Sweden starts largest military exercise in over 25 years
dw.com
dw.com
Awkward position to be in for NATO, since Erdogan has been a circuitous partner to work with.
Sweden will do what i've mentioned because they cannot afford not to.
In Turkey, anyone can be a terrorist. There's even this legal concept of "aiding terrorist organisation without being member of it" and aid can be something simple as writing article which support their cause and the "supporting their cause" definition often can be very broad too because you might be accused of supporting a terrorist organisation due to something like advocating for the right of learning the mother thong in schools. You can easily go to jail for supporting something like that if the Kurdish political movement demands it too(terrorists want it, if you want it too then you are helping the terrorists).
All the issues arise due to the difference of terror definitions between Turkey and more liberal countries. In Sweden you can march with the poster of Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the terrorist organisation and in Turkey you might be accused of supporting terrorist if you say Mr. Ocalan by mistake(you are expected to parrot something like "baby killer" or at least "head terrorist").
Another problem with the Turkish stance is that it's inconsistent. This terrorist organisation is not formed in a vacuum, it is a response to oppression on the Kurds by the Turkish state and the politicians can dial down the terrorist accusation and talk about "Making mothers stop crying and discussing the issues and finding a violence-free solution" if it fits their current political position.
10 Years ago Erdogan was the champion of the Kurdish rights(the original oppressors are the secular nationalists, in an attempt of nation building. They oppressed islamist too, so at that time Erdogan was a freedom fighter) and was on a brink of Good Friday like resolution on the issue when fractions of the opposition said that he was a traitor and terror supporter. Today the roles are completely reversed, Erdogan is the hardcore nationalist and the opposition wants a resolution and dialog on the Kurdish issues and the PKK associated but pacifist political movement supports the opposition, which is probably why Erdogan is against "Sweden joining NATO unless gives us the PKK terrorists". The elections are in less than a month, Sweden will most likely join NATO once they are no longer useful to the Erdogan's propaganda or the opposition wins the elections.
I hope Sweden never bows to the Turkish demands because that would mean reducing the Swedish freedoms of speech to Turkish level and I promise you, the Turkish freedom of speech sucks.
In turkey saying the Kurds should have an independent state, via peaceful means makes you a terrorist.
In the US you can openly campaign for illegal succession and it’s fine as long as you don’t t start engaging in overt acts.
Kurds were prevented from having a state by the brits who made wholly sure that it would never happen (revenge against salahudin ayubi).
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-...
If we take Agiza as an example, he was illegaly extradited from Sweden. When it was discovered, there was somewhat of an outrage, he was given money for damages (much by Swedish standards) and later granted residency.
So yes, Swedish government f-ked up at that occasion. That obviously does not mean that because of that, Swedish courts will now forever auto-accept any requests from turkey to have people extradited despite no proof of crimes. That's not what rule of law means.
In fact, you can see proof of this today - Swedish courts are mostly rejecting requests from Turkey and the people still wlka free in Sweden.
PKK has been classified as a terrorist organization in Sweden since 1984. It was the second country to classify it as a terrorist organization, only after Turkey.
Your comment makes no sense.
That being said I think Sweden has been a bit weak on Kurdish terrorist supporters recently. Most (at least Scandinavian) left wing parties have a soft spot for leftish terrorists. I can see why, they are usually oppressed underdogs.
Plenty of normal people are victim to this sort of flirting with ideas rather than confronting the reality on the ground. You see the same sort of thing with people who (or at least used to) defend Russia for being tough, when in IRL it was mostly a persuasive sheen on top of a cheap mafia state.
https://menaaffairs.com/un-report-again-reveals-ypg-pkk-terr...
Also, it's not as much who is targeted by the attacks as why. The Kurds are under genocidal attack on three sides and have a lot more global sympathy than other groups.
(maybe rumor is correct word, just feels a bit odd to use in this context)
I'm still hoping for de-escalation, but frankly it feels like we could easily have an incident that causes things to spiral out of control, a la the start of WWI.
The amount the world and Europe in particular has changed since WWI is astounding. The entire world was deeply belligerent in a way that really surprised me and seems foreign to our modern sensibility. The only country of today that acts/thinks this way seems to be Russia, but leading up to WWI almost every single country in Europe was still planning for the conquest and destruction of their neighbors. Everyone (the major powers anyways) just assumed “ya, we’re gonna fight a huge multi-million person war and we’re gonna win.” I really don’t see that kind of belligerence in the minds of the world anymore.
Of course, there were some academics at the time of WWI saying the same thing, so…
They can't get through eastern Ukraine. What world war? They have no means (and the mediocre means they had before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, have been slashed in half, to say nothing of vast degradation of still quasi-operating hardware), they'd get stomped by NATO within a month and throw the nuclear card on the table to end it.
Iran? Trivial to contain within their own borders, and we'd ignite an armed revolution by flowing massive amounts of weapons into Iran.
Belarus? Barely has a military worth mentioning in this context.
And there's good reason to be skeptical of China joining Russia in a world war.
You don't seem to have an understanding of basic strategy. China will probably use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. And North Korea might as well invade South Korea while we're at it.
Why take back Taiwan when they can take back parts of Russia that Russia previously annexed?
There is the potential for great misery and destruction from NK, but that's mostly due to the fact that a lot of well off urban areas are within NK artillery range.
I'm not so sure about Taiwan, either. Ukraine is right on the border of Russia, no shipping, no mountainous terrain, and no direct treaties with the US. China has already said in the event of a shooting war they'd consider US allies as legitimate targets, so a Taiwanese war means Japan, Australia, SK, and maybe NATO entering the fray. It would be an ugly, mountainous fight, possibly leading to a guerilla war / insurgency.
In 20 years after technology (chips, etc.) transfer back to the US there isn't really any reason for the US to give a shit. Why risk Ukraine-ing yourself when you can just let economic and demographic forces do it for you?
That's what everybody assumed all along that World War III meant. Russia's antiquated invasion of its neighbor is quaintly parochial compared to that... so long as that's where it stays. But if somebody, somewhere, gets an itchy trigger finger at just the wrong time, everybody everywhere becomes part of WWIII all at once.
That's why people keep referencing Russia and WWIII.
World War One was the 1914-18 show. I think you mean: WWIII or WW3.
There won't be a de-escalation of any sort because stupidity at national level knows few bounds. However there will be changes, probably unpleasant. I think that nuclear is unlikely because despite how despotic we might paint Russia right now - the Management are not completely hatstand (however Mr Putin appears to be exhibiting quite a few neuroses).
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is indicated.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Fr...
Now the cat's out of the bag, and there's no reason for them not to formally join the alliance (Ankara willing). But it doesn't change any strategic calculus.
If this is not a ripple in northern geopolitics, I don't know what is. I'll give you that it currently isn't as important if Sweden joins or not. Erdogan made the impossible possible - having Finland join before Sweden.
The standard for Russian satellite state is Belarus, not Finland.
Finland has been occupied multiple times by Russia and ceded 10% of its land to the USSR in an attempt to make peace. Heck, some even argue that Finland did a "redo" of one of their parliamentary elections because the USSR didn't like the results. Joining NATO is a major departure from their many decades of attempting appeasement - it's far from a nothingburger.
It may be an even bigger deal inside Russia though: Putin directly triggered one of the very specific things Russia didn't want to have happen. This both arms his domestic critics and raises the pressure for him to deliver some sort of "win".
Just joking, Swedes. You guys rock.