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Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, NATO in Europe is US+UK+FR+TK, with some significant manpower commitment from Eastern European states, and that's all.

It boggles my mind why Turkey keeps being ignored in this discourse. They have army big enough, modern, and powerful to alone defeat all Russian force in Ukraine.

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> It boggles my mind why Turkey keeps being ignored in this discourse.

Are they? They've contributed a lot of already-legendary Bayraktar drones[1], they've rejected Russia's request to move war ships through Bosporus[2], they're pretty clearly invested in supporting Ukraine despite the unwillingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpmfKc96j8Y

[2] https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Turkey-rejects-...

They do, but NATO heads of state seem to forgot that Turkey exists, and is an extremely strong military power, which can put can on top of any Russian activity in their vicinity within days.

Erdogan is effectively a Putin de-facto ally and would likely resist any such calls.

Turkey is a sui generis NATO ally. The US "claimed it" to get the straits, effectively providing a nuclear arsenal as payment, but it's become very clear that the country's priorities have always been somewhat unique and shifted considerably since the Cyprus conflict - even more so since Erdogan's purges.

Turkey would definitely be a NATO ally in an all-out war (which would be the end of humankind, so whatever), but they will probably never engage Russia directly in a limited fashion while Putin and Erdogan are in power.

Turkey's air defenses are supplied by Russia. Ergodan was so indignant to get the S-400 that he risked loosing the F-35 over it, and did in fact loose the plane even though Turkey manufactures parts of the plane.

After snubbing the Americans and the rest of Europe for the S-400, Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia. They dare not burn that bridge as well.

> Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia.

They’re literally part of NATO.

> They dare not burn that bridge as well.

They closed the entrance to the Black Sea to Russia yesterday. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/2/russia-cancelled-bla...

They’re sending Ukraine more drones today, too.

  > They’re literally part of NATO.

Yes, then snubbed NATO with the S-400 purchases.

  > They closed the entrance to the Black Sea to Russia yesterday.

It seems from the linked article that Turkey requested the Russians to not cross, and the Russians obliged. The Russians are just as happy with Turkish relations as Turkey is with Russian relations. However, rest assured that if a Russian warship decided that it absolutely must traverse the Bosphorus strait and a Turkish ship were to confront it, the Russians would have no problem asserting their crossing over a sunk Turkish warship.

> the Russians would have no problem asserting their crossing over a sunk Turkish warship.

Much agreed. And just like the U.S. they don't cross a bridge like that unforced. Or so far they are playing it that conservatively.

With the problem that sinking a Turkish ship could easily trigger Nato Article 5 if Turkey wanted it to happen.

As war is not declared between Russia and either Turkey or NATO, the Turkish blockade would be considered provocation (as per treaties, Black Sea states have open access to Bosporus and Russia is a Black Sea state) and would not require NATO to invoke Article 5. Which in turn would weaken further propositions to invoke Article 5 in the future: a desirable outcome for Russia.

>Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia.

Which is kind of odd, since in recent history they've shot down a Russian jet, and had an assassination of the Russian ambassador perpetrated by a uniformed police officer.

Is your suggestion that because Turkey has a large army, countries like the Netherlands need to increase their military capacity? Or reduce it? Or neither/other?

I suggest NATO launch war, retake Ukraine, and deprive Russia of 60% of its military for almost no cost.

This will be followed by Putin having to spend the next 40% of its military on keeping order within Russia. If he will use nukes, he will obviously not be able to do so (NATO nuclear retaliation will destroy at least 50% of remaining Russian military.)

Even if Putin will stay in power, sending military to police innumerable Russian cities, and towns will take him off the list of potential threats for next decade at least.

Use the time won to remilitarise the West.

> This will be followed by Putin having to spend the next 40% of its military on keeping order within Russia. If he will use nukes, he will obviously not be able to do so.

Initiating a nuclear launch is not a high-manpower operation.

Ok, that's enough. After years of trying to explain to you why posting like this is unacceptable on HN, I think we have to ban this account again for now.

Obviously emotions and tensions are super high right now, but (a) that's a reason not to post like this, and (b) this has been a problem for a long time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: here's what I mean - and this doesn't include the large number of emails:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30470909 (Feb 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29621256 (Dec 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26896780 (April 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892834 (April 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630216 (March 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630202 (March 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843844 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20072350 (June 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802969 (Jan 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15658648 (Nov 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786407 (July 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13511792 (Jan 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464959 (Jan 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13446598 (Jan 2017)

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