Do we though? Article 5 of NATO talks about a united response when NATO members are attacked in Europe and North America. The bit of Turkey likely to be hit by Syria is firmly in Asia. The spirit of Article 5, I think, is very much in favour of leaping to Turkey's assistance, but there are certain members of NATO who may use it to worm their way out.

@octavious - the NATO allies don't need to worm their way out of taking any action. They are obliged to take any action they deem necessary. If they don't deem it necessary they don't need to do anything. What article 5 does is allow members to interpret an attack on an ally as an attack on itself which allows for any and all responses under the UN article 51. The measures taken need not be defensive, by the way, if turkey invokes article 5 the US and NATO could basically do whatever they like to Syria including a full invasion /annexation / and or nuking it to oblivion.

I would be very surprised if there weren't some rider saying Turkey's Asian area was covered. The purpose of excluding places outside Europe and North America is to no commit members to fighting to protect each others' colonial territories, not to wiggle out of conflict on technicalities. After all, a big reason Turkey was even admitted to NATO was to keep the Dardanelles out of Soviet hands. If Article 5 is supposed to be hyper-literal then the Russians could have just invaded the eastern shore and not triggered a NATO collective response.

And at any rate Octavious, the only NATO members who matter from a military perspective are the United States, France, and Great Britain. Whether Luxembourg or Latvia comes along doesn't matter all that much.

@ Invictus

NATO is not what it used to be. I have no doubts that if the Soviet hordes had entered Turkey then the NATO of the cold war would have reacted in perfect unison. The NATO of the modern age is a very different beast, far less inclined to fight, and far more eager to look for ways to avoid it.

Yes, the only significant offensive forces in NATO belong to Britain, France and the US (well, almost entirely to the US really), but military might is far less important to the hawks of this world than the political show of a score of democratic countries in firm support of military action.

If Assad attacks Turkey and NATO does nothing then we may as well dissolve it.

NATO would have to jump to Turkey's aid if they get attacked, even if that's only three countries. That's practically written in stone.

I would like to see America withdraw from NATO and the UN.

We could get rid of the piece-of-shit M9 and issue *real* handguns again!

But seriously, at this point NATO is a relic from a bygone era.

Gunfigther, your are a strange child.

Gunfighter is largely right, although it is a relic I have a lot of fondness for and wish can continue. But anyway...

@ Bo et al

If Assad were to invade Turkey with a mighty army then yes, I dare say NATO would (after arguments about who does what, and complaints about dragging of feet etc) take decisive action.

But Assad won't do that. If he does anything it will be a few 'stay' missiles and the like close to the border, to see what international reaction will be. If sod all happens he might be emboldened enough to launch a strike on suspected rebels in Turkish territory. Then we will see what the NATO of the modern age is made of. My guess is they will be as united as the security council.

I disagree octavious - if turkey is attacked in any way it allows the Obama to by-pass congress and treat the attack as if it were an attack on the USA itself. Cameron would do the same and if he still wanted to go to the House of Commons they would have to vote for military action. All other countries owe their long term stability to being under NATO's protection so they will have to support any US led reaction by providing military assistance. Could you see NATO countries committing to protect say luxamberg, Belgium or Albania if they didn't supply some troops when the US//UK comes a calling?

On a slightly different tangent has this recent crisis set back any hope of removing Iranian nuclear capacity? I could never see US contemplating firing a shot across Assad's bows if Syria held nuclear weapons. Is Iran looking on thinking, west invaded Iraq, Libya, Syria etc because they couldn't fight back. Are Iranian nuclear weapons now critical to their survival?

It possibly would, but neither Obama or Cameron have any great appertite for a ground campaign. At most we would have something similar to Libya.

As far as Iran goes, have they not always thought this?

What is the difference of someone kill a lot of people with quimical weapons and someone making the same executions with a sword.
Are we looking to the right thing here?
Yes we are, Assad needs to be punished and demoted from power.
As well other liders specially in Africa that are using the same end as assad did.
But as we know there isn't really any advantage in helping those poor people that on a daily bais are being tortured killed and violated, what a shame we should feel from ourselves.

Has Assad not already 'attacked' Turkey? Or at least the two are fighting proxy wars, where the Turkish Islamist government suports Islamist terror groups, and the Syrian Assad government supports Turkey's PKK seperatist Kurd terrorists (at least under EU/US definition of who are terrorists)

Syria has give up control of the Kurdish Syrian areas in the north, and as a result Turkey has close the border to these regions. While the Kurds there have setuo a 'transitional' government and their militia (linked closely to Turkish Kurds, and not the Iraqi Kurds) has fought Islamist who dislike their secular way of life - (note: 40% of the Kurdish militia are female, in a complete break from any other tradiion or cultural norms of the region, with the possible exception of Israel, and with the Turkish border closed to them, Kurdish refugees have fled to the most peaceful part of Iraq, the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq...)

Oh, did i mention Syria looks less like a 'country' and the conventional way of think about most of these issues is probably not useful?

@ orathaic

I considered a rant about how America's NATO membership was/is responsible for the ASININE decision to adopt the M9 to replace the far superior M1911, but I decided against it. No reason to derail the thread.

Anyway, back to Syria. This is a civil war and I anticipate that there will be no significant spillover (other than refugees) to other countries. Assad has nothing to gain by provoking Turkey, either directly or via proxies.

"I would like to see America withdraw from NATO and the UN."

