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> This has been the biggest mistake of the EU history

Turkey was never "liberal",the majority of Turkish people were always "conservative" Muslims. Istanbul doesn't represent all Turkey .this is a fantasy invented by the people who wanted Turkey in the EU. It's not the EU's fault if Turkey ends up like yet another dictatorship in the middle east. So stop blaming the EU for that. That's a lie.

But fundamentalism was a declining ideology. The EU gave it renewed strength.

> But fundamentalism was a declining ideology. The EU gave it renewed strength.

No it wasn't. what gave you this impression? It has never declined, not in 80's, not in 90's not in the 2000's. You're like one of those people that look at pictures of Teheran,Iran or Kabul, Afghanistan in the 70's and say "Look at these women without hijab, these countries were liberal back then". Off course not, the majority of the population was still extremely conservative back then.

Turkey is no different. The EU did absolutely nothing and had no influence on the strength of fundamentalism in Turkey. Turkey has nobody but itself to blame for that.

Look, signals matter.

36 years ago we had a military coup in my country (Spain). We overcame the situation, in part because the King (I am fiercely anti-monarquic, but whatever), opposed the coup.

We were obviously the same country, but if the King had supported the coup, I can assure you Spain would be much different (maybe in ruins).

That was an internal issue, but this would have worked the same with external signals. Keeping with Spain: if the allies would have interferred in the spanish dictatorship at the end of WWII, we would have spared us a couple of decades of Franco.

And so on. Dont try to make me believe that external events do not have any effect.

Or, put another way: what would have happened if EU and USA would have supported military coup last friday? (Impossible, I know, since both wouldn't have risked falling on the wrong side, but I digress)

> Dont try to make me believe that external events do not have any effect.

Nobody here is trying to make you believe that. Perhaps fundamentalism in Turkey was helped along in political power (but not popular support--it's always been strong in rural areas) but EU rejection, but "fundamentalism was going down before the EU blew it up" is a statement without support, since in most of the places where fundamentalism has grown strongest the EU has zero influence.

Sorry, maybe I did not understand this bit:

> Turkey is no different. The EU did absolutely nothing and had no influence on the strength of fundamentalism in Turkey. Turkey has nobody but itself to blame for that.

It won't be easy for Turkey to become a Russian ally. For one, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts have to be resolved once and and for all, Russia has to drop Armenia, or Turkey has to drop Azerbaijan. None of the above is likely at this point. For another, either Turkey has to drop the "moderate Islamist" rebels in Syria or Russia has to drop the Assad government and Iran. Again, neither is likely to happen.

So for the time being they're on their own. Hell, they can't even ally with most Sunni governments in the region because they've pissed all of them off by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Turkey has a lot of rubbing points with the west and that has not prevented it to be a NATO member for decades. You need to compromise and obviate issues, and this can happen between Turkey and Russia.

Turkey had one rubbing point with NATO (Cyprus), and with a minor and not very well regarded member at that (Greece). There weren't any major points of contention with the United States.

Not an expert, but I would say Kurds, Iran, Israel, Egypt are all points were Turkey and USA do not align very well. By the way, even USA and EU do not allign perfectly in all issues. And even the EU has a lot of differing opinions, which does not prevent them to collaborate (except brexit UK)

And what's with Cyprus? According to some coments it is the main reason why Turkey is not EU member, but according to you it's just a minor issue? I am confused.

Kurds -- not an issue until Daesh became a problem, very recently, thanks to AKP

Iran -- the US dislikes Iran (less and less every day), Turkey is neutral, no big disagreements there

Israel -- historically not an issue, only an issue now due to AKP government

Egypt -- Not an issue, until recently when the MB government got couped

All of those disagreements were nonexistent or of negligible importance until recently, when they were aggravated by actions of the AKP government. The EU and US have their problems, but they don't extend to geopolitics; it's not like the two have sponsored opposing factions in a war before, with the possible and very brief exception of Germany/Croatia vs US/Bosnia in the 90s. Turkey's problems with Russia are much larger in scope and severity than anything that has ever happened within NATO or the EU.

I did not say that Cyprus was a minor issue. It's a major issue with one member of NATO (Greece) whom the other members don't respect very much. The other members do not consider it much of an issue at all.

Which strongly suggests that Turkey's days in NATO are numbered, specially now that NATO and EU betrayed Erdogan.

Will Turkey get closer to Russia? I think so because bipolarity is on the rise, with NATO on one side, Russia+China on the other.

And Erdogan apologized to Putin two weeks ago.

Not necessarily. Turkey's just playing both sides. Why wouldn't they? Russia wants free military transit for their warships of the Turkish Straits (which it has to clear with Turkey right now [1]) and it would vastly prefer not to have to go through a NATO country. It would also appreciate another large ally in that region, or maybe another naval base and airfield.

EU wants to be friendly with Turkey because it's the only other route for oil/gas pipelines towards the Middle East that doesn't involve Russia. EU is already heavily dependent on Russian natural gas, and has been seeking solutions [2] to remedy this, which Russia understandably machinates against [3][4].

