Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

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This sounds very much right. Turkey's biggest problem with US, is that it doesn't know what trouble the Americans have with them. Every few years US politicians put something new on the table, and say it's a (new) problem.

Turkey is the biggest military ally USA have. Loosing it will be a "before, and after" moment for NATO.

Truly, USA's biggest problem with Turkey is exactly them being such a strong, and prominent military ally, throwing discord in US dominated bloc solely by the fact of its existence.

Points:

1. Turkey's ultimate political alignment is NATO

2. Turkey's current political position can be rationally understood, in comparison to more irate allies, playing their double, triple, quadruple games. It has tensions with NATO, and US, but not because its ultimate alignment, and commitment to Atlantic Bloc changed.

3. Turkey is a way more useful military ally US have than any EU NATO member. Both in military strength, and level of commitment.

4. Turkey is the sole country US can consider a real military ally among dozens of "ally" countries which USA buys with billions of dollars per year in defence aid: Saudis, Egyptians, Emiratis, Pakistanis, Jordanians, Israelis... they are all basically a $100B a year black hole for defence aid.

5. Turkey is the only non-white country with commitment to hosting American nuclear weapons, and other serious defence assets after South Korea, and Japan quit. This is currently American's sole proof of not seeking a "rich white world alliance" as its foreign policy vision — hugely symbolic.

All of those points are valid, but the democratic status of Turkey is questionable (not a barrier to being a US ally) and it has a long-standing unresolved territorial dispute with another NATO member, Greece.

The US throws a lot of money at the middle east because it doesn't understand it at all and has no coherent plan. Fortunately some of the money is thrown back at individual politicians.

Those are pro side of the balance on the other hand

- non secular government

- military adventurism

- buying Russian s400 whatever that was

- limited effectiveness in sophisticated asymmetrical insurgents wars

- limited effectiveness against sophisticated military, two generations behind fleet of f16

> Turkey is the biggest military ally USA have

Would that not be the UK?

Five fold advantage in artillery.

Two-fold advantage in conventional airforce + their new drone force.

6 fold advantage in tanks. 2 fold advantage in armour overall.

3 fold advantage in trained personnel

When it comes to land forces, Turkey is many times more powerful than UK.

Nukes, or their lack thereof, is the elephant in the room here.

Did you read that on Wikipedia, lol?

Those numbers sound big until you realise the overwhelming majority of that personnel are conscripts who will be very inexperienced and in all likelihood don't actually want to be there - from the wikipedia page you were on:

> in 2010 the Turkish Armed Forces had an active strength of around 402,000 active personnel, consisting of 77,000 professionals and 325,000 conscripts

Don't get me wrong, I'd be delighted if the roles were reversed and it was instead Turkey who had the 5th biggest military expenditures in the world and the UK were around 20th - there's far more productive things we could be spending our money on.

> Those numbers sound big until you realise the overwhelming majority of that personnel are conscripts who will be very inexperienced and in all likelihood don't actually want to be there - from the wikipedia page you were on:

Conscript training is still better than no training at all.

In case of a serious military conflict, no NATO country other than USA will be able to avoid some degree of popular mobilisation.

Alright man, if you really wanna believe that the strongest military ally of the USA is Turkey then I'm not gonna stop you. But you're wrong, and really you shouldn't want to be right - it's not a good thing. I am a little embarrassed about the UK/US relationship

Turkish soldiers are more expendable

I think It’s mainly about the Turkish group-political position thanks to geography and all those points are supplemental to geography

Yes, exactly.

1. With Erdogan, or without Erdogan, it's very unlikely Turkey will ever find any solace with anybody South, or East of their border. The article 5 will remain central to its defence if anything nasty comes up from the South, and the only option if Russia will attack them from the East.

2. Turkey will gain nothing from changing alignment to some distant foreign power.

It is already a strong military power, and it barely ventured past their immediate vicinity in Syria. It cannot really confront Greece, with foreign power backing, or not, because of NATO.

3. The West will continue tolerate Turkey because they really have no alternative to Turkey, and vice-versa.

1. Turks are very much in bed with the Uae. Qatar gave çayipp an airbus a380. The neo ottoman AKP loves the oil rich arab states.

2. Russia and Arab nations treat Türkiye with far more respect than Europe and Amerika

3. As çaydoğan gets more desperate before the 2023 elections, all bets are off.

Non-white?

Uhh, Turks are from the caucuses.

I think you mean non-christian / non-jewish

Anatolians yes, not original Turks, Bulgars etc

Vast majority of turkish citizens are anatolians though

The Turks were definately considered "non-white" during the Brexit campaign.

If US needs allies so desperately that as a claimed leader of democracy is willing to ignore dictatorship regime, cronism within ruling family (I don't mean the guy responsible for this program but all the rest), semi-open support for ISIS in recent past (buying oil, treating wounded, supporting arms), massive human rights violations, atrocities against kurdish population, invasion of sovereign state(s) without any reason and generally huge misalignment of core values and mentality between US and Turkey, then I'd say... US is pretty fucked in near future and in very, very weak position.

Turkey is a major threat to basically all its neighbors, and if their greed will continue to rise (and there is no reason to think otherwise with current leadership), Europe should consider it as a bigger threat than Russia with Putin.

The relatively brief period when Turkey wanted to have peace with Europe is gone. I hope EU countries will realize that military spending needs to be increased and armies put back in good shape. It would be huge waste of money in other times but these days peace seems more and more fragile. Bullies only understand strength talk.

The EU kimd of screwed Türkiye. Turks took in 4 million syrian refugees and promised not to let them go to europe in exchange for billions of euros which were never delivered. Now Turkiye has had about 4 million syrian orisonwrs for 6 years and is about to absorb at least a million Afghanis.

Turks cant even visit the EU withoit showing their entire Cvs (notarized and translated), financial statements, proof of Turkish housing and proof of education.

Meanwhile westerners only have to use an app to get a $20 evisa.

The eu are incredibly hypocritical when it comes to Türkiye.

It wasnt so long ago that England tried to steal all of Turkiye, luckily ataturk whooped their colonial asses and sent them home with their limey tails between their legs.

> Turks cant even visit the EU withoit showing their entire Cvs (notarized and translated), financial statements, proof of Turkish housing and proof of education.

> Meanwhile westerners only have to use an app to get a $20 evisa.

Gee, I wonder why.

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