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First of all Turkey and Russia have some disagreements in their foreign policies regarding a few subjects, but on other hand, there are again loads of subjects where they are actually on the same line and need each other’s help. Despite the wish of many countries, both sides have agreed on these issues and avoided a direct confrontation against each other, because this would be a loss for them and only help others who desperately looked for a Russo-Turkish war. And this will also remain in the pragmatism of Moscow’s and Ankara’s foreign policies. It’s very hard to imagine that they go anytime soon crazy and attack the other side, that’s more an illusion and fiction.
The second part of this analysis is that armies don’t have any military doctrines like ‘’I fear X opponent’’ or ‘’I’m superior over the Y’’, these are more childish behaviours of kids on the internet. They make real assessments, work out any scenario, prepare themselves and when the order comes, there is no other chance to conduct this until the enemy is forced to retreat or you lose the war and retreat again with a political decision. And unless you’re not a third world country with a totally incapable army like the ones in Africa or the Gulf countries, for example, every well trained and professional maintained army will see their opponent as a serious threat and not joke around.
What I can tell about the Russian Armed Forces as a long years member and now retired, there is surely no fear of the Russians to go into a war with Turkey or anyone else, because we have no such emotions, soldiers are not build to have emotions, but only see the whole scenario as a math formula which needs to be applied and wait for the results. The same is valid here in the example for Turkey, the Turkish army will not hesitate when it’s ordered to attack Russia or any other opponent in a war situation, which I hope will never occur and we live in peace and work together instead.
When we speak about the Turkish army in particular and consider the enmity between NATO and Russia for very long, then the Russians see the Americans as the biggest threat, then comes a time nothing and then comes Turkey as the next serious threat. The Russian military elites have no fear about other European NATO members because they lack the experience of fight for decades, have serious problems of maintaining their weapon arsenals, lack the resources and the men power and were not involved for decades and decades in any serious conflict, which on the side of the Turks is not the same. They fight for four decades over a distance of 2,000 km’s one of the most deadly insurgency groups, mostly also financed from their own allies and maintain in the last ten years many military bases in foreign countries and have at least 350,000 constantly fighting soldiers. Therefore, the only difficulty over the NATO Russia confrontation will be with the USA and then it will be more difficult to crack the defensive line on the southern flank. The same difficulty Russia will not face when it comes to the Western European corridor. That’s why I don’t understand the NATO (particular the Western nations) how successfully and naively they push Turkey towards the side of Russia. That, from a military strategic point of Russia, would be an enormous power multiplier when Turkey chooses to participate on the Russian side or at least is out of the question when NATO fights Russia.
But back to the main question, NO, Russia doesn’t fear anyone and I don’t think that any officer, neither in Russia or Turkey goes to sleep with fear about the opponent. More than fear, the respect is important, because if you don’t respect and take your enemy serious, even the smallest army of the world can punch your nose so hard, that you don’t understand how fast the war was over. History is full of these kinds of wrong assessments and arrogances.
Analyse: Alexei Yahontov, Former colonel at Russian Armed Forces (1985-2018)
The second part of this analysis is that armies don’t have any military doctrines like ‘’I fear X opponent’’ or ‘’I’m superior over the Y’’, these are more childish behaviours of kids on the internet. They make real assessments, work out any scenario, prepare themselves and when the order comes, there is no other chance to conduct this until the enemy is forced to retreat or you lose the war and retreat again with a political decision. And unless you’re not a third world country with a totally incapable army like the ones in Africa or the Gulf countries, for example, every well trained and professional maintained army will see their opponent as a serious threat and not joke around.
What I can tell about the Russian Armed Forces as a long years member and now retired, there is surely no fear of the Russians to go into a war with Turkey or anyone else, because we have no such emotions, soldiers are not build to have emotions, but only see the whole scenario as a math formula which needs to be applied and wait for the results. The same is valid here in the example for Turkey, the Turkish army will not hesitate when it’s ordered to attack Russia or any other opponent in a war situation, which I hope will never occur and we live in peace and work together instead.
When we speak about the Turkish army in particular and consider the enmity between NATO and Russia for very long, then the Russians see the Americans as the biggest threat, then comes a time nothing and then comes Turkey as the next serious threat. The Russian military elites have no fear about other European NATO members because they lack the experience of fight for decades, have serious problems of maintaining their weapon arsenals, lack the resources and the men power and were not involved for decades and decades in any serious conflict, which on the side of the Turks is not the same. They fight for four decades over a distance of 2,000 km’s one of the most deadly insurgency groups, mostly also financed from their own allies and maintain in the last ten years many military bases in foreign countries and have at least 350,000 constantly fighting soldiers. Therefore, the only difficulty over the NATO Russia confrontation will be with the USA and then it will be more difficult to crack the defensive line on the southern flank. The same difficulty Russia will not face when it comes to the Western European corridor. That’s why I don’t understand the NATO (particular the Western nations) how successfully and naively they push Turkey towards the side of Russia. That, from a military strategic point of Russia, would be an enormous power multiplier when Turkey chooses to participate on the Russian side or at least is out of the question when NATO fights Russia.
But back to the main question, NO, Russia doesn’t fear anyone and I don’t think that any officer, neither in Russia or Turkey goes to sleep with fear about the opponent. More than fear, the respect is important, because if you don’t respect and take your enemy serious, even the smallest army of the world can punch your nose so hard, that you don’t understand how fast the war was over. History is full of these kinds of wrong assessments and arrogances.
Analyse: Alexei Yahontov, Former colonel at Russian Armed Forces (1985-2018)
