05-05-2019, 05:20 PM
TURKEY IRAN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN IN PARTICULAR WILL NEED TO RE-ALIGN THEIR ALLIANCES AND IN PARTICULAR THEIR MILITARY PARTNERSHIPS. CHOICES INDEED HAVE TO BE MADE RAPIDLY AS THE WORLD IS IN A POST COLD WAR POST UNIPOLAR WORLD WHICH IS IN FLUX AND TRANSITION. THERE IS A NEED FOR A NEW ALIGNMENT BY POST COLONIAL MUSLIM NATION STATES. THEY NEED TO LOOK AT THEIR PAST ISLAMIC HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATIONS PREVALENT IN THE WORLD. URGENT NEW THINKING IS REQUIRED BY THE UMMAH
IS THE TURKISH RUSSIAN S-400 MISSILE DEAL SABRE RATTLING AMONG SUPERPOWERS?
https://therealnews.com/stories/is-the-t...uperpowers
Vice President Mike Pence expressed his dismay with Turkey's decision to purchase an S-400 anti-aircraft missile defense system from Russia, revealing just how much this arms deal is an existential threat to NATO and U.S. dominance.
“Turkey's purchase of a $2.5 billion S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia poses great danger to NATO and to the strength of this alliance,” Pence said.
“Turkey must choose: Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in the history of the world? Or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?”
Richard Sakwa told The Real News Network's Sharmini Peries that Pence's assertion about the alliance is correct, it's just outdated by a couple decades: “Vice President Pence had a point. He did talk about NATO as the most successful alliance in history. The thing is that it was successful until 1989-91 at the end of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and it had achieved its goals,” Sakwa said.
Moreover, Turkey, like other countries, is slowly realizing the limits of NATO and kicking back against U.S. control, and reinstatement of Cold War-like policy.
“Since [the end of the Cold War], now it's over 25-30 years, it's been looking for a role to play and what it's managed to do is to perpetuate Cold War attitudes and ultimately facilitated what I call—and others call—not just a new Cold War but a substantive, second Cold War. But in that second Cold War, the actors and the patterns of politics will change.”
While Turkey is not a founding NATO member, it did join soon after its founding, and now is beginning to find the strategic options within NATO too limiting. Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu all but said this last week when he declared the Russian S-400 sale “a done deal” because the U.S. failed to guarantee sale of its Patriot Missile Defense System.
Sakwa explained that Turkey “feels threatened” in the Middle East, especially since the Iraq War and as Israel has gained power. Given strained Israel and Turkey relations, it makes sense they would want to defend themselves and would go to Russia, who guaranteed a sale when the U.S. could not.
“They do feel they need a defensive capacity and as we heard they didn't manage to get the Patriot missile defense system,” Sakwa said. “There's also a technical issue there is that general view—and I'm no expert—that the S-400 is technically the best in the world. And so if they're going to pay so much money they'd like to get the best in the world.”
More broadly, Turkey's S-400 purchase from Russia and U.S. panic represents a shift in geopolitical relations and the start of “a far more fluid situation where people won't buy into [a] particular model of politics,” Sakwa said.
“This is a sign that that post-Cold War world, in which the existence and continuation and enlargement of NATO effectively meant it tried to freeze the situation of U.S.-led dominance after 1991, and that dominance, that freezing moment, is beginning to unfreeze,” Sakwa said. “It may have given advantages and benefits at a certain point but all things, including the world's most successful military alliance, will come to an end one day, and perhaps these are the first signs of that coming end.”
IS THE TURKISH RUSSIAN S-400 MISSILE DEAL SABRE RATTLING AMONG SUPERPOWERS?
https://therealnews.com/stories/is-the-t...uperpowers
Vice President Mike Pence expressed his dismay with Turkey's decision to purchase an S-400 anti-aircraft missile defense system from Russia, revealing just how much this arms deal is an existential threat to NATO and U.S. dominance.
“Turkey's purchase of a $2.5 billion S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia poses great danger to NATO and to the strength of this alliance,” Pence said.
“Turkey must choose: Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in the history of the world? Or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?”
Richard Sakwa told The Real News Network's Sharmini Peries that Pence's assertion about the alliance is correct, it's just outdated by a couple decades: “Vice President Pence had a point. He did talk about NATO as the most successful alliance in history. The thing is that it was successful until 1989-91 at the end of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and it had achieved its goals,” Sakwa said.
Moreover, Turkey, like other countries, is slowly realizing the limits of NATO and kicking back against U.S. control, and reinstatement of Cold War-like policy.
“Since [the end of the Cold War], now it's over 25-30 years, it's been looking for a role to play and what it's managed to do is to perpetuate Cold War attitudes and ultimately facilitated what I call—and others call—not just a new Cold War but a substantive, second Cold War. But in that second Cold War, the actors and the patterns of politics will change.”
While Turkey is not a founding NATO member, it did join soon after its founding, and now is beginning to find the strategic options within NATO too limiting. Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu all but said this last week when he declared the Russian S-400 sale “a done deal” because the U.S. failed to guarantee sale of its Patriot Missile Defense System.
Sakwa explained that Turkey “feels threatened” in the Middle East, especially since the Iraq War and as Israel has gained power. Given strained Israel and Turkey relations, it makes sense they would want to defend themselves and would go to Russia, who guaranteed a sale when the U.S. could not.
“They do feel they need a defensive capacity and as we heard they didn't manage to get the Patriot missile defense system,” Sakwa said. “There's also a technical issue there is that general view—and I'm no expert—that the S-400 is technically the best in the world. And so if they're going to pay so much money they'd like to get the best in the world.”
More broadly, Turkey's S-400 purchase from Russia and U.S. panic represents a shift in geopolitical relations and the start of “a far more fluid situation where people won't buy into [a] particular model of politics,” Sakwa said.
“This is a sign that that post-Cold War world, in which the existence and continuation and enlargement of NATO effectively meant it tried to freeze the situation of U.S.-led dominance after 1991, and that dominance, that freezing moment, is beginning to unfreeze,” Sakwa said. “It may have given advantages and benefits at a certain point but all things, including the world's most successful military alliance, will come to an end one day, and perhaps these are the first signs of that coming end.”