[ROCKMAN]

Agent - Has that been officially acknowledge by anyone...especially the Turks? If so the lads at NATO command are probably about to piss in their pants. And the sh*t their pants if the Turks send up interceptors.

[AgentR11]

No one is going to officially acknowledge beans. Only if one of their fighters decides to commit suicide will Turkey be acknowleging that the Russian's are continuing to attack the border area, from within Syrian airspace.

I suspect the Russians will also be more careful, and will be lecturing navigators on the hazards of presuming familiarity = accuracy. I suspect their traffic controllers will also be more vigilant about making sure that if any Turkish jet takes a shot, it will be clear to all that the target never crossed the Syrian/Turkish border.

But... You can be very careful, and very effective at the same time. I like to think our pilots are generally speaking, very careful, and very effective when they have permission to actually hit a target.

[Cog]

All depends on how rational the various countries over there want to play it. The stupid factor can not be completely ignored.

[radon1]

GASMON - If Russia attacks Turk aircraft NATO, including the US ,is legally obligated to enter the battle.

Why is NATO obligated? Whom are they going to attack? There would be no invasion on the Turkish territory. Historically, such incidents have happened, on both sides, including Russia downing NATO aircraft. No escalations followed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/che ... s-in-1952/

Syria downed a Turkish plane in 2012, no NATO engagement followed.

[Cog]

The member states are obligated only if the nation that was attacked invokes Article 5 of the NATO treaty. That was not invoked by Turkey in this event or the event in 2012.

Should a wider spread war break-out between Russia and Turkey and Turkey does invoke Article 5, then all NATO countries are obligated to protect Turkey from further attacks.

Unlikely to occur unless Putin goes insane.

[Tanada]

S400s are now deployed.

Unless F22's will be doing the hunting, and no asymmetric response targets are available. Any Russian jet shot down will almost certainly result in one or more Turkish/US/NATO jets shot down during the engagement.

Law of War does not require you to restrict your return fire to the shooting aircraft. So even if an F22 fires the shot, any Turkish/NATO aircraft flying is a valid target for those S400's and those S400's can reach DEEEEEEEP into Turkey.

Consequently, its interesting that Russian bombardment of a Syria/Turkey border crossing, ie, right on the border, is underway.

Turkey took that shot yesterday because they knew the target would be unable to return fire, or even detect that it was fired upon until it was hit. That is no longer the case.

That raises an interesting question, if a return fire situation does develop there is always the chance that civilian airliners flying from Europe to India or other vacation locals will get caught in the cross fire.

[Keith_McClary]

That raises an interesting question, if a return fire situation does develop there is always the chance that civilian airliners flying from Europe to India or other vacation locals will get caught in the cross fire.

They are thinking about it:

Meanwhile, it seems the industry has become more aware of the risks of flying over conflict zones. Carriers regularly avoid Syria and Iraq, for example, creating a more densely populated route over Turkey and Iran on flights between Europe and the Middle East, said the European air network manager of Eurocontrol, Joe Sultana.

However there was still a substantial differences in the way airlines responded to Russia firing missiles from the Caspian Sea into Syria, affecting that corridor, Creamer said. Some rerouted flights for a day or two, others did not.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/ ... YMZMEZh.97

[Subjectivist]

That raises an interesting question, if a return fire situation does develop there is always the chance that civilian airliners flying from Europe to India or other vacation locals will get caught in the cross fire.

They are thinking about it:

Meanwhile, it seems the industry has become more aware of the risks of flying over conflict zones. Carriers regularly avoid Syria and Iraq, for example, creating a more densely populated route over Turkey and Iran on flights between Europe and the Middle East, said the European air network manager of Eurocontrol, Joe Sultana.

However there was still a substantial differences in the way airlines responded to Russia firing missiles from the Caspian Sea into Syria, affecting that corridor, Creamer said. Some rerouted flights for a day or two, others did not.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/ ... YMZMEZh.97

A only peripherally mentioned effect of war is when infrastructure gets smashed or people just route around danger zones they end up burning a lot of extra fossil fuel in the process. I wonder if say North Sudan makes any extra income from passengers routing down through Africa instead of overflying Turkey/Afganistan/Iraq/Syria?

