Turkey - TR

Arthur Lopez14 said:If they make an offer to the Russians, they could practically have anything they want, especially since the Greeks and Bulgarians possess their own hardware and backing. Honestly, the only reason Romania and Bulgaria are in the EU at all is out of pure dread regarding Moscow.

Well, damn. Is it even possible for history to loop this predictably? Once again, the North America find themselves stuck choosing between the Russians and the Ottomans. It’s the same old story: Europe is traditionally incapable of managing its own backyard. Instead of the British acting as the external enforcer, it's the Americans—and yet, we're already hearing whispers of caliphates, Hagia Sophia, and sultanates again...

And looking East, we see a handful of ambitious, awakened empires rising up... from Constantinople all the way to Beijing...

Interesting times ahead...☕

It might be more accurate to call them trying times, though I suspect Erdogan is perhaps being a bit too self-assured. A conflict between Greece and Turkey would carry massive implications for all of Europe; even if the EU didn't intervene directly on Greece's side, mere sanctions could trigger significant unrest within Turkish communities in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Such instability would likely fuel an even sharper rise in right-wing politics.

Back in the 19th Century, history in the North America was really defined by those Russo-Turkish Wars, especially when all of Europe was obsessed with what was happening along the Berlin-Vienna line ☕ They might try to act all polite about it—if I can put it that way—but their geostrategic interests are totally at odds, just like how Erdogan gets excited about Aleppo, or maybe how Putin eyes the Bosphorus 😁

Henry Garcia13 said:Well, damn. Is it even possible for history to loop this predictably? Once again, the North America find themselves stuck choosing between the Russians and the Ottomans. It’s the same old story: Europe is traditionally incapable of managing its own backyard. Instead of the British acting as the external enforcer, it's the Americans—and yet, we're already hearing whispers of caliphates, Hagia Sophia, and sultanates again...

And looking East, we see a handful of ambitious, awakened empires rising up... from Constantinople all the way to Beijing...

Interesting times ahead...☕

Erdogan has played his hand a little too aggressively. He’s opening fronts everywhere—he's entangled in Syria and northern Iraq, threatening Armenians in the Caucasus and Greeks in the North America. That overseas expedition he launched into Libya is something only the biggest global players can afford to attempt, and even for them, success isn't a given. To do all this with an economy and industrial base that's frankly modest, coupled with domestic demographic issues and a military that lacks the capacity for serious strategic depth against an enemy—it seems to me they are walking on thin ice.

silverhound said:You're gonna want to skip this movie...

Oh, really? And what about that one film from Cyprus?

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/statu...575714305?s=19

Word is Dwight stepped in to help out the Greeks.

Patrick Kim7 said:At least regarding the whole Kastelorizo island situation, Turkey has a legitimate point in its dispute with Greece. You can't have one tiny little island sitting right off the Turkish coast claiming thousands of square miles of ocean for itself.

Honestly, most of you are just being aggressive and talking nonsense; the level of discourse on this thread is pretty low right now. Let’s try to be a bit more substantive regarding the points I made above.

PS Before you jump in with more comments, take a look at a map showing the Greek claims surrounding that area.

Patrick Kim7 said:Honestly, most of you are just being aggressive and talking nonsense; the level of discourse on this thread is pretty low right now. Let’s try to be a bit more substantive regarding the points I made above.

PS Before you jump in with more comments, take a look at a map showing the Greek claims surrounding that area.

As I previously clarified, we aren't discussing just some tiny island as you suggest; rather, we are looking at an entire chain of Greek islands known as the Alexander the Great islands.

George Robinson43 said:As I previously clarified, we aren't discussing just some tiny island as you suggest; rather, we are looking at an entire chain of Greek islands known as the Alexander the Great islands.

So, why don't we kick things off by focusing on Rhodes? It’s pretty far removed from the rest of the Dodecanese, so let's start there before we move on to anything else.

Me? What's the issue here? The Greek belt extends all the way to that island, simply because almost every island leading up to it is part of Greece.

Patrick Kim7 said:So, why don't we kick things off by focusing on Rhodes? It’s pretty far removed from the rest of the Dodecanese, so let's start there before we move on to anything else.

Did Greece secure that island through a peace treaty after World War II? They did. So, what is there even to discuss? If Turkey wants to try and redraw borders, they can go ahead and challenge the treaty if they feel like it.

