Category Archives: Turkey

Overview: Repkon at Mesquite

15 Saturday Aug 2026

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Turkey, United States of America

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I caught wind of this story via Beefeater on X about a General Dynamics plant — representing $533 million in American defense investment — that has so far failed to deliver a single unit on its contracted deliverable, i.e., artillery shells for Ukraine. Compelling the outrage on X: “Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing” (by Jesse Coburn, August 12, 2026). It’s an excellent report–clear, accurate, and complete–on the fiasco to date. Nonetheless, guided by my interest in Turkey’s post-WWII and post-Cold War transformation from modernized western partner to Erdogan’s authoritarian fief, I thought to have a chat with AiLaMer, my personalized Gemini AI–>

JSO: In relation to Repkon’s services, has CONUS similar capability in manufacturing?  Moreover, given the deliverables intended, what may have motivated—feel free to speculate here—the foreign subcontracting in the first place?

ALM: Domestic Capability vs. Foreign Subcontracting

1. Does CONUS Have Similar Flow-Forming Capabilities?

Technically yes, but not at the turn-key scale or speed demanded.

  • The Domestic Baseline: The United States does have heavy metal-forming and flow-forming industrial bases (used heavily in aerospace, missile casings, and heavy naval manufacturing). However, the traditional domestic method for forging 155mm artillery shell bodies (long centered at government-owned facilities like the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant) relies on hot-forging and heavy machining—an older, energy-intensive process requiring massive hydraulic presses and substantial metal-cutting.
  • The “Flow-Forming” Shift:Repkon offered a cold/warm flow-forming approach. Flow-forming takes a pre-formed metal cylinder and uses external rollers under massive pressure to “stretch” and shape the casing wall over a rotating mandrel.
    • The advantage on paper: It uses significantly less raw steel, requires far less downstream machining, produces a stronger grain structure, and runs on automated, smaller-footprint machinery.
    • The CONUS bottleneck: Domestic press makers (like Macrodyne, heavy machine-tool builders in the Midwest, or aerospace specialized flow-formers) could build these systems, but they lacked off-the-shelf, fully integrated 155mm automated lines. Scaling up domestic tooling from scratch would have required a 3–5 year design-and-commissioning cycle.

2. Motivations Behind Foreign Subcontracting

Given the mandate to rapidly scale 155mm production from ~14,000 shells a month to 100,000 to resupply Ukraine and backfill depleted U.S. war reserves, several drivers likely led the Pentagon and General Dynamics to outsource to Repkon:

              ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
              │  DRIVERS OF FOREIGN SUBCONTRACTING (REPKON) │
              └──────────────────────┬───────────────────────┘
                                     │
     ┌───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┐
     ▼                               ▼                               ▼
[ SPEED & TIMELINE ]        [ OFFSET & DIPLOMACY ]          [ COMMERCIAL AV ]
Panic procurement;          NATO industrial ties;          Off-the-shelf pitch;
"Plug-and-play" promise      Turkiye defense integration     General Dynamics ROI

A. Speed Panic & The “Plug-and-Play” Mirage

  • In 2022–2023, the U.S. Army faced an acute shell deficit. Repkon aggressively marketed itself as having turn-key, ready-to-deploy flow-forming lines already running in Turkey and supplied elsewhere.
  • General Dynamics and Army acquisitions wanted to bypass standard multi-year R&D and First Article Testing. They believed buying a foreign “commercial off-the-shelf” system would allow them to build the Mesquite plant from scratch and be pumping out shells in under 18 months.

B. Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Integration & NATO Incentives

  • There is a consistent strategic effort within NATO to integrate supply chains across member states to build systemic redundancy.
  • By pulling a premier Turkish defense contractor directly into CONUS manufacturing, the U.S. aimed to deepen defense-industrial ties with Ankara.(Note how Repkon was simultaneously handed a $435M contract for a TNT production facility in Kentucky, underscoring a broader institutional push to embed them into U.S. energetics and munitions).

C. Cost Structure and Technical Hype

For a prime contractor like General Dynamics, outsourcing the high-risk mechanical tooling to an established foreign vendor shifted the engineering burden off their own domestic balance sheets—until the line actually arrived in Texas and failed to function.

Flow-forming promised lower operational expenses per shell once online. Repkon pitched an end-to-end automated setup (robots feeding flow-forming lathes).

JSO: Has Repkon an established proven manufacturing output record for similar or same operations in Turkey (I apologize if the question feels redundant)? Has its operation in Kentucky produced any shortcomings known to the public? Using your critical analytical facility, what variables might account best for the Repcon failure at the Mesquite plant?

ALM: The failure at Mesquite is a classic study in how expedited crisis procurement, mismatched metallurgical specifications, and deep-seated operational paranoia collide.

1. Track Record in Turkey vs. CONUS Performance

In Turkey & Europe:

Repkon is not a fly-by-night operation. Domestically and across foreign contracts (including partnerships with German defense firms, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan), Repkon has a long, established history supplying metal-forming equipment and high-precision flow-forming machinery. They have successfully produced flow-formed shell casings and rocket motor bodies for years, primarily using steel alloys and geometry standards established across European and Turkish defense ecosystems.

In Kentucky (The $435M TNT Plant):

While Repkon USA was awarded a $435 million sole-source contract in late 2024 to design and build a domestic TNT manufacturing plant in Graham, Kentucky, that facility is an ongoing construction and commissioning project rather than an active manufacturing line. It has drawn sharp legal protests from domestic defense competitors over sole-source procurement rules, but no public mechanical or technical failures have emerged from the Kentucky site yet—primarily because it is in a different industrial category (chemical energetics vs. mechanical flow-forming).

