The dynamics of the middle east really are starting to look like Europe right before the outbreak of WWI

So Turkey, a Nato member which means that all Nato members are required to come to its defense, shoots down a Russian war plane that apparently was targeting Turkman rebels in Syria who are fighting against the Assad regime, who Russia is trying to protect. Turkey is supporting its ethnic kin and wants Assad gone.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But the risk that this becomes a Franz Ferdinand moment is real.

bramzzoinks said:

So Turkey, a Nato member which means that all Nato members are required to come to its defense, shoots down a Russian war plane that apparently was targeting Turkman rebels in Syria who are fighting against the Assad regime, who Russia is trying to protect. Turkey is supporting its ethnic kin and wants Assad gone.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But the risk that this becomes a Franz Ferdinand moment is real.

I agree to some extent with the exception that one reason WW I started was that Germany did not want to avoid war in 1914.  There was some feeling that Germany was encircled and that military conditions were becoming less favorable for Germany over time.  100 years later, I don't think any of the great powers want war.  However, the dangers of misunderstandings and tit for tat escalation are very real.

Though the scenarios are obviously very different, this was my first thought when seeing the story about Turkey shooting the plane down.

The fact that Russia did not immediately explode with harsh rhetoric means, to me, that they know their plane was provably in the wrong place. So I'm hopeful they have a more measured response. But yes, scary stuff.

"starting" to look like?  More like, "have always looked like".

Of course, Turkey was reacting more to the fact that Russia is supporting Assad and attacking ethnic Turkmens in Syria than to the actual violation of Turkish airspace.   On the other hand, Russia had been repeatedly warned, so the Turkish response was hardly out of the blue.

I've been saying Syria has International Incident written all over it for a while now.  My understanding is that the Russian pilot was ultimately killed by US backed rebels with US weaponry.  Good times...

The other problem is that there is exactly zero possibility of a return to peace as long as Russia wants Assad to stay and the West and Turkey want him to go.