[dissident]

S400s are now deployed.

Unless F22's will be doing the hunting, and no asymmetric response targets are available. Any Russian jet shot down will almost certainly result in one or more Turkish/US/NATO jets shot down during the engagement.

Law of War does not require you to restrict your return fire to the shooting aircraft. So even if an F22 fires the shot, any Turkish/NATO aircraft flying is a valid target for those S400's and those S400's can reach DEEEEEEEP into Turkey.

Consequently, its interesting that Russian bombardment of a Syria/Turkey border crossing, ie, right on the border, is underway.

Turkey took that shot yesterday because they knew the target would be unable to return fire, or even detect that it was fired upon until it was hit. That is no longer the case.

That raises an interesting question, if a return fire situation does develop there is always the chance that civilian airliners flying from Europe to India or other vacation locals will get caught in the cross fire.

Only if Erdo-turd-land shoots it down as was the case with MH17 and the NATO-installed Kiev regime. The S-300 and S-400 are not "fuzzy" about their target locks. And the operators of those systems will have all the flight path, transponder interaction and even high resolution information about the size of their target on demand and part of the targeting. Some civilian airliner cannot be confused with an F16. If one does go down then it is 100% setup job by NATO.

Russia knows that the NATO leadership is rotten and depraved so it will not fall for any bait. Erdo-turd-land is probably setting up a civilian airliner for a "fall" as we speak. Russia should just keep bombing the border crossings and all the ISIS subspecies vermin to oblivion.

[Cog]

Depends on how sober the S400 operators are. I would not have high hopes in that arena.

[ROCKMAN]

Agent - Might not be correct but this is how I now see the incident had developed: it didn't matter to the Turks if the Russian jet violated their airspace or not. The Russians were attacking enthnic Turks along the Syrian border. Additionally if the assumption about ISIS oil being shipped into Turkey is correct the Russian jet might have endangered those oil tankers.

The more I've thought about it the less likely it seems the Turks would risk a military conflict with Russia to just protect the integrity of their airspace.

[ROCKMAN]

Didn't take long for even ZeroHedge to jump on the "F*ck Turkey" bandwagon:

"Russia's Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", had this to say: "We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation" by Turkey. But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to Turkey has since canceled such plans).

As Sputnik transcribes, according to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed out that, "by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with ISIS." It was in this context when Lavrov added that "Turkey’s actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific objective."

More importantly, Lavrov pointed to Turkey’s role in the propping up the terror network through the oil trade. Per the Russian statement: "The Russian Minister reminded his counterpart about Turkey’s involvement in the ISIS’ illegal trade in oil, which is transported via the area where the Russian plane was shot down, and about the terrorist infrastructure, arms and munitions depots and control centers that are also located there." Others reaffirmed Lavrov's stance, such as retired French General Dominique Trinquand, who said that "Turkey is either not fighting ISIL at all or very little, and does not interfere with different types of smuggling that takes place on its border, be it oil, phosphate, cotton or people," he said.

The reason we find this line of questioning fascinating is that just last week in the aftermath of the French terror attack but long before the Turkish downing of the Russian jet, we wrote about "The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking" in which we asked who is the one "breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"

Precisely one week later, in even more tragic circumstances, suddenly everyone is asking this question. And while we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore "commodity trading" middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State's "terrorist oil" - that of Turkish president Erdogan's son: Bilal Erdogan."

[Cog]

Zerohedge manages to get it wrong most of the time. I use them to invest in the stock market by doing the exact opposite of what they recommend.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Zerohedge manages to get it wrong most of the time. I use them to invest in the stock market by doing the exact opposite of what they recommend.

+1

[ROCKMAN]

You boys do understand the most critical part of the article has nothing to do with what ZeroHedge thinks, don't you:

"Others reaffirmed Lavrov's stance, such as retired French General Dominique Trinquand, who said that "Turkey is either not fighting ISIL at all or very little, and does not interfere with different types of smuggling that takes place on its border, be it oil, phosphate, cotton or people," he said." Maybe the FRENCH general is just blowing smoke up our collective asses. Or maybe he's an unofficial voice of the French govt.