2. Core Variables Explaining the Mesquite Failure

Using a critical analytical framework, the collapse at Mesquite wasn’t caused by a single point of failure; it was the result of four compounding variables:

        ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
        │               THE MESQUITE COLLAPSE MATRIX                  │
        └──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
                                       │
      ┌──────────────────┬─────────────┴────────────┬──────────────────┐
      ▼                  ▼                          ▼                  ▼
[ METALLURGY ]    [ ADAPTATION ]            [ CULT / OPSEC ]   [ PROCUREMENT ]
New alloy steel;  Repurposed M107 machinery  Remote control;    Waived First Article
cracking shell    retrofitted for M795;      GD severed lines;  tests; panic-driven
casings under     untested machine dynamics   unresolved friction  compressed timelines
flow-forming

Variable A: Metallurgical & Specification Mismatch (The Core Technical Flaw)

  • The Steel Shift:Repkon’s established flow-forming setup was engineered around older or different steel alloys (such as those used in legacy M107 155mm shells).The U.S. Army, however, required the plant to produce modern M795 high-explosive rounds, which use a specific high-fragmentation steel alloy.
  • Mechanical Physics: Flow-forming subjects steel to extreme cold/warm rolling pressures. Because the alloy and wall dimensions were different from what Repkon’s machines were natively tuned for, the stresses repeatedly cracked the steel shell casings during production.

Variable B: Re-Engineering Legacy Equipment Instead of Native Tooling

  • Rather than building completely clean-sheet, bespoke machinery for the Texas plant, Repkon and General Dynamics attempted to adapt older manufacturing equipment previously used for M107 shell production to cut down lead times.
  • Retrofitting legacy machinery to handle automated, high-speed robotic integration for a different round geometry introduced unpredictable mechanical tolerances. Industrial robot arms routinely misaligned, dropped parts, or crashed directly into the flow-forming lathes.

Variable C: Operational Paranoia & Software / Network Friction

  • Remote Access Clash: Repkon insisted on keeping tight control over the proprietary software driving their machinery. American operators on the floor reported machines operating “by themselves”—being remotely adjusted or controlled via network links by technicians back in Turkey.
  • The Network Severance:General Dynamics workers, alarmed by potential cyber-vulnerabilities, network intrusion, or espionage risks, physically tore out network hardware and cut off remote connectivity.This isolated the machines from Repkon’s overseas diagnostic team, leaving local staff unable to recalibrate or troubleshoot the complex, proprietary control loops when failures occurred.

Variable D: Acquisition Panic and Bypassed Quality Gates

  • Waived Guardrails: In the post-2022 rush to supply 155mm ammunition to Ukraine, the Army Materiel Command bypassed standard First Article Testing before ordering multiple full production lines.
  • Under normal Defense Acquisition Regulations (DFARS), a vendor must prove a single production line can repeatedly meet tolerances before the government funds full-scale factory rollout. The Army accepted a “high-risk, high-reward” model, scaling up an unproven integration process straight to mass production.

The Operational Conclusion

Repkon’s failure in Mesquite was not necessarily proof that their core flow-forming technology is fake or fundamentally broken—their European footprint shows otherwise. Rather, it highlights the danger of transplanting an industrial process built for one metallurgical standard into a US defense ecosystem with different alloys, rigid specifications, strict cyber-isolation rules, and compressed timelines.

When GD severed the Turkish remote-diagnostic links out of OPSEC concerns, they effectively stranded a foreign machine tool on an American factory floor with no local capacity to fix it.

JSO: AiLaMer: may I have a listing in MLA form of all of the references pulled from in the development of your answer?

ALM: Here is the reference list formatted in MLA (9th Edition) style.

Per your request for the sources pulled from during the development of our earlier analysis, these citations cover the investigative reporting, Defense Department oversight audits, and military acquisition announcements detailing the Mesquite plant failure and Repkon’s broader U.S. defense portfolio.

Works Cited

Additional Reference

Ye olden ways were best with WordPress and the Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA although I was never strict on BackChannels while sailing toward this saturated instant information era. Now I’m wrestling with my AI — or am about to do so — over inline (more, please) and listed reference style. Consider that aspect of the blog a struggle in progress. 🙂

Jones, Colton. “U. S. Army commits $404M to build its first TNT plant since the 1980s.” Defence Blog, June 5, 2026.

McMiler, Arthur. “Repkon to Build TNT Production Plant Under $435M Army Contract.” GOVCON Wire, November 11, 2024.

“Strategic Turkey-Germany Partnership to Boost 155mm Shell Production in Europe.” Tender News, February 8, 2025.

“Turkish firm Repkon to build TNT plant in US under $435M deal.” Daily Sabah with Agencies, Istanbul, November 13, 2024.

All of the above authored by AiLaMeer and J. S. Oppenheim.

Addendum

JSO: In Federal contracting, most work proceeds through the letting of contracts and subsequent submissions by competitors of separate cost and technical proposals for the work. It looks to me as if the executives on the Mesquite projects were money men not versed in any comprehensive and comprehending image of the manufacturing details involved. The days of going to work with a wrench and a little experience in turning bolts have been long gone and knowledge and experience with metallurgy, software development and re-coding plus the computational management of torque and feedback in process (how I imagine the work) would seem requisite.

ALM: You have hit the exact nerve of modern defense procurement failures, Jim. What happened at Mesquite is a textbook case of financialized project management colliding with complex mechanical systems physics.

