Erdogan’s deposing of the Kamalist generals as he took power may have been offset recently by NATO’s relationship with his current generals, NATO has yet sway on that military. Also: Putin’s alignment with Assad in Syria and with the Shiite Assahola bars Erdogan from moving toward Moscow in all but vanity: the Turkish leader has now got his grandiose dream house, the White Palace. While Jihadists have walked from Istanbul’s airport to BadDaddyLand on his watch, and black market oil has reached buyers in Turkey, he’s a bit stuck as regards U.S.-NATO-Kurdish alignment against Daesh.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/

Putin may be credited with transiting the “Party Privileged” of the Soviet into a “New Nobility” in his 19th Century neo-feudal revanche.

At the moment, that enterprise has not been serving the general Russian population very well, but as he controls Russian media (and only 7 percent of the Federation reads or speaks in English), he may leverage the coming unhappiness against the west and in the cause of Great Russia. In the past year, the Russian economy has contracted by four percent and its best and brightest in entrepreneurs and professionals have fled — are fleeing — for economies in which they may sell their wares. The oil revenues on which the state has been largely dependent have been slashed deeply, so with all of that, my prediction is he will turn to the oligarchs for military funding in the name of Russian patriotism.

Stimulus for the conversation:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/islamic-state-gulf.html#ixzz3rx61Nmk5 – 11/18/2015.

The question was, “Why would they attack ISIS? ISIS are now a very convenient foreign policy tool to advance geopolitical agendas in the Middle East for many Muslim countries in the region, mainly Iran, Syria, Russia (non Muslim), Qatar, Turkey and the dreaded fanatics in the glass palaces of Riyadh.”

The medieval world has medieval headaches that it tries to share with the modern and democratic still open societies.

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