TURKEY’S MICRO-WAR WITH EVERYBODY

 
Vince Dhimos answered a question at Quora.
 
https://www.quora.com/Has-Putin-humiliated-Erdogan-and-put-him-back-into-the-box/answer/Vince-Dhimos
 
Q: HAS PUTIN HUMILIATED ERDOGAN AND PUT HIM BACK INTO THE BOX?

Vince Dhimos, Editor-in-Chief at New Silk Strategies (2016-present)
 
A:
 
The media of the US and its satellites are keeping the West in a self-induced fog. I only know of 2 brave publications that are not afraid to provide a day-by-day accounting of what is happening in Syria and the rest of the Middle East, and they are:
 
SouthFront (https://southfront.org/) and
 
Al Masdar (AMN - Al-Masdar News | المصدر نيوز)
 
Book mark these sites, subscribe to them for daily alerts, and go there every day if you want to know what is happening. It is very complex. Yes, Putin is a diplomatic genius unmatched in the world. But Erdoğan is a confused psychological mess.
 
For example, Al Masdar (AMD) just reported two contradictory items:
 
1. Turkey has destroyed 8 Russian made air defence systems in Idlib. I believe they are the Pantsir systems. This is very expensive for Russia.
 
2. Turkey is pulling heavy equipment from its Syrian observation posts.
 
Recently Russia and Turkey have been reported to be making joint patrols along a strategic highway in Idlib. How long that will last is anyone’s guess.
 
The ace in the hole for Russia is its electronic warfare system, which is far advanced and is making the on-board electronics of Turkish aircraft unusable. These systems reach out over great distances so that if located in the Hmeimim base in Latakia, they can actually render Turkish (and all other) aircraft useless 130 or more km away in Idlib. It would be very hard for Turkey to compromise this system although it tries routinely, sending attack drones to this Russian base, which so far have been getting shot down and also simply jammed by the aforementioned EW systems.
 
But to say that Putin has humiliated Erdoğan and put him in his place is a stretch. There is literally a war going on between Turkey on the one hand and Russia, Syria and Iran on the other and there is no clear winner as yet. Erdoğan vainly dreams of restoring the glory of the Ottoman Empire. He has even said on one occasion: we have defeated Russia in the past and can do it again. But on the other hand, Erdoğan recently made a trip to Moscow and reached an agreement with Putin.
 
Erdoğan, in his blustery speech about defeating Russia, was referring to past wars in which Turkey counted on major assistance from the European powers. Today, Europe is no longer in Turkey’s court. Erdoğan has infuriated Europe by releasing enormous numbers of refugees into Europe, in breach of a contract with the EU that provides money to Turkey for maintaining refugee camps but enjoins Turkey to release them only in prescribed numbers. The EU and Greece in particular have succeeded in slowing this flow to a trickle with a fence in Greece that seems to be holding for now. Erdoğan also stupidly thought he could get the US on his side by requesting that the US send Patriot systems for defence against Syrian and Russian aircraft. But the US is also angry at Turkey because it bought the Russian S-400 air defence system. The US threatened Turkey with sanctions for this claiming the system was incompatible with their aircraft, although their real fear was that it could help the Turks study the secrets of their “stealth” aircraft.
 
Everyone is treating Russia with great care because of its growing influence and its outstanding weaponry. But the situation is volatile.