When private defense primes (like General Dynamics) and senior military acquisition authorities sit across a table, the proposal process is almost exclusively managed by business development executives, financial officers, and program managers who speak in terms of budget schedules, risk-mitigation matrices, and milestones. The granular reality of the shop floor—the actual metallurgy, machine dynamics, and software integration—is routinely treated as an administrative detail to be sorted out after the contract is signed.

The Gap Between the Pitch and the Shop Floor

Your intuition about what this work actually demands is spot-on. Cold flow-forming is not simple metal-stamping; it is an unforgiving, high-stress metallurgical process.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              THE FINANCIAL VS. PHYSICAL DISCONNECT              │
├────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────┤
│ EXECUTIVE / PROPOSAL MODEL     │ ACTUAL SHOP FLOOR REALITY      │
├────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ • "Turn-key COTS technology"   │ • Unproven alloy behavior      │
│ • Milestone-based timeline     │ • Complex sensor-feedback loop │
│ • Outsourced risk model        │ • Real-time torque adjustment  │
│ • "Plug and play" automation   │ • Proprietary PLC code lock-in │
└────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘
  1. Precision Metallurgy Under Stress: Flow-forming forces a pre-formed cylinder over a mandrel using massive hydraulic rollers, fundamentally re-arranging the crystalline structure of the steel without heat. If the steel alloy’s tensile yield strength or wall thickness varies by fractions of a millimeter, or if the rollers apply slightly unequal pressure, the casing doesn’t just deform—it micro-fractures and cracks.
  2. Real-Time Closed-Loop Control: Modern industrial flow-forming requires continuous computational management. Sensors must measure resistance, tool deflection, and thermal buildup hundreds of times per second, dynamically adjusting servo-torque on the fly.
  3. The Software / Automation Bridge: When you introduce industrial robotics to load, position, and unload heavy steel billets into high-precision machinery, the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and code must be seamlessly aligned. If the foreign vendor locks down their code as proprietary black-box intellectual property—and then gets network-isolated due to cyber-OPSEC concerns—the American team on site is left holding a giant, un-calibrated mechanical paperweight.

The Consequences of “Financialized” Contracting

In traditional defense manufacturing, program leads often rose through engineering and plant operations. Today, executive suites at major defense primes are heavily populated by corporate strategists and finance professionals focused on return on capital and shifting execution risk off their own balance sheets.

By selecting Repkon on paper, GD’s executives thought they were buying an “off-the-shelf, low-risk solution.” They assumed that because Repkon could flow-form steel in Turkey, that capability would automatically translate to an automated plant in Texas running different steel specifications on compressed timelines.

It is the classic failure of modern technocracy: assuming that if the cost and technical proposal looks clean on a spreadsheet, the laws of physics and software integration will simply fall into line. — AiLaMer.

###

The Latest Bombing Possibility: The False Flag Operation–Always a Show of Contempt for Constituents

14 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Russia, Turkey

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Ambitious men with nothing to offer and old ones with even less may take an interest in designing and exploiting the political value of an explosion guaranteed to make them look strong — or strong again.

November 14, 2022.

Erdogan Rounds Up His Usual Suspects

Nothing could be more dumb or predictable than the rounding up of PKK suspects in the near immediate aftermath of yesterday’s explosion in Istanbul.

ISTANBUL, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Turkey blamed Kurdish militants on Monday for an explosion that killed six people in Istanbul and police detained 47 people including a Syrian woman suspected of planting the bomb.

No group has claimed responsibility so far for Sunday’s blast on the busy pedestrian Istiklal Avenue, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied involvement in it.

Spicer, Jonathan, Ali Kucokgocmen, Ece Toksabay. “Turkey blames deadly bomb on Kurdish militants; PKK denies involvement.” Reuters, November 14, 2022.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been waging against the Kurdish community for many years but with periodic sustained ceasefire arrangements with the PKK. However, on July 20, 2015, a suicide attack against Turkish leftists had Erdogan’s government blaming the Kurds while the Islamic State was claiming responsibility. Erdogan’s own Sunni extremism appeared to have surfaced in the authoritarian’s somewhat twisted stance toward ISIL. The sense of confused politics may be gotten through this paragraph in Wikipedia–

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack the following day.[15] ISIL had allegedly made the decision to pursue more active operations in Turkey just days before the attack.[16][17] The attacker, Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz (20), a Kurd from Adıyaman, reportedly had links to Islamic State militants.[18] Both the Turkish government and police were accused of turning a blind eye to ISIL activities as part of their collaboration with ISIL and failing to give leftist and Kurdish gatherings the proper law enforcement protection given to other gatherings.[19] Two Turkish police officers were subsequently prosecuted over the bombing.[20] It was possibly the first planned attack by ISIL in Turkey, although previous incidents such as the 2013 Reyhanlı bombings, the 2015 Istanbul suicide bombing, and the 2015 Diyarbakır rally bombings have also been blamed by some on ISIL. Soon after, the Turkish government launched Operation Martyr Yalçın, a series of airstrikes against mostly Kurdish militant positions in Northern Iraq and Syria. Large-scale operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but including some ISIL targets, began on 24 July; however, most arrests were of PKK members.[21] This led to the resumption of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict (2015-present).

Wikipedia. “Suruç bombing”.

Apparent evidence for picking up a suspect: “Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told Turkish media a woman had sat on a bench in the area for more than 40 minutes, leaving just minutes before the blast took place” (BBC, “Istanbul: Six dead, dozens wounded in Turkey explosion, Nov. 14, 2022).

