The Turkish president understands that the West will have to learn to live as just one of several centers of world power
On the occasion of NATO’s 75th anniversary meeting, only two leaders of NATO member states dared openly speak about issues that in a reasonable organization shaped by mutual respect that seeks the most effective and responsible policies would be the subject of intense debate among all members. The president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, made their dissent clear on the eve of the meeting. A third leader, Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, issued an urgent warning afterwards, arguing that making Ukraine a NATO member – not the same as the misguided but fortunately non-binding talk about ‘irreversibility’ that the meeting proudly produced – would be a “guarantee of World War III.”
Both Erdogan and Orban broke with the conformism that is the unwritten law of NATO now more than ever. Instead of simply following the often misguided and selfish lead of the US, they signaled three things: Rational dissent on policy reflecting both reason and national interests; that such dissent is normal, useful, and should be welcome; and that they won’t join in the ideological and detrimental groupthink that suppresses dissent inside NATO, and more broadly, the Collective West.
Orban delivered his dose of healthy independence through diplomacy, traveling to Kiev, Moscow, and Beijing on the eve of the summit (meeting with former and likely future US President Donald Trump was just a final touch). Erdogan made his views explicit most of all in an important set of statements in the American magazine Newsweek.
Türkiye, it is worth recalling in this context, has the second-largest military in NATO. Its officers and troops have extensive experience in actual military operations, its arms industry is both growing and constantly modernizing, and last but not least, its location, spanning Europe and Western Asia and controlling access to the Black Sea, is as strategically significant as can be. For all these reasons, it is fair to say that Erdogan’s intervention was especially important. ....more below
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
