Turkish Election Results and Implication

[Fragony]

I find the support he has in European countries with large Turkish communities rather worrying. What they do in Turkey is up to them but I find it rediculous that people with two nationalities are allowed to have any influence in anything, here and there.

[Montmorency]

In 10 years, will Turkey be more dangerous than Russia?

Maybe George Friedman was right.

[Fragony]

Different kind of dangerous, the second they start their engines will bankrupt them in a minute. Turkey the nation you can laugh away as being a threat, but our friends they are not, Turkey keeps a very firm hand on Turks here

[spmetla]

Didn't want to start a whole thread for this article but it's Turkey and world politics related. Turkey always has been one of the necessary but also more estranged NATO members depending on who was governing them.
F-35 Transfers to Turkey Held Back Under U.S. Defense Measure
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...20Bird%20Brief

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Transfers to Turkey of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 would be barred temporarily under a compromise defense policy measure agreed to on Monday, according to House and Senate aides.

Turkish receipt of the fighter jets would be held back until the Pentagon submitted an assessment within 90 days of the measure’s enactment on U.S.-Turkish relations, the impact of Turkey’s planned acquisition of Russia’s advanced S-400 missile defense system and the ramifications for the U.S. industrial base if Turkey is dropped from the international F-35 program.

The move, reflecting the tensions in U.S.-Turkish relations, is part of a $717 billion defense policy bill (H.R. 5515) for fiscal 2019 crafted by congressional negotiators that awaits final approval in the House and Senate. The measure also would hold back some funds for Defense Department cloud activities, reflecting the controversy over a winner-take-all cloud contract that competitors say would favor Amazon.com Inc.Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had warned Congress against cutting off transfers of the F-35. In a letter to lawmakers this month, Mattis said he agreed “with congressional concerns about the authoritarian drift in Turkey and its impact on human rights and rule of law.” But he said an F-35 cutoff would risk triggering an international “supply chain disruption” that would drive up costs and delay deliveries of the fighter.Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey plans to buy about 100 F-35s, joining the U.K. and Australia as the top international customers. At least 10 Turkish companies are building parts and components, such as the cockpit displays, for other partners, according to Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed.The compromise measure crafted by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees also would let the president waive a requirement to impose sanctions on countries and entities doing business with Russia for as long as 180 days if the party involved is taking steps to distance itself from a commercial relationship with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, according to committee aides and a Democratic summary of the bill.

There, too, Mattis had urged lawmakers to hold off, writing them last week that “there is a compelling need to avoid significant unintended damage to our long-term, national strategic interests” even though “Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive and destabilizing behavior as well as its continuing illegal occupation of Ukraine.”

[Elmetiacos]

In 10 years, will Turkey be more dangerous than Russia?

Maybe George Friedman was right.

Unless Russia somehow becomes a failed state, obviously not. It's half the size of Russia, has the 17th largest economy in the World (Russia 12th) no native defence industry to speak of and no prospects for economic development - where Russia's education system is still quite good, Turkey's is in a mess with over 10% of the population now training to be clerics and the second worst rating in the OECD.

[Montmorency]

Unless Russia somehow becomes a failed state, obviously not. It's half the size of Russia, has the 17th largest economy in the World (Russia 12th) no native defence industry to speak of and no prospects for economic development - where Russia's education system is still quite good, Turkey's is in a mess with over 10% of the population now training to be clerics and the second worst rating in the OECD.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Russia is shrinking (in population). Turkey is growing. Russia has minimal opportunities for territorial, economic, or political growth in its periphery. It is hemmed in by seas, the Central Asian steppe, China, and the EU/NATO. Turkey holds critical geography, and leverage over Europe. It is bordered by soft and restive Middle Eastern countries. Its borderlands, especially the Kurdish ones, are a constant thorn in its side tempting more direct management. Unlike most countries in the area, with the notable exception of Iran, Turkey has long experience with being a centralized national state. As we know, most of its neighbors are more brittle.

Turkey is increasingly poised to go its own way in the world, responsive neither to Russia nor the West. It's fair to ask how much international and American opprobrium it could stand to draw, but on the other side of the coin America, Europe, and Russia would prefer not to lose access to Turkey. Depending on what happens in Syria-Iraq, or how the Gulf societies handle reform, opportunities for Turkish power could arise in the shape of some type of aggression. Depends on what the rest of the world looks like. Depends on the state of conflicts in international Muslim society in the future.



