The election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Turkey’s new executive president marks a significant step towards Turkey becoming an autocracy, and further separates Turkey from the West as a strategic partner. Turkey has been an important member of NATO, but it is increasingly doubtful whether it would now act in concert with its alliance partners […]
Tag Archives: Turkey
In what might be seen to be an odd move, Syrian government forces appear to be moving to push Turkish soldiers out of the north-western Afrin canton in a bid to assist the separatist Kurdish forces. The Turkish army invaded northern Syria last month to extinguish the creation of a 30,000 strong, Kurdish-dominated “border security […]
It has been a long time coming, but Turkey was never going to tolerate an independent Kurdish military on its border. As a result of the United States helping the Syrian Kurdish Self-Protection Units (YPG) establish a 30,000 strong anti-Islamic State ‘border security force’ in northern Syria, Turkey has massed forces along the northern Syrian […]
There will no doubt be many who see the US sending 300 military advisers to Iraq, along with 275 soldiers to protect its embassy in Baghdad, as the beginning of a US re-intervention in that beleaguered country. Added to the placement of a US aircraft carrier offshore, they would be half correct. The US is […]
From his output, ASPIs Anthony Bergin likes nothing if not to test ideas in relation to Australias strategic positioning. His recent proposition that Australia is not so much a middle power but a pivotal power is a case in point . http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/is-australia-a-pivotal-power/ Bergins argument is that the common strategic descriptor for Australia as a middle […]