A new and dangerous front opens in the war in Middle East
ANEW – and highly volatile – front in the violence in the Middle East may have been opened with the downing of a Russian war plane by Turkey this Tuesday. Turkey said the Russian plane had repeatedly violated Turkish air space before it was shot down by two of Turkey’s jet fighters. Moscow insisted that its plane was in Syrian airspace, where Russia has been helping the Syrian government fight rebel forces. Russia President Vladimir Putin has warned Turkey that its action would have serious consequences.
Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) along with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and 23 other nations on both sides of the Atlantic. NATO was formed in 1949 after the end of World War II, principally to counter the threat of Soviet Russian expansionism.
In those early days of the Cold War, the NATO adopted the strategic doctrine of “massive retaliation” – if the Soviet Union attacked, NATO would retaliate with nuclear weapons. By 1975, however, detente and dialogue had replaced the animosity between East and West. Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe drew closer to the NATO countries of Western Europe. Today, many of these countries – like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia – are members of NATO.
The downing of a Russian plane by Turkey revives memories of the old animosity between Russia and NATO. The incident took place in the ongoing war in Syria between the Syrian government, which is supported by Russia, and some of the rebels which are supported by the US and its allies. Russia has now moved its guided missile carrier close to Syria’s Mediterranean border. And Russian bombers will now be escorted by fighters. “All targets representing a potential threat to us will be destroyed,” a Russian military spokesman warned.
US President Barack Obama has appealed for calm and said his top priority is “to ensure that this does not escalate.” Escalation – say, the downing of Turkish planes in retaliation – would expand the conflict in Syria to a much bigger war between Russia and Turkey. And that could deteriorate further as NATO comes to the aid of its member Turkey.
Such a conflict would set back the campaign to stop the Islamic State, the common enemy of all the states now involved in the Middle East fighting. Worse, it could open a new war front that would have far-ranging repercussions not just in the Middle East but elsewhere in the world. We must hope, along with President Obama, that there will be no escalation of the unfortunate incident between Russia and Turkey, whose military forces are among the biggest in the world.