Words and definitions can be twisted however you like. Just look at Al-Qaeda, they were a "proxy" or even an allied to the US before they turned against them, look how quickly that turned to the worse when they decided to not like the US anymore, suddenly they are a terrorist group!
The US won't bomb Turkish troops because it'll never get to that point.
But that being said, you've given a whole song and dance, litterally for years, about what Turkey will or will not allow the US to do. And none of it has happened.
Know why? Because Erdogan doesn't have a strong hand.
Suppose he freezes US operations out of Turkey. What does the US do? It flies its B-1 bombers out of Turkey and lands them in Kuwait or Qatar, which is very happy to host use forces. The US then does the exact same thing it is doing in Turkey. Is the cost greater? Oh you bet. Our gas bill goes way up. But that's it. The US will will still do exactly the same thing.
And that is why this idle threat of yours continues to be idle. Because Erdogan recognzies he can host the US, and maintain some say, or alienate the US and find himself with no say. And since he won't attack the US military of course, because he's not that insane, that leaves him with just one option: to let the US fly.
it's been closed for years. When do you think they will get around to actually enforcing that?
The second a Russian battery launches an anti-aircraft missile at a US jet, the US will destroy all Russian batteries. The Russians and Syrians together mathematically do not have enough missiles in Syria to defend against a US Surpression of Enemy Air Defenses campaign. The Russians know this, which is why they won't try to do it. And neither will they send air power into Syria to actually fight US combat aircraft, because the sequel to that is the US launching a major military campaign to evict the Russians from Syria... a campaign the Russians would be hard pressed with their extremely limited strategic lift and bad geography, to wage.
So again, they won't do it. You're living a fantasy.
Yeah sure. Because the US would just roll over like that. You mean, just like the US doesn't enter territory the Chinese claims on a regular basis?
The US position is pretty fucking clear, no matter how much you don't like it: it double dares you to fire something at it , when they go to a place you don't want them to be. And if you're stupid enough to do that, do you think the united states will just let you get away with it? No. It won;t. And everybody knows it.
You may not. But your President does, as does Vladmir Putin, and Assad.
Well I'm just looking forward to the sequel. When can we see that.
It's vastly inferior to:
The United States
China
Russia
South Korea
Japan
France
the United Kingdom
India
Israel
Maybe top 10. definetly not top 5. More likely top 15. It's a big but antiquated and poorly trained force.
Don't worry, I'm sure the TAI TFX will happen before there is World of Warcraft II.
@Skroe,
Aren't you a fast quoter. I removed the insult from my post before you posted, fyi. Anyway, I completely disagree but won't bother responding point by point.
You're wrong on this too.
Al Qaeda was never a proxy of the US.
The entirely differently Afghan Mujaheddin was a proxy of the United States during the 1980s Afghan War. When the Soviet Union withdrew and the US dropped support, some of those Mujuahideen became the Taliban, some became the the Northern Alliance, some became other ethnic milita groups, and a handful of people who met each other formed what would become Al Qaeda, which was largely staffed with people from Al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. They merged with Al Qaeda in the 1990s and had nothing to do with the Afghan War.
But you know what happened to most of the Mujaheddin? They retired and became civilians. 20-somethings in the early 1980s were in their mid-to-late 40s by the early 2000s. Not exactly the rank and file of AL Qaeda or the Taliban encountered in 2001 in Afghanistan, which were largely people born in the 1970s and 1980s. They would have been kids during the war in Afghanistan, just as the people the US are fighting in Afghanistan today were largely kids when then US invaded in 2001.
Time marches on.
Al Qaeda did not exist during the Soviet's Afghan War and were never a US proxy.
"The US funded the Taliban" and "the US funded Al Qaeda" is stupid person's sloppy history.
So yes, words and definitions do matter, and through your ignorance of pretty basic history you made my point yet again.
So you start with: "They might be fighting for russia" and then imply with the whole "proxy warfare and plausible deniability".
No I do not believe in the US propaganda that russia is the world's most evil country and that they are so evil because they hack and spy. I believe in objective data that most countries do this shit.
If you want to believe it? Go you! But for me? I'd rather await facts and data instead of fearmongering.
That's fine. I'll just close by saying, it's 2018, and Turkey hasn't done shit against the US in... wow years.
And you won't. Because as I said, you really can't stop us. Close your airspace, then you lose a seat at the table, when we continue to do what we do from Qatar, or Italy or Romania. Or from a carrier off the coast. Just like that one time, during the coup, where you did cut off our use of your air base.
Erdogan, not a stupid man, plays ball because he knows some leverage is better than no leverage, and those are precisely the two options.
This, Kuntantee, is what it means to be the junior partner in the relationship that Turkey has not been particularly awesome in as of late. Respect your limits. Turkey is a important regional player and stakeholder that certainly should have a voice. But a significant power? One that can dictate the order of things? It is not within a light year of being. The US is first among equals in NATO. Most often the "equals" part of that takes precedence. Here, as you're seeing right now, is when "first" comes into play.
Before you start believing anything I'd suggest you work on your reading comprehension. It's clear they are Russians, the question I asked is if people believe they are simple mercenaries or if they're part of a larger game (which makes sense since those are the two stories that are being painted by western and Russian media)
There is nothing in the OP about Russia being evil, and if there where any implications of morals they'd be directed at the Russian leadership and not a the country as a whole.
I doubt they are very poor since generally private contractors get paid a lot more then your run of the mill soldier. However most if not all of them would need a military background in order to be eligible to get the job. The weird thing about these mercenaries is that the ones that didn't die are now being treated in Russian military hospitals which is something that doesn't generally happen with private contractors.
"Defending" and "using" are different concepts. You're USING Japan and Australia and eastern Europe to your benefits. You're not defending them. Defending them would require you to not do whatever is in your power to increase tensions.
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See Skroe, no offence, but youre too focused on today.
Yes turkey hasn't done anything... yet. Who knows what happens in 30 years, considering the series of failures your own foreign policies have led to.
You present a blank u can fill with anything u want to write there. You expect credibility when you write anonymous source?
QQ moar, fake news.
The real story here is that hammering a bunch of quasi russian mercs is niether a victory for the US or a defeat for the Russians.
The US are stuck in an unwinnable war that it can't transform and it can't leave.
*tinfoil on* So let me get this straight, Russians, the US and who knows who else staged the whole migrant crisis by creating false terror (again) so that they could go in and steal their oil? *tinfoil off*
-K