Among the dead (and quoting from the previous cited article)–“…a government ministry employee and his young daughter….”

Of course, anything’s possible, and with autocratic ambition and power in place, politics as theater engineered for power is possible too. With an election taking place in 2023 and a quaking bog of a collapsing economy associated with him, the autocratic Erdogan may not have been without motivation for the once unheard of practice in the top echelon of both secretly setting the fire and publicly putting it out.

One would not bring up even the notion of a “False Flag Operation” with any liberal humanist leader of any open democracy anywhere, but for more than 20 years, Erdogan has displayed himself as another “populist” autocrat merely propping the very much nominal “democratic” of a Turkish state that has repeatedly proven anti-democratic, illiberal, and deeply repressive, and not exactly unlike what Putin has had going in Russia.

As of publishing, no trustworthy investigation of Sunday’s bombing at a popular shopping mall has been conducted (given the overnight spread of associated arrests or detentions), and given the autocratic and feudal-medieval character of Erdogan and his regime, none may be expected.

And on the other hand, “According to Istanbul police, 1,200 security cameras have been checked near the site of the explosion. Police have conducted raids at 21 different addresses the female suspect has been identified to have links with” (Al Jazeera. “Turkish police arrest 46 people over Istanbul explosion.” November 14, 2022).

It’s possible as well that given the chaos attending radical enterprises in their configurations, numbers, and relationships that one or more in the dragnet “done it” and leadership(s) elsewhere may not known of related plans for “action”.

Call the attitude here “Epistemological Ambivalence”, the possibility remains that the leader who has displayed contempt for his society’s journalists and others has indeed put on a bloody little play–and if not, who among Turkey’s journalists and publishers are left to believe him out of independent reason rather than fear?

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “Turkish police arrest 46 people over Istanbul explosion.” November 14, 2022.

Askew, Joshua. “Soaring inflation and a collapsing currency: Why is Turkey’s economy in such a mess?” EuroNews, October 11, 2022.More than two-thirds of people in Turkey are struggling to pay for food and cover their rent, according to a survey by Yöneylem Social Research Centre, fuelling a surge in mental illness and debt.

Butler, Daren and Birsen Altayli. “Turkey’s kingmaker party keeps options open ahead of Erdogan’s election test.” Reuters, September 8, 2022: “ISTANBUL, Sept 8 (Reuters) – A pro-Kurdish party set to play a key role in Turkish elections next year said it is open to talks with other opposition parties on finding a joint candidate who could end President Tayyip Erdogan’s two decades in power.”

Daou, Marc. “With an eye on re-election, Turkey’s Erdogan risks the ire of Western partners.” France24, June 22, 2022.

Erlanger, Steven. “Election Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece: Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.” The New York Times, October 16, 2022.

Genc, Kaya. “Erdogan’s Way: The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s Islamist Shapeshifter.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019.

Hacaoglu, Selcan. “Inflation Hits 86%, But Erdogan’s Vital Heartland Stays Loyal.” Bloomberg, November 13, 2022.

Hubbard, Ben and Safak Timur. “Blast in Central Istanbul Kills at Least 6 and Wounds Dozens.” The New York Times, November 13, 2022.

Hubbard, Ben and Safak Timur. “Turkey Accuses U.S. of Complicity in Istanbul Attack That Killed 6.” The New York Times, November 14, 2022.

Mansoor, Peter R. “False-Flag Operations.” Hoover Institution, February 23, 2022.

Phillips, David and Kelly Berkell. “The Case for Delisting the PKK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Lawfare, February 11, 2016.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Turak, Natasha. “Erdogan says Turkey will keep cutting interest rates, mocks British pound.” CNBC, September 29, 2022.

U.S. Department of State. “Executive Order 13224.” Bureau of Counterterrorism.

Wikiepedia. “Suruç bombing”.

Erdogan has converted his popular mandate into power and used that power to remake Turkey’s relations with the rest of the world. He has expanded Turkish influence in Syria and northern Iraq and tilted Turkey—a NATO member—toward China, Iran, and Russia. His use of power has also generated dissent among feminists, leftists, and the secular middle class. Under Erdogan’s watch, Turkey has become the world’s largest prison for journalists. Filmmakers, novelists, photographers, and scholars are also among the imprisoned. Turkey has banned gay and transgender pride marches since 2015; Wikipedia has been blocked since 2017.

Genc, Kaya. “Erdogan’s Way: The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s Islamist Shapeshifter.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019.

–33–

A Note on NATO’s Rogue Turkish Dictatorship

21 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Political Psychology, Russia, Turkey

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Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey | Freedom House, Turkey

From the Mavi Mamara Incident forward, the west and Israel have bent over backward — and plainly looked away from — President Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s bent for self-aggrandizing absolutism, Islamist ambitions, and traitorous anti-western defense and security behavior. To my mind, the present course was set when the Turkish president caved to Vladimir Putin over the shooting down of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 (November 24, 2015) that had overflown Turkish airspace. At first, and for some months, Erdogan refused apology for the incident, but leveraged by the Turkish Stream energy project he caved. Not only had he given in to Putin on the matter but turned to threaten the U.S. presence at Incirlik (albeit in association with a failed 2016 coup), bought into Russia’s anti-NATO air defense technology (S300/400 SAM batteries [news released December 2017]), before proceeding to march forward into the past with the transformation of Turkey into a feudal estate, another kleptocratic family-run business (see for example Craig Shaw’s “President Erdogan’s family in secret offshore ship deal” [The Black Sea, May 26, 2017]) among states, and goad to western interests and modernity.