NATO wants Turkey as a hedge against Russia, as a detente for Greek-Turkish disagreements, and a foothold in the Middle East.

Turkey could very well be in a position to court both NATO and Russia and see what it can get. This may not imply shifting alliances, just trying to get incentives from all parties.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabucco_pipeline

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Stream

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Stream

We'll see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/erdogans-purge-ma...

Russia actively refused integration in order to preserve its autonomy. It was not in any sense a result of the US denying them integration.

Also, you are assuming that true global integration is both possible and necessarily a good thing, which are both far from clear.

Missile shield in Poland. I rest my case.

Global collaboration and integration is surely better than conflict, and I dont see a third option, long term.

The missile shield in Poland was only begun years after Russia had made it very clear that it was uninterested in participating in any international institutions that would restrict its autonomy in any way.

The choice between global integration and conflict is a false dichotomy. There are many other options: political decentralization and autonomy, linked by mutually beneficial and voluntary trade arrangements, for example.

Besides, historically, the integration of diverse societies with vastly different cultural norms and expectations can only be done through the use of overwhelming force. It has never worked any other way.

> after Russia had made it very clear that it was uninterested in participating in any international institutions that would restrict its autonomy in any way

Exactly! The USA was leading by example (Kyoto, International Court of Justice, ...) and Russia said “me too“.

And the USA, feeling unchallenged, dared put offensive/defensive military infraestructure on the door to Russia.

Well played!

You've changed your argument completely.

At first you said that Russia wanted to join international organizations and integrate with the world, but couldn't because the US was somehow actively blocking Russia from joining.

Now you are saying that the US itself didn't join certain international organizations, which encouraged Russia to also actively reject membership in international organizations.

Which is it? These are two very different and opposite arguments.

I said:

> What a blunder the west is playing: only 25 years after the URSS collapse, and instead of integrating Russia into the global institucions, the USA decided to proffit the strategic advantage to expand and provoke. We have managed to turn the possibility of true global integration, collaboration and progress into a new cold (actually warm and soon hot) war.

I stand by that: if the west (read USA) had lead by example, by transfering power to international organizations, truly independent, that would have reassured other parties to follow.

Instead, we got the neocons.

I think it's much more likely that Russia would have interpreted any voluntary surrender of power by the US to international organizations as a sign of weakness, which would only have emboldended it even further and sooner into aggressive expansionism. Russian culture is both profoundly averse to the existence of any foreign influence over Russia, and very expansionist.

At the end of the cold war, Russia was very weak economically, and its leaders were fairly internationalists. There was a window of oportunity to strengthen the UN, but the USA just wanted a an American empire.

Foreign influence? Can you tell me once when the USA has submitted its interests to the will of the international community?

Expansionist? The USA has military presence all around the world, and has interferred politically and/or military everywhere, including central and south america, middle east, europe, and far east.

The USA does not annex countries because its strategy is different: invade and destroy country, plant friendly regime, build economic ties (corruption at highest levels) and profit. No need to be running countries when your puppets do it for you.

What the US does or doesn't do is not relevant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque fallacy).

You're attempting to change the discussion from an analysis of Russia's historic motives in specific situations into an generalized anti-American polemic, because your analysis of Russia's motives was shown to be incorrect.

The people who seemed to be internationalists in Russia in the early 1990s were extremely weak and never actually in charge of the country. They couldn't have brought Russia into any sort of internationalist regime even if they had wanted to. They were totally unable to contain the criminal syndicates within Russia who actually ran things during their nominal rule, and then they were totally unable to avoid their own removal from power by Putin.

The United Nations is a joke. It has been an utter failure from the start. Countries large and small, powerful and weak, ignore it with impunity whenever they feel like it. It is little more than a debating society for intellectual bureaucrats who like to make themselves feel important by issuing thousand page reports that nobody ever reads except other UN bureaucrats.

Why on earth would the US, Russia, or anyone else want to strengthen that mass of bureaucratic dysfunction?

Fantasies of a worldwide internationalist government are long dead, and for good reason.

Sure it is, since my argument for weakening of international institutions is that the USA did not lead by example.

My analysis of russisn motives was pretty much “they did what they did because the USA prooved that they were an expansionist empire, with the goal of extending their influence on the world by expanding their area of influence without compromising ideologically“

I hold the USA to a highest standard, first because they have the means to lead, and second because they have extracted enough value from the world that a bit of compromising is just fair. But even though I feel that the USA are expected to be better than the rest, they never deceive in being much worse than anybody else: military interventions, lies, wars, political medling, ... everything goes.

The UN is indeed a joke, and the USA is mainly to blame. You are happy about it, and I think it's just a pitty.

What do you expect the world to look like in 200 years? Do you really buy that nonsense about perfectly isolated national identities, hapily trading with each other? How do you solve “tragedy of the commons“ kind of problems, without a supranational authority strong enough to force solutions on members? Or is the market fairy working for you there too?

Global problems must be solved by compromise.