Withdrawing from NATO means European countries will have to have their own militaries again. That's never gone badly, right?

Withdrawing from the UN means America's ability to influence global events will lessen. UN membership carries no significant costs and yet gives significant gains. Wanting to withdraw is a point of view that belongs only to crazy John Birch Society types, which I didn't think you were.


Also, Firefox doesn't seem to have "militaries" in its dictionary. Kinda weird.

"This is a civil war and I anticipate that there will be no significant spillover (other than refugees) to other countries."

Refugees are pretty damn significant. Especially to Jordan, already bursting at the seams with Palestinian and Iraqi refugees. If the presence of these refugees leads to some level of instability on Jordan we'll have an extremely big mess on our hands, since that government is a cornerstone of our strategic position in the region. IF anything happens in Jordan you can kiss any hope of a Palestinian state goodbye, since even Israeli doves will never withdraw from the West Bank if there's not a stable ally just across the river.

But you're already wrong about non-refugee spillover anyway. The civil war is going on right now in Lebanon too. We often forget, but the eastern part of Syria is geographically part of Mesopotamia. Syria goes right up to the Tigris in its extreme northeast. It's just a matter of walking to get to loads of places in Iraq, and since there's no American presence there anymore outside of our Vatican-sized embassy it's quite plausible that any escalation of the civil war in Syria could spread to include Iraq. Iraq has elections due in 2014. There's every reason to think the Syrian Civil War will still be going on, and post-election unrest in Iraq could totally lead to the conflict spreading there.

I have largely kept my mouth shut on the topic of Syria. For one, I shall be the first to admit that I do not have an extensive background on the subject. Also, I would feel uncomfortable criticizing the efforts of rebels who are targeting an administration so frequently associated with human rights violations.

But I cannot help but bear a strong degree of skepticism that American intervention will produce anything positive for the long-term interests of the Syrian people. I bring this up not to express a viewpoint one way or the other, but rather to give people pause to think, the very people who are about to close the hatches to their tanks and charge full scale in.

If you have a moment, please have a read of this article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23997249

@ Invictus

My response to your two most recent comments can be summed up by two letters and a question mark: So?

I no longer understand why America must be involved in everything, or anything for that matter. I understand that the world is continually shrinking with every advancement in transportation and communication technology, but there is still an awful lot of open water between America and everyone else, excepting Canada and Mexico.

I'm not advocating all-out isolationism, but a long period of non-interventionism would do us a lot of good.

Actually, you are advocating isolationism. Like it or not, a general Middle East war would effect us here. The world beyond America will continue to exist whether we engage it or not, better to have a say in shaping the outcome than to just have to suffer whatever is thrown at us.

I'm against intervention in Syria under the current plan, but it's just not possible for us to stay out should the conflict spread to Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, or Israel.

I don't see what's so bad about isolationism. Also, an intervention won't be to save the poor people of Syria, no one in Washington gives 2 shits about Syrians, this is about eliminating Russia's sphere of influence in the region.

A nation that depends on global trade cannot afford to be isolationist. Aside from that, when nation's population is made up of significant numbers of people from all four corners of the globe what happens in the globe is personal. It becomes much harder to ignore some far away foreigners gasing other far away foriegners when the foreigner being gassed to death is the Nan of Mo from across the street.

Isolationism would be sealing our borders and refusing to engage in dialogue with other countries.

Non-interventionism, as I imagine it, would consist of tight borders, high tariffs on any countries with whom we have a trade deficit (with low/nonexistent tariffs on countries with whom we do not have a trade deficit), very discreet overseas military presence, and absolute refusal to use military force (outside of areas historically inside our sphere of influence, such as the Caribbean and Central America) unless we are directly attacked. Engage in diplomacy with any country who desires to have dialogue or friendly relations with us.

Seriously, why do we have to publicly condemn the Assad regime when we don't even have conclusive proof that he was behind the gas rocket attack? We should not be the world's color commentator. Let Assad stay in power if he wins the war. Let the rebels overthrow Assad if they win the war.

Military isolationism and economic isolationism are different things. Military isolationism is very achievable and to me beneficial. Economic isolationism is rarely beneficial, and even if we could make what we need for ourselves, we can make more and live better through international trade with those nations that are currently supplying us (i.e the ones with which we have a trade deficit). That's basic economics; doesn't take a class to understand that.

So the us should withdraw from the organization that provides it with a perminant unchallenged veto.

@ bo_sox48

Completely free trade is working against us right now. We're getting fucked by other countries' manufacturing and cheap labor.

@ HumanWave

Yeah, why not?

You're just redefining non-interventionism to suit your needs. And you're not even meeting the literal definition of the term, since you still allow for the use of force against our weak little Latin American and Caribbean neighbors in the absence of a direct attack on ourselves. As for the tariffs, that's a very bad idea for very obvious reasons to anyone who knows even a little about economics. Seriously dude, Pat Buchanan is right about a lot of things but not about this economic nationalism nonsense.

The authentic non-interventionist position is actually mine: no intervention in Syria unless there is an attack on the United States or its interests (embassies, shipping, etc.) or allies.

"Completely free trade is working against us right now. We're getting fucked by other countries' manufacturing and cheap labor."

We're losing manufacturing jobs, yes. But one the whole free trade makes people better off thanthey would be without it. I agree one-way free trade (as exists to a certain extent with China) is bad and ought to be addressed, but that's a far cry from building huge, 30s style tariff walls.