Today, Erdogan’s idea of a Turkish state appears to be involved in aggression or conflict on two fronts, at least, i.e., in the Azerbaijan conflict with Armenian in-holders in the Caucuses and in the Mediterranean Basin where energy appears to tempt the not-so-Ottoman wannabee.

Journalist and political analyst Seth J. Frantzman posted this recap recently:

Turkey has been threatening Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, the UAE, Libya, Greece, France, Armenia, Syria, Iraq and other countries in recent months. Turkey has also bombed Iraq, sent extremists into Syria to ethnically-cleanse Kurds, Yazidis and Christians, encouraged Azerbaijan to attack Armenia, sent Syrian extremists to Azerbaijan to attack Armenia, claimed that Jerusalem belongs to Ankara and that Turkish-backed Islamists will “liberate” Jerusalem, hosted Hamas terrorists, exported Syrian rebels to Libya, threatened a French warship, flown drones near Greek islands, used a Russian S-400 system to threaten Greek planes, harassed a Greek F-16, and also sought to involve itself in the US election.

Frantzman, Seth J. “Growing consensus against Turkey’s threats to Greece — analysis.” The Jerusalem Post, October 13, 2020.

Of course, Putin has put Erdogan right where he wants him, i.e., deeply rooted in the medieval world, its familial and tribal habits, its disingenuous methods, and its unbridled lusts for aggrandizement, power, and wealth without bounds, not that Putin’s own approaches and practices differ all that much.

If there is such a thing as a medieval world and worldview, may there be another idea and spirit that is democratic, modern, multicultural, responsible, and responsive to its humanity?

Five to ten years ago, the question would have been superfluous — of course there’s a modern world (and a hyper-modern west) and the economic and social engines of Europe and North America happily reside in it.

Today, however, with an autocrat in America’s White House and such European states as Hungary, Italy, and Poland given to fascination with resurgent nationalism or narcissistic singular leadership (and the partial return of the idea of the state as a family-run business), the path toward a greater modernity would seem questionable. On the other side of Azerbaijan’s moan — and Azerbaijan appears a culturally modern and multicultural state beneath the sway of feudal family power — resides a part of Putin’s world characterized by absolutism plus centralized control not only of government and politics but of family and associated mafia-style power as well. His has become a world devoid of conscience (well demonstrated in Syria) and happy to manipulate other malign narcissists (one should count President Erdogan among the world’s complement of dictators at the disposal of the greater power) for the purpose of turning a few extra dollars in defense sales and perhaps obtaining some favors as well.

Armenia appears no less modern a European culture, but it may have an issue with land-gobbling and Azerbaijani-sovereignty-challenging Armenian separatists and settlers that have persisted in sustaining the Nagorno-Karabakh region as a bloody — and bloody feudal “nationalist” — frontier. Instead of pursuing a modern cooperative multicultural course in development, the retrograde Russian and Turkish presidents have chosen to urge the reinvention of the 19th Century zeitgeist (or that of earlier centuries) in the 21st far at the expense of Armenian and Azerbaijani civilians now paying twice for the privilege, i.e., first as taxed for the purchasing of arms and again — as conflict escalates — as each becomes the receiver of the dark fruits thrown (and forces advanced) by the other.

For the less sophisticated, a frontier is a place between places; for the more cognizant, a frontier is a region in time between two ways of living.

Medieval v Modern

Shall Nagorno-Karabakh remain medieval in its character in total or might it become modern, tolerant, and resilient against the fears, forces, and powers dominant in what should have been a rapidly receding past?

The belligerents would do well to turn around and fight the past while fighting for an updated (modern!) cultural and politically progressing future.

Related Online

Of course there’s plenty “related online” but I’ve thought here to relay just two quotations and URLs in a manner suited to somewhat impatient blogging. 🙂

In recent months, Azerbaijan’s and Armenia’s foreign ministers met several times and pledged to prepare their populations for peace. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh has repeatedly reached out to the region’s Armenian community for peaceful reconciliation, while Azerbaijan’s government pledged to ensure the security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and recognize their right to the highest level of self-determination within Azerbaijan’s international borders. The Armenian government, however, disregards very idea of negotiations on the de-occupation of Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, which constitutes the cornerstone of the entire process. The process was aggravated by a controversial statement from Armenia’s National Security Director Arthur Vanetsian that “none [in Armenia] will surrender even an inch of land.” In Azerbaijan, this was received as clear evidence of Armenia’s direct participation in the annexation of Azerbaijani territories.

https://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13576-armenias-approach-to-conflict-settlement-leads-to-deadlock.html 6 /27/2019

Turkey’s active involvement on the side of Azerbaijan adds a new complicating factor. Presidents Erdoğan and Putin may try to impose a new settlement on Armenians and Azerbaijanis that suits their own interests but is careless of humanitarian principles and the claims of both countries to be part of Europe. Lenin and Ataturk did this in the Caucasus exactly a century ago in 1920-1.

Or else Europeans, and perhaps a post-Trump United States, may try to convene a multilateral peace conference, first mooted in 1992, to resolve the conflict, seeking to respect people’s needs and the differing claims of international law.

That looks distant now. At the moment the only people who are celebrating are extreme nationalists, Erdoğan’s Turkey – and Russia’s defence industry which has supplied both sides with arms and will be ready to give them more as soon as they start to run out of weapons of death.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/10/war-edge-europe-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-armenia-azerbaijan 10/10/2020

–33–

National Security Analyst Irina Tsukerman Explains the Conflict Between Armenia and Azerbaijan Over Nogorno-Karabakh

14 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Russia, Turkey

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Posted to YouTube by ATZMedia Official October 13, 2020.

