eerily similar to the 1970s and 1980s

Submitted by John (United States), Feb 9, 2012 at 04:56

Nice article. Thanks.

Recent events are eerily similar to those of the 1970s and 1980s, when our Turkish allies were sending 30+ warships to accompany their provocative little survey vessels, and were constantly violating Greek airspace, sometimes with whole squadrons of F-16s. For whatever reason, Turks have long had difficulty understanding that the islands of the Aegean don't belong to them by rights, even if a few Turks should happen to live there.

It wouldn't take an EEZ of 200nm to push the Turks over the edge. In the 1990s, when Greece ratified UNCLOS, the Turks balked at an extension out to just 12nm, and declared it a casus belli should Greece assert that right.

Now that the Turks are playing the bully again, I wonder if the U.S. and NATO will have their cold-war incentive repeatedly to mitigate the consequences of Turkish belligerency. I'd guess they will, at least as long as Iran's on the table. But who knows, one would not have guessed that Georgian would be consigned to its fate so quickly, and they, too, were an important element in U.S. plans for Iran ... and actually liked Americans.

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