Nonproliferation: Turkey

🇹🇷 I think it would be wise to immediately remove all of the US nuclear arsenal that is located within Turkey's territory, since they apparently have a 'special relationship' with Russia. We should temporarily move the Turkish facility to Greece, with a final destination set for Cyprus if they join NATO.

Turkey is not a like-minded ally, and I don't think we need any more proof of this to know it is true. It's unacceptable for NATO allies to have a 'special relationship' with Russia, especially when Russia is at war with a NATO partner. Removing our nuclear arsenal from Turkey's territory will be the first step in the right direction, and will send the right signal to Turkey and other rogue NATO allies.

By moving the facility to Greece, we will ensure that Greece has the appropriate deterrence from Turkish aggression. Bringing Cyprus into the alliance will secure the small island state from further Turkish aggression. Turkey's anti-Greek rhetoric has escalated recently, while they continue to illegally scout for natural gas reserves in the exclusive economic zones of Greece and Cyprus. I believe that if Turkey finds what they are looking for, they will attempt to confiscate those territories.

We should try to improve Turkey-Greece relations, and create a window of opportunity for Turkey to change course, but we should also prepare for a more aggressive Turkey. I see a pattern of aggression from Russia and Turkey. They appear to be trying to starve Europe of all of their energy resources.

Erdogan, like many autocrats, has no concept of how the market works, and that is why Turkey's economy is out of control. He is blaming the West, the "rich countries", for Turkey's economic problems, as most autocrats do. Erdogan is looking for strategies to improve Turkey's economic situation, and Putin's mafia-style economic strategies appear to be the only economic strategies Erdogan can wrap his mind around.

So we should think about how we want to handle the economic woes of our allies. Are we going to help them with those economic woes, so they remain friendly allies, or are we going to leave them to their own devices, which our adversaries will use to their advantage. We certainly do not want to give them hand outs, but we could provide them with some economic advice to help their economy recover.

We have no strategy for dealing with allies who suffer severe economic woes, because it has never happened before. The USA created NATO after World War II, and we created the Marshall Program to help our allies with their economic woes at that time. They have not needed our help on economic issues since then. All of our allies have grown to be the most prosperous countries in the world, and so we have left them to their own devices. The EU manages the economic issues of EU members, which most new NATO members also join. Turkey is a rare phenomenon among NATO allies. They are the only NATO ally, the only US ally anywhere in the world really, whose economy has spiralled out of control to a dangerous level.

xo

Response to: https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-special-relationship-russia-grow-recep-tayyip-erdogan-valdimir-putin/