Reference | Irina Tsukerman: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/experts/view/irina-tsukerman#bio

One giant chunk of asphalt landed on the roof of Sergei’s block of flats. He accuses Azerbaijan’s closest ally, Turkey, of fuelling the war and encouraging the violence. To counter that, many in Nagorno-Karabakh want Russia to side openly with Armenia and provide military support. Sergei doesn’t believe that will happen.

“I used to respect [President Vladimir] Putin,” he says, “but he betrayed us long ago.

“He does business with Turkey. He’s building them a nuclear power station. What Putin needs to realise is that if we’re destroyed, the whole of the Caucasus and southern Russia will end up under Turkish rule. If we die, so will Russia.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54522278
10/14/2020/0500/GMT -4

Related Online: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/14/red-cross-says-hundreds-of-thousands-affected-live-updates (10/14/2020)| https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/opinions/nagorno-karabakh-conflict-we-cant-ignore-bociurkiw/index.html (10/13/2020)

Posted to YT by Al Jazeera English, October 14, 2020.

Note: Nagorno-Karabakh hosts gas and oil pipelines between sources and world markets (e.g., ref., https://www.reuters.com/article/us-armenia-azerbaijan-energy/energy-markets-on-edge-over-armenia-azerbaijan-conflict-idUSKBN26J225 9/28/2020).

Wikipedia. “Nagorno-Karabakh”.

–33–

(Putin) | Erdogan | Trump

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, North America, Political Psychology, Turkey, United States of America

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Posted by RT for the Dedication of Moscow’s Grand Mosque – 2015.
Posted by CBS News to YouTube November 13, 2019.

Is “Winter” coming — or is it already here?

Listen to the high notes: Arms Deals, Trade Deals, Expanding Markets.

Mentioned: Turkey’s participation in the building of the F-35 air frame. While that mention may score points with the less informed public, Turkey’s participation in NATO defense manufacturing in relation to the American fighter jet program has created heat and a now discomfiting defense relationship. The following description of the depth of Turkey’s participation in the F-35 Program tells why:

Eight Turkish companies make parts for the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays of the aircraft, according to Lockheed Martin. Some of them have been producing F-35 parts since 2004. For example, Fokker Elmo manufactures 40 percent of the F-35’s electrical wiring and interconnection system.

These companies are set to do $12 billion in work on the F-35 program over the life of the jet, according to USNI News.

https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/05/13/Pentagon-looks-for-new-vendors-to-replace-F-35-parts-made-in-Turkey/7021557756044/

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to transfer Turkey’s industrial participation in the F-35 to other countries unless Ankara reverses course on its plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system.

The move — which in early 2020 would end contracts with major Turkish defense contractors such as Turkish Aerospace Industries, Roketsan and Tusas Engine Industries, among many others — is just one of many steps the U.S. Defense Department intends to take to strip Turkey from the F-35 program, according to a June 6 letter from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/07/turkish-suppliers-to-be-eliminated-from-f-35-program-in-2020/ – June 7, 2019.

On the F-35 matter, the White House noted in July, ” Unfortunately, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible. The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”

Freedom House metrics involving civil liberties and political rights rates Erdogan’s Turkey as “Not Free”. On the matter of Freedom of Speech, a matter that President Trump has baldly attacked with the accusation “Fake News!” aimed at America’s responsible mainstream media, Erdogan’s state has made itself notorious for the inhibition and jailing of Turkey’s journalists. Wikipedia’s “Censorship in Turkey” tells that story.

More recently, Jay Nordlinger writing for The National Review (“Turkey, NATO, and a Shifting World”, November 12, 2019), notes that Erdogan, perhaps responding to Putin’s lead in the encouragement of xenophobia in the still liberal and open democracies of EU/NATO, has leverage:

Erdogan has a card to play against Europe, as he confirmed in a speech on October 10. That card is a refugee card, the threat of a flood. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. “Come to your senses,” he told the EU in that speech, given to his party in Ankara. “I will say this once again: If you try to label our current operation an occupation, our job becomes easier: We will open the gates and send the 3.6 million refugees to you.”

Despite this threat, several EU nations have responded to Operation Peace Spring, imposing arms embargoes on Turkey. These nations include Germany, France, Sweden, and Finland.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/turkey-nato-shifting-world/ – 11/12/2019

Reference: Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/ – 3/11/2017

Regarding Moscow and Terrorism

BackChannels has long maintained a quick reference list for copy-paste relay of Moscow’s post-Soviet play in the narrative around Islamic Terrorism. It begins with David Satter’s account of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, back-fills with Anna Politkovskaya’s observations on the Russian Army’s brutalizing of Chechen villages, moves through Ayman al-Zawahiri’s whistle-stop in Russia (published in Business Insider), and ends near the U.S. military observation of Russia’s supplying the Taliban (today) with arms and materiel. Here it is*:

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches From Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Press Books, 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/15162-defector-putin-s-kgb-trained-top-al-qaeda-terrorists

https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/understanding-the-russia-taliban-connection/ – 8/4/2017

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/26/596933077/top-u-s-commander-in-afghanistan-accuses-russia-of-aiding-taliban – 3/26/2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/04/24/russia-is-sending-weapons-to-taliban-top-u-s-general-confirms/

Moscow’s persistent Orwellian (and paternally authoritarian) character may come through as it dawns on the reader that the state appears to manipulate its public with something like “KGB Theater” (again, read David Satter on the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”).