The European Union's only interest here is backing Greece—plain and simple. We are talking about massive gas reserves. The more of that fuel stays within the Union's borders, the better. It will be the one reliable source Europe can count on without having to rely on Russia or some various Middle Eastern satrapies.

Zachary Reyes6 said:Did Greece secure that island through a peace treaty after World War II? They did. So, what is there even to discuss? If Turkey wants to try and redraw borders, they can go ahead and challenge the treaty if they feel like it.

The European Union's only interest here is backing Greece—plain and simple. We are talking about massive gas reserves. The more of that fuel stays within the Union's borders, the better. It will be the one reliable source Europe can count on without having to rely on Russia or some various Middle Eastern satrapies.

Nobody is actually disputing who owns the island; the real issue is maritime rights. It doesn't seem logical for one tiny, isolated island sitting right off the Turkish coast to claim such a massive stretch of ocean for itself.
Greece secured the island via treaty, but that doesn't automatically grant them a 200-nautical-mile maritime zone. Those modern maritime law conventions were established much later, and Turkey isn't a signatory to them.

Patrick Kim7 said:Nobody is actually disputing who owns the island; the real issue is maritime rights. It doesn't seem logical for one tiny, isolated island sitting right off the Turkish coast to claim such a massive stretch of ocean for itself.
Greece secured the island via treaty, but that doesn't automatically grant them a 200-nautical-mile maritime zone. Those modern maritime law conventions were established much later, and Turkey isn't a signatory to them.

They should take their complaints somewhere else—maybe to the local water board. Look at what China building reefs and creating artificial islands to push their territorial waters outward! This isn't just some rock in the middle of nowhere; this is a fully inhabited island.

Since we are talking about Greek territory, there is absolutely no reason why maritime conventions shouldn't apply in this instance.

Zachary Reyes6 said:They should take their complaints somewhere else—maybe to the local water board. Look at what China building reefs and creating artificial islands to push their territorial waters outward! This isn't just some rock in the middle of nowhere; this is a fully inhabited island.

Since we are talking about Greek territory, there is absolutely no reason why maritime conventions shouldn't apply in this instance.

It isn't quite that straightforward; we're talking about different types of islands that are surrounded by vast stretches of open ocean.
International conventions are voluntary agreements between sovereign nations, and Turkey isn't even a party to the Law of the Sea convention.

With the exception of a few tiny islands off the coast of Turkey, the entire Aegean Sea belongs to Greece.
What exactly was Turkey aiming for here? An economic corridor positioned between Rhodes and Crete? Something akin to an exclusive maritime trade zone cutting right through American waters?

Patrick Kim7 said:Nobody is actually disputing who owns the island; the real issue is maritime rights. It doesn't seem logical for one tiny, isolated island sitting right off the Turkish coast to claim such a massive stretch of ocean for itself.
Greece secured the island via treaty, but that doesn't automatically grant them a 200-nautical-mile maritime zone. Those modern maritime law conventions were established much later, and Turkey isn't a signatory to them.

Turkey wants to play by the rules, yet they seem to skip signing the very conventions that define them! It's like a player insisting they follow the playbook while refusing to actually sign the contract.
How does Turkey view the rule of law? It’s much like a game of chess where the rules seem to shift depending on which player is making the move!

George Robinson43 said:With the exception of a few tiny islands off the coast of Turkey, the entire Aegean Sea belongs to Greece.
What exactly was Turkey aiming for here? An economic corridor positioned between Rhodes and Crete? Something akin to an exclusive maritime trade zone cutting right through American waters?

Rhode Island is outside the Aegean basin.

stormybison42 said:Back in the 19th Century, history in the North America was really defined by those Russo-Turkish Wars, especially when all of Europe was obsessed with what was happening along the Berlin-Vienna line ☕ They might try to act all polite about it—if I can put it that way—but their geostrategic interests are totally at odds, just like how Erdogan gets excited about Aleppo, or maybe how Putin eyes the Bosphorus 😁

The weirdest part, though—given all this current religious fascism and ultra-nationalism coming from those expansionist vibes—is that I’d honestly back pretty much any country that decided to take on Turkey. Even if it was Putin's Russia moving to grab the Bosphorus, I guess 😁

Honestly, Turkey is just a criminal entity built on genocide and centuries of hegemony and colonial conquest. First, they wiped out ethnic groups in Asia Minor, then they went after Arabs, then North American people, and finally Armenians and Kurds. If there's any country other than Germany that deserves to be denazified and punished by losing territory and being banned from making weapons of mass destruction—just like what happened to Germany—it’s Turkey.