[Donetsk]

Turkey took that shot yesterday because they knew the target would be unable to return fire, or even detect that it was fired upon until it was hit. That is no longer the case.

Really, so they go through all of this just because there were no chances of losing an old f16 that's probably worth $ 2-3 million or something.
No, they ( and by they I mean NATO , not Turkey) planned this well ahead of time. NATO is utterly defenseless in Baltic region. NATO is very well positioned in Southern/east Turkey area. Muscovy is very strong in Baltic region. Muscovy is utterly weak and cannot do much in Southern TurkeyEast Turkey area.

NATO knew that turkish border is routinely violated. So it was a matter of picking a moment, that's it. Now, instead of threatening Baltic states and burning Ukraine the Kremlin's dwarf is shitting bricks on top of the biggest Kremlin's shithole thinking what to do now about the plane issue.
Not that he gives a shit about the plane or the pilot of course but a syndrome of a little guy and political ratings have to be tend to.
Cid mentioned Ukraine fucking with it's Crimean territory. He probably meant the detonation of two major power lines that supply Crimea with electricity. It doesn't sound as much but apparently it's a big deal over there, and it was a big deal for Putin. Hell, even his portraits on highways weren't illuminated.

I somehow pretty sure that two events are related. But the main point, of course, is to take Putin's attention away from defenseless Estonia and Latvia toward very well defended, mountainous Turkey where he can't do shit.

[AgentR11]

Mods... language. It may sound cool or tough in Russian... I dunno.. it sounds like the language an uneducated 12 year old would use here. Really kills any credibility your argument might have.

As to Estonia and Latvia; they are worthless to Russia; nothing they have there is not also provided by St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

As to power outage, thats not really that big a deal when you get right down to it. But the way it was done is a serious problem for Ukraine. It indicates firstly, that the Kiev government does not have control over even the territory that is supposedly loyal to them. Secondly it highlights a critical failing in Ukraine culture; in that they believe the supplier is the one doing the favor to the customer; and that is not the case in most situations, and definitely not the case when the customer is paying a premium rate, and paying the bill on time. And to have a premium rate paying customer that wants to talk to you as little as possible is like gold falling from heaven. Going out of your way to ditch such a customer, no matter what they look or smell like is absolutely insane. By their little stunt, they have proven to any and all that might choose Ukraine as a supplier of some material or service in the future; that UA is unreliable and does not understand proper, capitalistic customer service. Most corporations have no room on their books for such a supplier; it defeats the whole underlying structure of just in time processes. Purchasing needs to place an order for x, at $y, to be delivered on day z. Not Z+1, not some of x, and not a change of terms cause reasons. UA has proven they can not be trusted to do such a thing; and even if they truly desired to fulfill their contract to the letter, they could not be trusted to be able to prevent politically motivated bands of thugs from disrupting the production or delivery of the ordered material.

That little stupidness the Tartar children did with the powerlines will cost Ukraine billions of dollars in lost sales, and suboptimal price agreements, for years to come.

As to Russia's strength or weakness in the Baltics or Syria; they seem to have appropriate forces deployed in appropriate places to balance against NATO capabilities. If you can get the NATO Baltics to shell out some more cash with the use of a few insults and naughty words, that'd be great for us, shaking down Euros is always good business. But its otherwise boring. Syria on the other hand is an interesting exercise; it isn't worth beans to us, its worth something to Turkey, and its worth something to Russia, but not a lot. It has provided an excellent demonstration platform for Putin to display live fire use of each of his weapon systems; and a hit by an S400 against a modern F15 of F18 EA would be absolutely icing on the cake; and a hit on an F22 would be absolutely world altering. So he's in the right place, fishing with the right toy. Question is... do we allow ego to give him what he wants. A legal kill on a modern NATO aircraft, or do we cool our heels and wait patiently. He is blowing up Islamists.. mostly; and most of us are actually pretty alright with that result; I suspect after a while (1-2 years) the ISIS folks will lose capabilities, and Iraq will fill in from the East, and the Kurds from the North; and SE Syria is mostly just a wasteland, so that'll be a wrap. At that point, we could probably find a way to negotiate with Assad, we go away, he lets us have our pipelines, and just leave things as they sit. Only real national loser there will be Turkey, who'll end up with a much tougher Kurdistan on its border, and I'm sure by then, the Kurds will have bought, captured, or stolen plenty of those manpads and tow systems that have been pumped into the area.