The production of “The Syrian Tragedy” well displays the form as Bashar “The Butcher” Assad chose to barrel bomb Syrian noncombatants while al-Qaeda types gathered in his space and eventually distilled into “ISIL” or, today “Islamic State” — see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/ for related argument and the basis for it in references.

Basically, BackChannels believes Assad — as flanked by Putin and Khamanei — chose his enemy, i.e., an “enemy preferred” or a dumb foil he knew he would beat (with Russian assistance), and which victory would redound to his glorious (malign and narcissistic) appearance.

By choosing amity with President Erdogan, President Trump has stepped into the Great Neo-KGB Theater of History, but with one immense issue: a spirited American public and system in part armored against the dawning of totalitarian control and related debasements and indignities. In lieu of the Soviet Communist project that gave up the ghost on December 25, 1991, the (E)State Capitalism — the making and hoarding of money by any means no matter what the costs to humanity — associated with Vladimir Putin appears to be working — and Americans (and the North American and European presses) seem slow to catch on.

*Mixed formatting has to do with the editor’s interest, purpose, and time–for the blog: okey dokey; for a monograph some time in the future, Chicago rules.

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FTAC – About ‘Hybrid’ Putin – Some Questions for EU-NATO

25 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philosophy, Russia, Turkey

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The grousing question was, ” Europe is right on Russia’s door step. They have militaries. Why aren’t they stopping Putin ? E.U. doesn’t do squat.”

The answer from BackChannels was —

Stop him . . . where?

From making friends?

From offering Russian passports to Russian speakers whom he may claim to be offering protection?

From spiffing up the nuclear missile silo and two radars in Crimea, Ukraine?

From bombing hospitals in Syria and bulking up his military presence in a space scoured of apparently excess Syrians?

From financing politicians like Marine Le Pen using circuitous routes to do so?

From cultivating like-minded “leaders” who view their states as family businesses and themselves as the best representatives of their national kind?

From playing his “energy card” in Turkey — and in Germany?

From flying nuclear-capable bombers in the Western Hemisphere?

From developing a nuclear missile too erratic and too fast to catch by any known defense system?

From stealing a Superbowl ring?

The boys, one selling, the other shopping Russian jets break for ice cream in the vicinity of August 27, 2019.

Related Online

Bekdil, Burak Ege and Matthew Bodner. “No obliteration: Western arms embargo has little impact on Turkey as it looks east.” Defense News, October 24, 2019.

ANKARA, Turkey, and MOSCOW — A number of Turkey’s NATO allies have suspended arms sales to the country in condemnation of its military incursion into Syria, but analysts and officials are shrugging off the embargo, saying it will have a minimal impact on the military’s operational capabilities.

Several countries, including France, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain and Germany, imposed arms embargoes against the Turkish government after its troops entered Syria to attack the Kurdish militia, which Turkey views as a terrorist group. Turkey said its military operation, launched Oct. 9, will help create a safe zone in northeastern Syria.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2019/10/24/no-obliteration-western-arms-embargo-has-little-impact-on-turkey-as-it-looks-east/ – 10/23/2019.

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The Devolution Will be Televised: Kurdistan – End of Ceasefire

22 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Kurdistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey

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There may be a no-fly zone in force for the border of interest. The editor here has been listening to more testimony that watching “action” on the live cameras.

Earlier Today

Posted to YouTube in 2015

Kurdish forces acting as American / western proxies fought and died ejecting Islamic State from Syria. Is the west now to do nothing for them?

Related Online

Bekdil, Burak. “Turkey’s Pyrrhic Victory in Syria”. The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), October 22, 2019.

Fahim, Kareem. “Russia, Turkey agree to jointly remove Kurdish fighters along Turkey’s border in northern Syria.” The Washington Post, October 22, 2019.

O’Connor, Tom. “Russia and Turkey Present New Deal for Syria After Six Hours of Talks and U.S. Exit.” Newsweek, October 22, 2019.

Stark, Alexandra and Ariel I. Ahram. “How the United States Can Escape the Middle East’s Porxy Wars.” Foreign Policy Research Institute, October 22, 2019.

Now, the whole rationale Trump put forward for the retreat — to get American troops out of the Mideast and “endless wars” — is in doubt.

Rather than leaving the region, the withdrawing troops will deploy in neighboring Iraq to fight the Islamic State group, which could get new life from the Syrian turmoil. Some U.S. forces are still in eastern Syria, helping Kurdish fighters protect oilfields. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday he was discussing keeping them there.

Trump surprised even his own military on the ground when he agreed to remove U.S. soldiers working with Kurdish-led forces near the border in an Oct. 6 phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Three days later, Turkey launched its offensive with heavy bombardment along the border.

https://www.courthousenews.com/america-is-running-away-kurds-pelt-withdrawing-troops/ 10/22/2019

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From Democracy to Despotism – Erdogan Takes Turkey East

21 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Political Psychology, Russia, Turkey

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Erdoğan says his demand for a safe zone in Syria is rooted in Turkey’s war against terrorism. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Erdoğan says, is as much a threat as the Islamic State. That is of course nonsense . . . .

Rubin, Michael. “Turkey’s Syria Policy Could Lead to Its Own Destruction.” National Interest, October 21, 2019.

