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Comment by fakedang | Hacker News Reader

Yeah sure, second largest NATO military, battle-hardened in recent wars, not to mention rising military power in the Middle East, not needed in a defensive alliance, heh.

Not to mention control of the Bosphorus, as well as a tendency to have dalliances with Russia when ignored by the US (a tendency that, I must remind you, predates Erdoğan).

Start paying up 2% of your GDP (assuming you're European), on defence and military, or don't talk. Turkey is certainly paying their share, and paid their share way before Sultan Erdoğan took the throne.

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Turkey has a lot of cheap draftees, but not so much otherwise. IIRC Sweden's military budget is double (or more?) that of Turkey, for example...

Alliances are not just about power, but also about common values and goals. Strong allies are good. Strong enemies that are for historic reason part of alliance are pretty bad, and need to be managed.

That is why Turkey is not getting F-35s or even F-16s now. Why help arm your enemy?

I mean what values do the west share with middle eastern monarchies? Yet they are propped up and lavished with weapons.

Alliances are mostly power jockeying. Common values will help to provide longevity to the alliance, but power is primary.

I don't see many middle eastern monarchies in NATO.

Bahrain houses the 5th fleet. USCC and USAFCC are out of qatar. I’d call that being allies. And since they’re US bases they will be used by nato in times of conflict (or otherwise).

The fact that Israel is a nation propped up by $3.5 billion of arms spending by the US, yet makes sure to oppress the Palestinian population in their country in the guise of maintaining their "Jewish mess" is a direct affront to your "western values in alliances" nonsense.

Alliances are based out of pragmatism and a common enemy/threat. They have always been the case since history, whether it was the aggressive Assyrians' neighbours against them, to the Franco-Ottoman alliance, to the Axis alliance in WW1.

Israel is still considered ally for multitude of reasons: big organisations don't turn on a dime and sometimes take decades to change course (same reason Turkey is still considered ally), fascists love Israel as model "pure people state" more than they hate Jews, and small but influential part of American Evangelicals believe that Jews having their own state is necessary step to get us the Rapture.

But you probably know all this, nothing you said was in good faith and and just come to HN to turn your hatred on random people.

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