So that's pretty telling. Russia showed a willingness to sweep this under the table but Turkey wouldn't let them.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/24/russian-je...
"President Putin is reportedly readying a statement. On Russian state television, there was little discussion of the Turkish claim they had shot the plane down, with anchors and analysts speculating that the Su-24 could have been shot down by rebels with anti-aircraft weapons. This chimes with the Russian Defence Ministry’s claim that the plane was shot down from the ground, but completely contradicts the Turkish statement that an F-16 from its airforce shot the plane down."
There's differing opinions here on what the best course is to take on IS, though the one thing Russia and the west seem to agree on is that the Syrian state needs to be reestablished. Bombs from the air won't defeat IS; only a functional state will.
Russia is betting that Assad is Syria's best chance, and so they're bombing rebels. The west is betting the rebels are better in place to rule Syria, and so they're bombing IS to keep them off the rebels, but more importantly, giving the rebels a bit of air cover (no-fly zone or not, the Syrian Air Force is not about to test the presence of western aircraft over Syrian territory. The west simply needs to "be there".)
Russia is not keen on seeing their man in Syria (and by extension, their only base west of the Bosperous) vanish, though they seem to be conceding a bit in that they've acknowledged he could go in a managed transition. I dunno what impact this event will have on any of this.
In reality I don't think it will change much, but Putin needs to keep up face with his population.
Blaming the rebels would bolster his plans in Syria and probably make it an easier sell. Might have been best for Turkey to also allow the rebels to be blamed. The Kremlin would still get Turkey's message loud and clear, but there wouldn't be any public conflict with unpredictable consequences.
Turkey is a rogue state now, with very fast islamisation going on that is protected by the NATO treaties. Bad combination.
Because doing so would allow Putin to look strong against those who did the shooting down by redoubling efforts in Syria against the rebels, while that doesn't work if Turkey is seen to be the one that did the shoot down. Putin doesn't want to give Turkey an out so much as Putin wants to give Putin an out.
Falling oil prices and a a costly campaign in Yemen seems to be a bad combination.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/2167440...
Yes, but that's very different from implying that there's been an arms race that could set off a war between major superpowers. You're confusing the destabilization of a large region with a world war.
To be clear: the former is very worrying, it's just very different from the latter.
You're likely right. My guess is that they'll find ways to put more pressure on Turkey aside from threatening direct confrontation.
The Russian anger is focused largely at Turkey, who is the ally nobody wants to have in the fight against ISIS... it's no secret that the Turkish MIT (intelligence agency) has been caught transferring weapons directly to radical Sunni groups near the border while killing Kurds whenever possible. I think the overarching idea of this incident is that everyone knew that an accident would happen eventually, and so a mature response is to take steps to increase coordination rather than saber rattle about a downed aircraft. A complication is that the Russian pilot who survived the crash was captured by rebels; I assume Russia will deal with this swiftly.
On another side, the area where "IS free to operate" is still huge:
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/83ED/production/_...
On the third side: Turkey doesn't like that Russia bombs also the Turkmens in Syria in the areas controlled by the rebels.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/turkey-caught-b...
"Ömer Abdullah, commander of the Turkmen Sultan Abdülhamit Brigade called on Turkey’s government to intervene to halt the month-long offensive, the Cihan news agency reported.
“We are trying to survive under unbearable brutality and we need Turkey’s help,” Abdullah said. “Every day our Turkmen brothers are dying. We expect the government to support us … Why are we left alone?”
Abdullah said his forces were under attack from the Syrian army, Hezbollah and Iranian forces. “I don’t understand why our Muslim brothers remain silent. We need all kinds of support. It’s impossible to survive under such heavy bombardment,” he said.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) was accused of involvement in clandestine arms shipments to Turkmen forces earlier this year.
Cumhuriyet newspaper published a report on arms smuggling on 29 May that included images of weapons allegedly carried by trucks operated by MIT. Mehmet Şandır, a former Nationalist Movement party MP, told Today’s Zaman newspaper that Turkmens were facing ethnic cleansing in northern Syria."
This was not an isolated incident, many incursions have occurred since Russia started its operations in Syria, and Turkey has warned, repeatedly, that if aerial incursions continued, it would result in planes being shot down. It seems to me Russia has been deliberately sending a message by the continued incursions, and that Turkey has responded to that message in exactly the way it said it would (and the only way possible other than accept that it will become a vassal of Russia.)
So a few seconds of a flight by a plane from a country supposedly on the same side against the ISIS, over the few km of the territory, is equal to becoming a vassal of a said country. So the only way possible is shooting the plane. Thanks for explaining your view.
No, the "few seconds" and the relationship to Daesh are irrelevant.
The continued incursions into sovereign territory by a country which has engaged in such incursions without permission and been publicly threatened with force if it does not cease means that.
(Anyway, Russia is attacking opponents of the Assad regime, not just Daesh, including non-Daesh forces which are supported by Turkey. That the set of entities Turkey opposes in Syria and the set Russia opposes overlap because both include Daesh does not mean that they are on the same side.)
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/06EE/production/_...
And according to the Google Maps, it was cca 3 km crossed during the whole flight, which means the plane was effectively just some seconds over what's considered Turkey and obviously flying out of the territory.