Russia-Turkey and Surrogate Warfare Charles Elias Chartouni/October 28/2020 شارل الياس شرتوني: روسيا وتركيا والحرب البديلة
The latest Russian retaliatory strikes on the Turkish affiliated Syrian rebels highlight the forthcoming conflict dynamics between the two, and their overlapping strategic landscapes extending between the Caucasus, the Mediterranean waters and the Arab hinterland.
The Turkish and Russian forays and the checkmating game all along the rainbow extending between the Middle East, Northeast Africa and Southern Caucasus are quite indicative of exponential conflicts that are likely to nurture domestic instability, expand the scope of strategic voids, and question international civility and the likelihood of UN arbitration and negotiated conflict resolution all along the widening spectrum of hostilities.
The Russian military strikes aim at drawing strategic limes, setting a limit to the discretionary inroads attempted by Erdogan, and containing his inclination to instrumentalize Islamist terrorism in his subjugation tactics.
This firm message should be seized by NATO to reinvest the variegated conflict landscapes, impose international mediations and negotiated solutions, and bring back diplomacy and UN arbitration to the foreground of imploding geopolitics.
Containment and cooptation are preliminaries if we were to oversee geopolitical stabilization, negotiated conflict resolution and State building, and put an end to this state of open ended conflicts, Islamic militancy and nihilism.
The Russian bludgeoning is timely and of good omen to redress strategic imbalances, sustain the ongoing international arbitration showcased in Lybia, sound a dire warning in the Caucasus, stabilize the tectonics of the Syrian-Iraqi marshes, and convey a sobering message to the Iranians.
Nonetheless, short of an overall Western containement strategy, relayed by a comprehensive scheme of normalization, peace making and State building, this strategic arc of conflict is likely to perpetuate and become a major source of international instability, widespread incivility and nihilistic drifts and proliferation of Islamic totalitarian proclivities (Islam neigt zum Totalitären/Islam totalitarian proclivities, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Der Spiegel, 18, 2003 ).
