Five decades of challenging diplomatic alliance held the NATO member-countries in unity but shattered in seconds, when Turkey downed a Russian jet claimed to be flying in Syrian airspace.
NATO had been able to keep its cool composure and careful handling of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the three decades globally catastrophic threats of the nuclear arms race and more than a decade long “world – war” igniting incidents.
Russia had tested the limits of NATO member-countries in several occasions to include the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, Afghanistan war with the Soviet Union back in 1979, nuclear weapon deployment in Western Europe in the 1980s. But NATO did not make any haphazard response and Moscow had not taken on any NATO member-country.
In less than a minute, Turkey a NATO-member country had shaken the stand of the 28 country-strong alliance when it shot down a Russian war jet.
NATO is a military alliance organized by North America and Western Europe after World War II with the aim to defend each other in case of aggression and suppression by other countries.
The Soviet Union has been trying to knock off balance NATO’s united stand in various occasions and in several places like sending its planes and bombers to the Baltic airspace, UK’s coast, the destabilization of the Ukraine and takeover of Crimea.
NATO’s efforts to end the Syrian war, with Turkey’s action opened a loophole that could usher in Russia’s victory in disintegrating the NATO military alliance.
But, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared a firm stand, after an emergency meeting on Tuesday that the coalition will support Turkey. Even U.S. President Barack Obama stressed that “Turkey had the right to defend its airspace”. This is a statement that showed support to Turkish President Erdogan’s squandering act to take down a Russian plane, which was on Turkish airspace in more or less seconds per U.S. calculations.
To their surprise, non NATO country- observers and other NATO member-countries, can now view Turkey “as a loose cannon, an unstable element in a very combustible situation” that may at anytime blown out the alliance calmness that even weathered the challenges of the Cold War.