> Global collaboration and integration

or said in a vulgar manner, becoming USA's b\*tch , because that's basically what Poland is :

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27973473

> Using vulgar language, he(Sikorski) compared Polish subservience to the US to giving oral sex.

We could have had collaboration without submission, which is what Russia would have accepted, but the USA wanted to abuse its temporary strategic supremacy to force long term submission.

And now we are here.

Unless the Strategic Rocket Forces were in much worse condition in 2003 than everyone thought, the idea that a few interceptors in Poland threatened Russian strategic deterrence in any way was laughable. In all likelihood the object was a screen for other concerns such as NATO expansion.

What has the effectivity of the shield to do with anything?

The shield was mainly a signal by the USA: “I can do whatever, whenever and wherever“, and Russia has been saying “not really“ for the last ten years.

Russia could never have perceived the relatively insignificant missile shield as a serious or realistic threat.

It was thus not a major factor in Russia's strategic calculations.

What part of “signal“ is unclear to you?

Let's skip the insulting tone.

The signal value was, at best, an extremely minor signal. The shield was never a significant military threat to Russia, which was obvious and well known to both the US and Russia at the time.

The only information it carried was that Poland was choosing the US over Russia, which had also been extremely obvious to everyone for a long time, since they had been announcing it to anyone who would listen for years.

The shield was thus of utterly insignificant value as a signal in terms of Russia's decision to join or not join international organizations. It was a signal to Poland, not to Russia.

You keep using that word “threat“ “military threat“. It was not a military signal: it was an “I own the world“ signal.

And Russia has made sure to send its very own signal too.

What on Earth are you talking about. Let's presume you are right and Turkey wasn't being kept out for things like, oh as another pointed out, an occupation of Turkey and Cyprus, how does blocking them from joining the EU make them less moderate? Does the EU have magic dust that effects religious outcomes?

Indeed, Hungary shows the EU's magic dust has little to no ability to induce moderation.

That's one example. There are other 27 (soon 26).

Dont get we wrong: I dont think it's magic, just than then, and for Turkey, it would have worked.

And more important: it would have been the right signal to send, to the whole world

I sincerily think that was our best chance, ever, to kill fundamentalism for good.

We will never know.

Well, we don't know what would have happened if Hungary wasn't a Member State.

It doesn't matter, since the topic was whether being a member state ensures moderation.

It doesn't, but it can help. Anyway, in case of Hungary, they have already been warned by the EU a couple of times. Time will tell how this evolves, but weakening the project as UK has done will for sure reduce the incentives to return to a more moderate path.

These free-market types, they are really wreaking the world. The 1% capitalism we have reached is putting a death sign in the fundamentalist market ideology, but they are for sure going down with a bang.

I dont know. They were moderate, we said they dont belong to EU because they are muslim (lots of people said that), and they became fundamentalist.

It is true that fundamentalism is on the rise worldwide (also in christian countries) but my impression is that, in Turkeys case, it was the EU attitude which caused lots of turkish people to vote for a strong islamic president.

> it was the EU attitude which caused lots of turkish people to vote for a strong islamic president.

Or it was just a temporary aligning of views that Erdogan and AKP initially seemed to be moderates, but it turned out that the sheep is actually a wolf with a sheepskin. It happened in history already a few times.

Also, diluting the progressive thought of the EU would likely have prevented it from being an effective counterforce to radicalization. (Though it could have moderated things a bit in Turkey.)

Easily forgotten but Turkey is occupying an EU members land.

elaborate?

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and is still holding 1/3 of northern part of the island. In the meantime 300000 settlers from Turkey were placed in the occupied areas changing its demographics (who are basically now more than the Turkish Cypriots the invasion was supposed to protect). Turkish Cypriots are culturally different from mainland Turks (they are described as the most progressive Muslim population in the world). The island's internationally recognised government in the south (the Republic of Cyprus) is a full member of the EU since 2003 and can veto Turkey's accession. In the meantime Turkey does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus and that's one of the reasons negotiations with EU have been on halt for years now.

In detail here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus

okay thats what I thought, wasn't sure

And the UK is occupying another EU member's land, northern Ireland. The UK has their reasons as does Turkey.

> Also, having been clearly betrayed by EU and OTAN in this military coup...

How was he betrayed by the EU in this coup? I can see no evidence for that statement, from the limited amount I know about the situation.

The EU in particular waited until it was pretty clear that the coup was going to fail before siding with “turkish democracy“. The dramatic events taking place in Turkey were received with silence for over 4 hours from the EU. Clearly, they were hoping that the coup would prove succesful to drop annoying Erdogan.

The USA, experienced as they are, were more nuanced, siding with democracy early on, without clearly specifying what they meant.

Nobody explicitely defended the elected government until the coup was obviously failing. Pretty oportunist if you ask me:

https://twitter.com/gonvaled/status/754121385878913024

https://twitter.com/gonvaled/status/754079673403994112

https://twitter.com/gonvaled/status/754070719110193152

Pretty sure Erdogan felt betrayed.