The Turks and Erdogan remind me so much of Maddox at Gazimestan. It's literally the same thing. A rapid loss of international support, doubling down on force right now... and sooner or later, that kind of stuff hits you in the face so hard you'll wish you had two eyes left to cry with. Luckily, through sheer demographics, the Kurds are slowly catching up to Turkey, so in maybe 100 years, who knows what will even be left of them.

The West's biggest screw-up was not doing everything possible to clip Turkey's wings in the late 1910s by giving the Armenians their homeland back and giving the Kurds independence. They should have kicked Turkey out of Istanbul once and for all, so that criminal beast would never wake up again. It's like the mistake of not doing that to Germany after World War I, which just led to another world war. Only then did Germany actually get its wings clipped through lost territory, reparations, and permanent shame.

I straight-up loathe nationalism and religious fascism. I think whenever they show up, society needs to be punished so brutally—maybe even excessively—that they won't ever dare to think about it again. Just look at Germany after 1945.

Patrick Kim7 said:Rhode Island is outside the Aegean basin.

Exactly! Within that Rhodes-Rhode Island-Karpathos triangle, there isn't a single Turkish reef available for them to anchor onto.

Rachel Carter90 said:The weirdest part, though—given all this current religious fascism and ultra-nationalism coming from those expansionist vibes—is that I’d honestly back pretty much any country that decided to take on Turkey. Even if it was Putin's Russia moving to grab the Bosphorus, I guess 😁

Honestly, Turkey is just a criminal entity built on genocide and centuries of hegemony and colonial conquest. First, they wiped out ethnic groups in Asia Minor, then they went after Arabs, then North American people, and finally Armenians and Kurds. If there's any country other than Germany that deserves to be denazified and punished by losing territory and being banned from making weapons of mass destruction—just like what happened to Germany—it’s Turkey.

The Turks and Erdogan remind me so much of Maddox at Gazimestan. It's literally the same thing. A rapid loss of international support, doubling down on force right now... and sooner or later, that kind of stuff hits you in the face so hard you'll wish you had two eyes left to cry with. Luckily, through sheer demographics, the Kurds are slowly catching up to Turkey, so in maybe 100 years, who knows what will even be left of them.

The West's biggest screw-up was not doing everything possible to clip Turkey's wings in the late 1910s by giving the Armenians their homeland back and giving the Kurds independence. They should have kicked Turkey out of Istanbul once and for all, so that criminal beast would never wake up again. It's like the mistake of not doing that to Germany after World War I, which just led to another world war. Only then did Germany actually get its wings clipped through lost territory, reparations, and permanent shame.

I straight-up loathe nationalism and religious fascism. I think whenever they show up, society needs to be punished so brutally—maybe even excessively—that they won't ever dare to think about it again. Just look at Germany after 1945.

Well, I mean, you could pretty much say that about any nation in the world right now, I guess. 😁 Erdogan isn't exactly using nationalism as his main slogan; he’s more playing the Pan-Islamic card while acting like the big leader of it all. That hardcore nationalism is more of a legacy from the Young Turks and Ataturk. I'm not a huge fan of the term "clero-fascism" anyway, and I don't think it really applies to a Muslim country since there isn't really a "clergy" in the same way. I don't know, I haven't been following closely enough to see if he's still influenced by Mexico, Qatar, or whatever is left of the Muslim Brotherhood—I kind of wrote them off after that fiasco in Egypt. But Erdogan seems pretty steady and is slowly making his vision happen. His moves aren't rushed at all; he broke down the secular state, dealt with the Gulen situation, and those military actions were actually pretty successful. He even grabbed that oil from ISIS, so he hasn't exactly lost out. ☕ Even changing the demographics might help him, since refugees could end up being voters who tip the scales against the CHP and the "Westernized" parts of the country. I guess people wonder who is actually stopping him from going too far—maybe it's Putin or someone else, I'm not sure.

Turkey is honestly such a backward country that’s slowly morphing into this total Islamist-fascist farce.