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NATO?Reader comment on item: Why Erdoğan Decided to Shoot down a Russian Plane Submitted by Jonathan Pfeffer (Canada), Dec 14, 2015 at 12:03 I doubt Erdegon had anything personally to do with the shoot-down. It likely was a local decision following SOP. I agree it makes no sense. I want to ask a related key question here. Is NATO not a useless treaty?The concept of so many diverse countries engaged in a long term defense treaty makes no sense in this post cold war world of self interest and constant strategic girations. Turkey and the US have little in common that is not simply geographic in nature. How are we stuck in a treaty with commitments with this Islamist regime? When the next international situation happens generating new wild strategic ripples, we may be on Russia's side against Turkey, who knows? My point is. Everyone acts out of short sighted strategic interests. We sort of can predict US and Western European thinking on future problems. We can't predict the future thinking for countries like Turkey, Iran, Russia. We have to wait for things to unfold. In IT terms they would say, we have to 'late-bind' ourselves to these countries. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Daniel Pipes replies: A decision as momentous as this one would not be made by local commanders following SOP. It requires approval at the highest level. And if you were right, the politicians would have blamed out-of-control soldiers, which they have not done. Reader comments (10) on this item
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