Turkey has apparently shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter-bomber on its border with Syria, claiming yet another airspace violation. This time, its F-16 interceptors decided to pull the trigger.
Vladimir Putin is calling the incident a "stab in the back", while Foreign Minister Lavrov has cancelled a trip to Turkey. Beyond this, though, basic strategic reality limits the potential fallout with regard to the Syrian peace process.
Direct Russian retaliation against Turkish interests is a practical impossibility: Russia needs the Dardanelles no less today than a century ago during the Allied fiasco at Gallipoli, and Erdogan seems to be reminding Putin that the latter's present air campaign is only possible because of the free passage of Russian shipping from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the narrow, Turkish-controlled channel. This is Turkey's way of telling Russia not to get too carried away by its new role as key power broker in the region - that role is subject to a Turkish veto.
Strong elements within the Turkish military - traditionally that country's strongest institution - have doubtless been seething with rage over Russia's repeated (though definitely unintended, inevitable pass-through) incursions into its airspace over the past eight weeks. From the start, Moscow's intervention has been a huge embarrassment to Anakara, given that President Erdogan has risked so much since 2011 to help topple the hated Assad regime - his open southern border with Syria has, to this day, been the main conduit for anti-Assad rebel groups, including various non-ISIS radical jihadists with Al Qaeda affiliations, to funnel men and materiel to the northwest Syrian front lines that are the key to the nearly five-year-old civil war.
But Turkey's anger seems to have boiled over in the past week or so, with a new Russo-Syrian campaign in the far north against her kindred Turkmen in the border highlands. The signature "dumb bombing" by both Russian and Syrian air power claiming a large civilian toll among the mountain Turkmen tribes has crossed something of a red line, and by shooting down the Russian jet (whose two pilots bailed out but were apparently then killed by ground fire), Ankara is sending a message of extreme displeasure to the Kremlin.
Putin's in something of a bind, but he won't jeopardize the fundamental relationship with Turkey over one lost jet and crew; he may yet scale back the assault on the Turkmen enclave, even if it upsets Assad. There's almost nothing to be gained trying to get even; in the objective view, it was Turkey that somehow had to get even after two humiliating months. Perhaps Putin has indeed underestimated Erdogan's resolve to imitate his own strongman rule; that should make it easy to deal with him.
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