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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 26-Dec-2019
26-Dec-19 World View -- Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean

Web Log - December, 2019

26-Dec-19 World View -- Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean

Turkey's Erdogan threatens Greece and Europe with Idlib refugees

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Turkey's Erdogan threatens Greece and Europe with Idlib refugees
Libya's Tripoli government asks Turkey for ground troops
Turkey-Libya maritime agreement threatens eastern Mediterranean peace
Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean

Turkey's Erdogan threatens Greece and Europe with Idlib refugees

Over 120,000 civilians are fleeing their homes in Idlib and heading for Turkey's border (Sky News)

Over 120,000 civilians are fleeing their homes in Idlib and heading for Turkey's border (Sky News)

As Syria's sociopathic monster president Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, continues to escalate his assault on the 3.5 million Arab Sunnis in Idlib province, including about 1.5 million children. Among those 3.5 million people, there are some 70,000 anti-Assad rebels.

According to some reports, Assad's strategy is to attack markets, residential neighborhoods, schools and hospitals in order to kill as many women and children as possible, and force the rest to flee towards the border with Turkey.

According to reports, some 120,000 civilians have abandoned their homes and are fleeing north towards the border with Turkey. Then, according to these reports, al-Assad's ground forces can move into the villages that have been deserted by these civilians and supposedly the only ones left are that men who are fighting against al-Assad.

In a speech on Sunday, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey is already hosting 3.7 million Syrian refugees. For the past three years, Turkey has had an agreement Greece and the European Union to block Syrian refugees from leaving Turkey. Turkey has mostly kept to that agreement, while the EU has reneged on most of the commitments it made.

Erdogan on Sunday said that Turkey cannot handle a "new refugee wave" from Syria, and that the new influx will be felt by Greece and "will be felt by all European countries." Most Syrian refugees want to go to Europe anyway, and the implementation is that Turkey will no longer try to prevent them from doing so.

In the past, Russia and Turkey have agreed that Idlib will be a de-escalation zone, or a ceasefire zone. All those agreements about ceasefire zones were never more than covers for further further assaults by Syria and Russia. But now Assad has reached the Idlib deescalation zone, so Russia's support for Assad makes Russia Turkey's enemy.

Russian officials are claiming that they are working for peace in Idlib, but Russian officials never tell the truth except by accident. So far, it's impossible to determine what Russia's plans are in Idlib, whether to help Assad or to stop al-Assad. We'll probably know within the next few months, but al-Assad has always made it clear that he plans to take control of Idlib and exterminate the 3.5 million Arab Sunni civilians living there, so I would consider it unlikely that Russia will stop al-Assad's genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Libya's Tripoli government asks Turkey for ground troops

As we reported last week, the war in Libya is also escalating. ( "21-Dec-19 World View -- War in Libya escalates as Tripoli receives military aid from Turkey")

Turkey had promised weapons and military advisers to the government, but during the last few days, the Tripoli government has made a request for ground troops from Turkey.

There are two governments in Libya. The internationally recognized Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and the renegade Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA), led by General Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar has been trying for three years lead his Libyan National Army to defeat the Tripoli government, with little success. During the last few months, Russia's president Vladimir Putin has made his private army, the Wagner PMC Mercenary Group, available to Haftar, and now they are leading the military effort to defeat Tripoli.

And so, as in Idlib, Russia and Turkey are on opposite sides of the battle, and, as in Idlib, Russian officials are claiming that they're negotiating for peace.

As I wrote in 2015, Turkey and Russia have been bitter enemies for centuries, and have fought numerous generational crisis wars. ( "25-Nov-15 World View -- Turkey shoots down Russian warplane, evoking memories of many Crimean wars".)

Any alliance made between the two countries today could only be a temporary marriage of convenience. Turkey is so thoroughly isolated in the region that it needs support from Russia. Russia is totally duplicitous and appears to be playing all sides to see which one wins.

Turkey-Libya maritime agreement threatens eastern Mediterranean peace

As we reported in last week's article, there was a second agreement signed by Libya and Turkey on the same day as the military agreement: A maritime agreement that claims a shared exclusive economic zone (EEZ) consisting of a 200-mile wide strip that splits much of the eastern Mediterrean between them.

The claimed region is rich in oil and gas, and makes the Libya-Turkey agreements much more important than Turkey merely helping out a friend in Libya. If the maritime agreement could be upheld, it would mean a great deal of energy money pouring into Turkey's coffers.

The agreement is almost certainly illegal, as the claimed region overlaps regions historically belonging to Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel. Furthermore, it would block a planned Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum agreement signed by Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and Greece earlier this year, along with a planned pipeline that would carry natural gas to Greece and Italy.

Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean

Putting all this together, you have:

An escalating situation in Idlib, Syria, which may result in hundreds of thousands of new Syrian refugees entering Turkey, and moving on to Europe.

A fraught relationship between Turkey and Libya, with the two countries on opposite sides of the wars in Idlib and Libya.

New economic tensions in an already very fraught relationship between Turkey versus Cyprus and Greece.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these are additional tensions that keep surging in this generational Crisis era, adding to numerous tensions elsewhere, including Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, and South America.

In the 1990s, when the Silent generation was running the world, a small clash would almost always be quickly settled. Today, with the Gen-Xers running the world, a small clash could escalate into a larger war. With all these tensions and clashes occurring around the world, at some point one of them will escalate.

Sources:

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (26-Dec-2019) Permanent Link
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