NATO and Russia’s Incursion into Turkey

Over this past weekend, CNN reported that Russia, for the second time, flew over Turkish airspace. Russia has increased its involvement with regards to the Syria conflict, carrying out airstrikes, as well as planning ground groups.

Turkey and NATO have come out and criticized Russia’s actions. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that that this was a “serious mistake” that Russia committed. And Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of NATO said that “This is unacceptable.” He went on to say that “we also have seen two of them, two violations of Turkish airspace…”. “Intelligence that we have received provides me with reason to say it doesn’t look like an accident.”

Given the role of NATO, states within this international organization are expected to come to the support of any other NATO state that who territory is violated.

NATO is in a tough position here. The states don’t want to begin a war with Russia. However, they continue to view Russian aggression, whether it is through backing rebels in the Ukraine, or whether it is their latest involvement in Syria. Russia has an interest of keeping Bashar Al-Assad in power, and it seems that they are now willing to provide more direct support, whether that is through airstrikes (against ISIS and non-ISIS targets), ground troops, or additional military support.

The United States, Russia, and Turkey agree that defeating ISIS is critically important, but they disagree greatly on the role of Bashar al-Assad. For the US and Turkey, they want to see al-Assad step down, whereas Russia, a major ally, wants to keep him in power.

The United States has not committed to using ground troops in Syria itself, nor have other allies. But while Russia may be fighting along with Iran and Iraq, through sharing intelligence in order to defeat the Islamic State,  they are also very much looking to maintain their own interests in the region; they want to continue to have their relationship with the Syrian leader in place, something that Turkey and the West are not comfortable with, particularly given the atrocities committed by the Syrian government in this civil war.