Nuclear War Over Turkey Shooting Down Russian Jet ‘Likely’
Russia’s Top Defense Analyst
By Polina Tikhonova on November 25, 2015 5:38 am in Politics, Russia
Is Turkey downing a Russian plane going to spark World War 3? That’s the question everybody has been asking today. The answer is: it’s going to spark a nuclear war, according to Russian defense analysts familiar with the downing of the jet.
The Turkish military said it had shot down a Russian warplane early in the morning on Tuesday, triggering a furious response from the Kremlin and escalating the already hot tensions in the Syrian conflict.
Turkey said two of their F-16s shot down the Russian Su-24 attack aircraft after it violated Turkish airspace, according to USA Today. The Turkish military issued 10 warnings in five minutes before bringing down the Russian jet.
However, Russia’s defense ministry denies the warplane ever breached Turkey’s airspace. NATO and U.S. defense officials later confirmed the Russian jet briefly entered the airspace of the NATO member – Turkey.
“As we have repeatedly made clear, we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our NATO ally, Turkey,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after an emergency meeting of NATO.
So what are the chances that Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to give a brutal response to the downing of Russia’s warplane by Turkish forces? According to Russian defense analysts, the chances are very high.
Despite the fact that Turkey is backed by NATO’s 5th Article, which states that an attack on one Ally shall be considered an attack on all NATO members, the chances that Putin will unleash a nuclear war over the Tuesday incident are very “likely,” according to Pavel Felgenhauer, Russia’s most respected military analyst.
Felgenhauer said Turkey is seeking to protect a zone in northern Syria controlled by its allies, the Turkmens, while the downing of the Russian jet in the region must prompt Moscow to either accept the zone or “start a war with Turkey,” which means starting a war with NATO.
And the only way Russia could win a war against NATO is by going nuclear, Felgenhauer said.
“It is most likely that it will be war,” said Felgenhauer, as reported by Mirror. “In other words, more fights will follow when Russian planes attack Turkish aircraft in order to protect our [Russia’s] bombers. It is possible that there will be fights between the Russian and Turkish navies at sea.”
Russia’s top defense analyst also warned that Ankara will probably shut down the Bosphorus, and other NATO members will join this conflict, thus unleashing an all-out war with Russia. The Bosphorus is the only way by which Russia’s mighty Black Sea fleet can reach the Mediterranean.
“And in such a conflict Russia has very little chance unless it uses its nuclear weapons,” Felgenhauer warned.
But a nuclear war involving NATO and Russia “would probably spell, if not the end of humanity, the end of any possibility of a comfortable future for humanity,” as reported by ValueWalk, citing Press TV’s interview with Don DeBar, U.S. political analyst.
Turkey downing the Russian jet on Tuesday is the most alarming military indecent between a NATO member country and Russia in half a century. And with Vladimir Putin warning of “serious consequences,” U.S. President Barack Obama is already trying to avoid escalation.
After an emergency meeting in Washington, French President Francois Hollande and Obama issued a joint statement, in which they called on Putin to avoid escalation, according to RT.
“Turkey, like every country, has the right to defend its territory and its airspace,” Obama said, defending the Turkish side of the conflict but admitting that he had no details on the incident yet.
Putin called the bombing of the Russian warplane a “crime” and stressed that Moscow will never tolerate it. The Russian President added that the Su-24 plane crash in Syria goes beyond normal struggle against terrorism, and it is “a stab in Russia’s back delivered by terrorist accomplices,” as reported by ITAR-TASS.
“I understand each country has its own regional interests, and we have always respected that. But we shall never tolerate crimes like today’s one,” the Russian leader said on Tuesday following a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II.
“Today’s loss is linked with a stab in our back delivered by terrorism accomplices. I can’t characterize otherwise what has happened today,” Putin said, accusing Turkey of financing and protecting ISIS.
On Oct. 31, ISIS claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian passenger plane in Egypt. A total of 224 people, including 17 children, were killed in the plane crash.
Moreover, ISIS described how it bombed the Russian plane over three weeks ago in the latest publication of its propaganda magazine, Dabiq, also featuring an image of what appears to be the bomb that was placed in a soft drink can.
Putin also noted that Turkey’s contacts with NATO members after the bombing of the Su-24 jet on Tuesday look like an attempt to make the Alliance serve terrorists.
The question is whether Obama is capable of leading NATO at a serious time like this one? Turkey will obviously want to feel secured and protected from Russia’s possible military response, which is why it will be expecting the U.S. to have its back.
But has Obama enough authority to prevent Turkey and Russia from escalating the conflict into a nuclear war? And if he fails to do so, is he capable of leading NATO into a nuclear war with Russia?
