Turkey in for a Stuffing?
The recent Turkish action in shooting down a Russian bomber makes sense in terms of Turkey’s strategy in the region. As far as I can tell from news reports it was motivated by feelings of solidarity for the Turkmens, a fellow Turkish ethnicity that has had the misfortune to live on the Syrian side of the border, rather than in Turkey, where they obviously belong. It is noticeable that since the Russians started to take a more active role in the Syrian conflict, they have mainly been concentrating on the non-ISIS sector, in particular those groups in the West of the country that are directly threatening President Assad’s Alawite homeland. This includes various Sunni groups, including Syria’s Turkmens, one of the few minorities in the country that is inclined to side against Assad.
So, both the fact that Russia has been bombing the Turkmens and the fact that Turkey has retaliated are understandable in their own ways.
The problem, however, is that Turkey can only afford such machismo and reckless swagger because it is playing the game with somebody else’s money. Whatever difficulties they get into at the geopolitical casino table, they fully expect to be bailed out by much bigger players. Read more

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