I'm not going so far as to say that Turkey is in a position to attempt to recreate the Caliphate, or the Ottoman Empire, but relatively speaking it's not crazy to speculate whether it may become more of a foreign policy hazard than Russia. Russia and its challenge to the world order is predictable and well-defined in a way that sudden fundamental disruptions in the Middle East could overshadow. Russia bringing outright annexation and irredentism back to the table, just like with its dabbling in information warfare, could set the stage for worse things.

[Gilrandir]

Russia has minimal opportunities for territorial, economic, or political growth in its periphery. It is hemmed in by seas, the Central Asian steppe, China, and the EU/NATO. Turkey holds critical geography, and leverage over Europe. It is bordered by soft and restive Middle Eastern countries. Its borderlands, especially the Kurdish ones, are a constant thorn in its side tempting more direct management.

Russia has no less oportunities for territorial expansion. It can move where there is a sizable Russian-speaking population - Ukraine, Belorus - and to the Central Asian steppes (Kazakhstan).

Unlike most countries in the area, with the notable exception of Iran, Turkey has long experience with being a centralized national state. As we know, most of its neighbors are more brittle.

The same is true about Russia.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Monty:

Latest demographic trends suggest that Russia has finally regained balance in birth rate/death rate terms. It did slump heavily after the break up of the CCCP (since the infrastructure of society was kyboshed for a long stretch). I don't think they have ever truly recovered from WW2 though, since they lost such a huge segment of their society in 48 months.

Of course, your larger point about Turkey's comparative growth rate vis a vis the Russians is quite on point.

For me, one of the things that is tension fraught is the degree to which Erdogan's opposition is concentrated in a very small area. Makes the city mouse/country mouse divide in the USA pale by comparison.

[Crandar]

@Montmorency

I think your data is outdated. Turkish fertility rates experience a sharp decline. It has already reached the replacement rate, but there's indication that the fall will stop. Given the huge numbers of refugees, we're lucky while supremacists despise Turkey or we would have been flooded with their tears about Turkish genocide.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...ulation-growth

[Montmorency]

Demographic claims are worth your scrutiny, but there's more to say. According to the World Bank figures for 2015, Turkey's fertility rate is 2.05 per woman, Russia's 1.75. (noteworthily Iran's was 1.68, an outcome of post-Khomeini government policies.) Meanwhile, gross population growth in Russia 2016 (as well as the US and China, maybe we could use some more immigrants?) was well below 1%, compared to the Turkish rate of 1.6%, around which it has hovered for decades (actual figure for Russia was 0.2%).

Without going much deeper, we can at least conclude that while Russia's demographic condition has improved since the post-Soviet period, and Turkey is at the replacement rate, Turkey's population size and growth is at least stable. The age distribuion in Turkey is weighted toward the youth, in Russia toward the middle-aged. I'm sure there is much more to dive into here on the subject of demographics. For example, the potential impact of refugees and Arabs in Turkey, or that of Central Asian guest workers in Russia.

Quickly revisiting Iran, it seems their fertility rate is surging again, now that family planning policies have changed to be pro-birth. The Iranian experience tells us that governments can wield a great deal of influence over fertility rates in either direction. Just something we should keep in mind; it may not tell us much (yet) about what these rates could look like for any given country in the future.

Geopolitically, the orientation and drive is there for Turkish expansion: Autocratization, Western alienation, rise of global fascism; Afrin, oil and commerce in Kurdish Iraq, Rojava...

Speaking of, @Crandar what do you think of the Rojava experiment?

Russia has no less oportunities for territorial expansion. It can move where there is a sizable Russian-speaking population - Ukraine, Belorus - and to the Central Asian steppes (Kazakhstan).

The same is true about Russia.

Leaving aside Ukraine, the small Caucasian and Central Asian countries around Russia are either friendly to its interests, or else easily pushed around with threats or economic sticks and carrots. The Georgia war is a teaching moment. Turkey, meanwhile, has poorer relations and territorial claims with just about all of its neighbors, as well as non-state threats. Knowing that, we can move on to identifying the two countries interests, desires, and constraints. The relevance to Western interests, desires, and constraints. Russia the revisionist state, or Turkey the rogue state?

And I'm more interested in the realistic manifestation of drift in policy and on the ground, not the extreme one. Like, Russia reconquering the Soviet Union or Turkey invading Greece on the way to Warsaw (with Syrian Arab Janissaries at the vanguard!).