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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1368 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 25, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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NATO Updates

Turkish parliament has finally signed off on Swedish ascension to NATO. I had worried if the recent flareup of attacks by the Kurdish Workers Party would derail things but the measure seems to have sailed through.

The legislators ratified Sweden’s accession protocol by 287 votes to 55, with four abstentions. It will come into effect after its publication in the Official Gazette, which is expected to be swift.

Which leaves only one holdout:

Hungary then becomes the only NATO ally not to have ratified Sweden’s accession…

Hungary has also stalled Sweden’s bid, alleging that Swedish politicians have told “blatant lies” about the condition of Hungary’s democracy. Hungary has said it would not be the last to approve accession, although it was not clear when the Hungarian parliament intends to hold a vote.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced Tuesday that he sent a letter to his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, inviting him to Budapest to discuss Sweden’s entry into NATO.

Meanwhile, NATO has finally finalized a contract to continue supplying Ukraine with ammunition:

NATO signed on Tuesday a $1.2-billion contract to make tens of thousands of artillery rounds to replenish the dwindling stocks of its member countries as they supply ammunition to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia’s invasion.

The contract will allow for the purchase of 220,000 rounds of 155-millimeter ammunition, the most widely sought after artillery shell, according to NATO’s support and procurement agency. It will allow allies to backfill their arsenals and to provide Ukraine with more ammunition….

Ukraine was firing around 4,000 to 7,000 artillery shells each day last summer, while Russia was launching more than 20,000 shells daily in its neighbor’s territory, according to European Union estimates…

But the shells will not arrive quickly — delivery on orders takes anywhere from 24 to 36 months, the NATO agency said.

The European Union plans to produce 1 million artillery rounds for Ukraine have fallen short, with only about a third of the target met. Senior EU officials have said that they now expect the European defense industry to be producing around one million shells annually by the end of this year.

According to Reuters, Turkey got permission to buy F-16s in exchange for allowing Sweden to join NATO: “Ankara's delays had frustrated some of its Western allies and enabled it to extract some concessions. But Flake, who was envoy throughout the process, said Sweden addressed Turkey's "very legitimate security needs" in that time.”

https://archive.is/iMYgT#selection-1903.0-1926.0

I totally understand why things shook out this way--but I also think this will be interpreted, in Russian foreign policy circles, as evidence that some of the stuff Putin has been saying about NATO being a threat, is true. After all, this is letting a border country join NATO in exchange for selling fighter jets to yet another border country...there's a reason Russians think NATO is threatening their borders.

Sigh.

If something is confused why Russian neighbours decided to get into NATO as soon as possible and thinks that reason is NATO being aggressive against Russia...

Then they consumed far too much Russian propaganda or they are trolling.

in exchange for selling fighter jets to yet another border country...

If they do not want to be shot down by Turkey again I would recommend not flying their war planes without permission within Turkey.

there's a reason Russians think NATO is threatening their borders.

The reason is that Russia confused "blocking expansion of Russia when it is done by starting wars and invading other countries" with "NATO is threatening their borders".

There's nothing particularly unusual for Russian FoPo folks to react from the F-16 deal, they know Turkey is part of NATO and there's a long history of us selling them fighter jets and tens of billions worth of arms - the recent pause is more of an aberration.

It isn't just "Turkey is a NATO member". Turkey had been fighting proxy wars with Russia in Syria and Armenia-Azerbaijan (although Russia has now largely abandoned Armenia) and has been selling Bayraktar drones to Russia's enemies (rather famously including Ukraine) in large quantities.

Historically, the Ottoman Empire was the permanent hereditary enemy of Russia. As far as I can see Russia and Turkey have been friendly for about 30 years out of the last 500 (the 1920's and the immediate post-Cold War period).

Turkey have been friendly for about

count Napoleonic wars, too

I wanted to check that out, and it turned out to be harder than it looks - wikipedia lists the Ottoman Empire as fighting on both sides of the Napoleonic Wars! Russian-Ottoman relations during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are, appropriately, Byzantine. But they seem to be on the same (anti-French) side by accident from the time Napoleon invades Egypt in 1798 until the Ottomans attack Russia opportunistically in 1806. So add another 8 years if you count countries that happened to be fighting Napoleon at the same time for different reasons as "friendly".

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