to ISIS (but also strongly opposed to Assad). However, apart from that nitpicking I'm going to keep out of it. The whole area is such a gigantic cluster**** that the only viable option for me which I'm seeing right now is to stick my head into a nice, big bucket of sand.
A few weeks ago I saw a tv docu about fighter pilots watching NATO airspace over the baltic sea and they showed that Russian aircrafts were regularly sneaking in to test the response times. I guess they got burned now from trying it too often or on wrong place.
Its weird they do not tell if the pilots survived in tv-news.
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