[ROCKMAN]

A general summery from Reuters as to what appears to be the real reason behind the Russian shoot-down. Notice the common reference to the supposed inability of some to understand why the Russians are attacking all the rebel groups and not just ISIS. It's as if they don't understand the Russians are there to support the Assad govt against ALL ENEMIES...a FACT understood by the entire world.

Russian air strikes in northwest Syria have heavily targeted ethnic Turkmen areas, according to a Reuters data analysis that helps explain rising tensions between Moscow and Ankara in the weeks before Turkey shot down a Russian warplane. Turkey had condemned Russia's bombing of towns and villages in the north of Syria's western Latakia province, areas it says belong to Syrian Turkmen, who are Syrians of Turkish descent.

Russian Defence Ministry data, collated by Reuters, shows the bombing raids have struck at least 17 named locations in Turkmen areas since President Vladimir Putin ordered them to begin on Sept. 30. Russian missiles have destroyed ammunition bunkers, command points and a suicide bomb factory in towns that are ethnically Turkmen. Salma, which has a majority Turkmen population, has been bombed on at least eight occasions and has found itself at the center of some of the most geographically concentrated strikes. Russian jets have hit 15 separate named targets within a 8 mile radius of the town, which is used as a base by Turkish-backed rebels in their fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "The Russians were heavily bombing Turkmen villages before the downing of the plane," said Samir Alo, head of the Higher Council of Turkmen in Syria. "Thousands of Turkmen families have been driven to the border."

Turkey, the United States and other NATO members say Russia is also hitting rebels opposed to Assad and fighting against Islamic State, allowing the militants to make advances on the battlefield.
Moscow says it only targets Islamic State and what it describes as other terrorist groups in Syria. A Syrian Kurdish leader said on Friday Ankara had shot down the Russian bomber because the groups it backed were losing territory.

"Turkmen are Turkey's ethnic kin but the world should understand that there is a bigger issue at stake here," said a senior Turkish official. "We are extremely worried that the anti-Islamic State coalition is being weakened by these bombardments. "How could a campaign against Islamic State be conducted by bombing these rebels which are actually battling Islamic State?"

{One has to question that last statement IMHO given what we know now about the Turks helping ISIS to fund operations by assisting in their oil sales. So the Turks are supporting rebels fighting ISIS while they are also providing significant support to ISIS? What's wrong with that picture? Seems more likely those rebels are supporting ISIS...or at the least not engaging them.}

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said this week that there are no Islamic State militants in Latakia and the area just to the north, which have been targeted by both Russian bombardment and Syrian government forces. He said 300 moderate Syrian rebels, including many Turkmen, had been killed in over a month. Turkmen have lived in northwest Syria since traveling there to fight as part of a Muslim campaign against European crusaders in the Middle Ages. Officials estimate 300,000 Turkmen used to live in northern Latakia but Murat Kavakdan, Syria coordinator for the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, said as few as 25,000 remain as a result of Syria's four-year-civil war, which has displaced more than six million people. A Reuters analysis in October found that almost 80 percent of Russian targets in Syria in the first three weeks of its air campaign were on groups other than Islamic State.

[dissident]

https://www.rt.com/news/323861-turkey-g ... iolations/

Turkey stopped violating Greek airspace after Russian Su-24 downing - Athens source

Turkish warplanes abruptly ceased violating Greek airspace after downing a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber on November 24. Previously, air intrusions made by Turkish fighter jets took place on a daily basis and amounted to thousands a year.

The data comes from a diplomatic source in Athens, cited by RIA Novosti.

The last time Turkish warplanes were spotted in Greek airspace was on November 25, when six jets, two of them carrying weapons, entered the neighbor’s aerial domain.

Looks like Erdo-turd-land has lost some of its cockiness.