semperannoying: Dogfight over the Aegean Sea. In colour, a Greek Mirage 2000 locking on a Turkish F-
semperannoying: Dogfight over the Aegean Sea. In colour, a Greek Mirage 2000 locking on a Turkish F-16 in May. In black and white, a Turkish F-16 locking on a Greek F-16 a couple of days ago. Mock air battles between the two nations is business as usual: Turkey violated Greek airspace 4811 times in 2019 alone, leading to 384 mock dogfights. However, the political background is slightly different, this time, with Turkish claim on part of Greek and Cypriot EEZ and the subsequent deal between Ankara and Tripoli. Ankara is on the offensive, -diplomatically and militarily speaking- in the whole region and getting involved in several conflicts and countries (including Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan, Libya and Yemen). The slowly but surely faltering Turkish economy might spur Erdogan to carry on squaring up to its neighbours to distract his population from what’s happening at home. Battle lines are slowly being drawn, with several regional countries seemingly ready to support Greece, including UAE, Israel and Egypt. The European Union is as usual extremely floppy and flappy. While the EU officially vocally supports Greece, nobody is sure of how far this support would go. Brussels currently can’t agree on a support package for Greece or a sanction package for Turkey. President Macron of France is the only European leader so far that has thrown his support behind Greece unequivocally. However, to be fair, it is good to remind ourselves that the EU stopped arms sales to Turkey in October 2019 when Ankara rolled out yet another military operation against the Syrian Kurdish enclave. The move was initiated by Berlin and several other EU and NATO member states followed. While it is still unlikely to see two NATO member states go to war with one another, there is no diplomatic solution in sight, as we speak. Turkey escalates its claims. Athens refuses to back down. The two sides seem to be digging in. Popular opinion in both countries are being polarised and heated red hot by their respective leaders and media. The situation has indeed the potential to become extremely volatile. -- source link