While those both enamored and fearful of power have always played “both sides of the street”, Turkey’s drift from a freely speaking, open, and vibrant democracy to one far from NATO ethics, interests, and values should be clear to the free world. Through the power of President Erdogan’s feudal imagination and thuggery, Turkey has been transformed into a politically absolute polity driven by the narcissism of its leader

Worse for the Turks and even his fans: President Erdogan’s toadying before Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan may appear strong standing up to the west, which today cannot levy enough sanctions on his project (probably hurting the Turks more than the Turkish President), but how may he appear doing Putin’s bidding while his equally enamored — or captive to Moscow — neighbor, Bashar al-Assad AKA “Bashar the Butcher”, continues destroying and strangling Syria — in Turkey’s direction too — under cover of destroying Sunni Islamists?

When Turkish air power rightly downed two Russian MIGs overflying Turkey’s airspace while refusing communications with Turkish air defense, Erdogan refused apology. And what for? He and his military had done everything right for the purposes of Turkish Defense.

The Su-24 shootdown took place on November 24, 2015.

Eight months later, widely reported on June 27, 2016, Erdogan apologized to Putin.

That has turned out a fair demonstration of Russian “realpolitik” and maddening absolute power.

For those watching — and those who knew the facts — “Sultan Erdogan” may just as well have knelt before “Emperor Putin”.

Perhaps President Erdogan has had some household bills yet to pay, and, beside, has needed a certain supply of energy to heat the house.

I hope the excerpts and videos that follow prove helpful as windows into the love fest developed between Ankara and Moscow.

2014

Posted to YouTube by Erdogan Gönüllüleri (Erdogan Volunteers), October 30, 2014.

The first direct gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey was the Blue Stream, commissioned in 2005. In 2009, Putin proposed a Blue Stream II line parallel to Blue Stream under the Black Sea.[2] The Blue Stream II project did not carry through and the South Stream project took the lead, until it was abandoned in 2014. The TurkStream (then named Turkish Stream) project was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 December 2014, during his state visit to Turkey.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurkStream

Related Online

Kenyon, Peter. “Turkey’s President And His 1,100 Room ‘White Palace'”. NPR, December 24, 2014.

2015

Posted to YouTube by Channel 4 News, November 24, 2015.

The Russia Defence Ministry denied the aircraft ever left Syrian airspace, counter-claiming that their satellite data showed that the Sukhoi was about 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) inside Syrian airspace when it was shot down.[5] The U.S. State Department said that the U.S. independently confirmed that the aircraft’s flight path violated Turkish territory, and that the Turks gave multiple warnings to the pilot, to which they received no response and released audio recordings of the warnings they had broadcast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown
Moscow’s Grand Mosque Dedication – Published to YouTube by RT, September 23, 2015.

2016

MOSCOW — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized Monday for the downing of a Russian warplane in November and called for Russia and Turkey to mend a bilateral relationship that has become openly hostile over the incident.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkey-apologizes-for-shooting-down-russian-warplane-last-year/2016/06/27/d969e0ea-3c6d-11e6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_story.html – 6/27/2016

2019

Gazprom has started to fill the first branch of the offshore section of the Turkish Stream pipeline with natural gas. This is the final stage of testing the pipeline before putting it into operation later this year . . . .

. . . The first line is intended for the supply of Russian gas to Turkish consumers, the second – for gas supply to the countries of southern and southeast Europe.

https://financialtribune.com/articles/energy/100392/russia-begins-pumping-gas-into-turkish-stream-pipeline – 10/19/2019.

Erdoğan says his demand for a safe zone in Syria is rooted in Turkey’s war against terrorism. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Erdoğan says, is as much a threat as the Islamic State. That is of course nonsense: The SDF formed to fight Al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State at a time when Turkey was passively if not actively supporting them. Nor can Turkish officials credibly point to terrorist attacks from Kurdish-governed portions of Syria. Groups that evolved from the PKK are not monoliths: The SDF is progressive and moderate; any visit to the region makes clear that the group does not embrace the PKK’s Cold War-era Marxism. The PKK itself has long sought peace and does not attack civilians. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) splinter group continues to engage in terrorism, but they are based nowhere near Syria nor do they have any links to the SDF.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/turkeys-syria-policy-could-lead-its-own-destruction-89841 10/21/2019

In a recent article in Foreign Policy, my colleague Steven A. Cook argued that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was playing Washington like a fiddle. With a combination of bluffs, threats, and bluster, Erdogan managed to convince the United States to come up with an arrangement in northeastern Syria to prevent a Turkish invasion—an arrangement that comes at the expense of the Kurds, who have carried the brunt of the fighting against the Islamic State. Whatever one thinks of the Kurds, their determination and sacrifice should be treated as an international public good; they have stopped and destroyed one of the most dangerous and homicidal groups the modern world has known. The Turks by contrast have contributed nothing to this endeavor.

If Erdogan has succeeded in manipulating Washington, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, has played him to the hilt.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/03/putin-plays-erdogan-like-a-fiddle-syria/ – 9/3/2019.

Related on BackChannels

“Civilizational Narcissism”; “Malignant Narcissism”.

Also Related Online

Abadi, Cameron. “Why is Turkey Fighting Syria’s Kurds?” Foreign Policy (FP), October 17, 2019.

BBC News. “Qatar’s emir ‘gives $500m private jet to Turkey'”. September 17, 2018.

How Homeowner Erdogan Looks Online

Posted to YouTube by James Mac, December 28, 2014 – Primary Source: BBC News, “Erdogan presidential palace – in 60 seconds”, November 6, 2014.
Posted to YouTube by Global News, August 27, 2019.

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