Out of the Pan and Into the Fire: How Russian and Turkish Politics Brought Down Russia's SU-24

 When is a downed plane more than just a downed plane?

When that plane has some connection to Syria, which seems to be the convergence point of international politics today.

As soon as the Russian SU-24 was shot down on November 24, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that it was a “stab in the back by accomplices of the terrorists,” while Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the right to protect its airspace. At a press conference with Francois Hollande, US president Barack Obama made his support for Turkey abundantly clear. Even presidential hopeful Marco Rubio has weighed in, warning, “It’s important for us to be very clear that we will respond and defend Turkey if they come under assault from the Russians.”

But to really understand the significance of the event, we need to take a closer look at Russia and Turkey. The event was the result of the confluence of the two countries’ internal and external political situations but can have significant repercussions for the region and beyond.

Out of the Pan…

The Syrian conflict has been going on since 2011, developing out of pro-democracy protests that began in March of that year. Since then a number of major powers have put their toes in, but have been reluctant to jump in with both feet—except Russia.

Here is where our story begins…at the moment Russia initiated air strikes in Syria, ostensibly in an effort to support the fight against ISIS.

It can be surmised that despite Russia’s claims, they were in Syria for other reasons than fighting ISIS. Over the past couple of months, Russian airstrikes have mostly targeted territories held by rebel groups fighting Bashar Al Assad, which brought Russia into conflict with a number of countries inside and outside the region. Back in early October, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a financial times article that even went so far as to recommend that the U.S. retaliate against Russia for its attacks on U.S. assets.

Russia’s involvement has had a two-fold objective:

1.       Divert attention away from Ukraine

2.       Project Russian power outside its near abroad

As the conflict in Ukraine dragged on with no clear victory in sight, and the Russian populace had to cope with the effects of U.S. and European sanctions (and a sub-40 dollar per barrel oil price), Russia needed something to take the focus off the unfulfilled promise of "Novorussia’s" separation from Ukraine.

Russia’s inability to close on its attempt to bring the Donetskaya Basin into Russia diminished the country’s image of power. And the Russian government couldn’t stomach the appearance of weakness before internal or external audiences.

So with the dream of "Novorussia" sputtering out, the Russian government needed to seek something farther afield, something that could project and image of the country’s former glory, an image that Putinism often drew upon. Since the solution to the Syrian conflict seemed to elude Europe and the United States—and the Middle Eastern powers were unwilling to take a major role—Syria appeared to be the perfect opportunity for Putin’s Regime to claim a significant victory.

…And Into the Fire

Things didn’t go as planned. The situation was more complicated than Putin’s regime expected. In supporting Assad’s forces against the rebels, Russia found itself attacking the Kurds who the Americans supported, the Turkomans who the Turkish government claimed an alliance with, and various other rebel forces that regional actors had staked their claims on.

We might, however, say that this could have been the plan all along—as a method of changing the game in Syria and forcing the various international forces to accept a deal brokered with the Assad regime, and Russia’s place at the head of the big table, the solver of problems and grand negotiator.

For such a plan to succeed the Russian government had to imagine the NATO allies as unlikely to answer its provocations.

Despite Russia’s claim that its plane was in Syrian airspace, Turkey has produced a map of where the radar had detected the plane. Turkey’s explanation was also supported by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and stated that the incursion couldn’t have been an accident. As such, we might suggest that the plane’s flight path had been an effort to provoke Turkey.

In fact, Russia’s previous actions in Europe might serve as evidence to support this interpretation.

A 2014 report published by the European Leadership Network noted “68 ‘hot’ identification and interdiction missions along the Lithuanian border alone, and Latvia recorded more than 150 incidents of Russian planes approaching its airspace. Estonia recorded 6 violations of its airspace in 2014.” A major submarine hunt took place in Swedish waters prompted by credible reports of Russian underwater activity. An armed Russian aircraft approached the Danish island of Bornholm in June 2014. These are only a few of the incidents outlined in the report.

And all of these incidents point to a pattern of provocation and an attempt to project Russia’s international military prowess. They make the statement that Russia will not accept that its sphere of influence has shrunk just to its near abroad.

The Turkish Gambit

At the same time Russia was seeking to extend its power abroad, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was attempting to salvage his declining popularity.

Freedom house and Reporters without Borders have noted Turkey’s movement away from democracy in the past few years, with attacks on media and civil society institutions. An important moment of resistance to this movement could be found in the 2013 Gezi Park protests in which some of the frustrations in society were brought to the fore of discussion through a group of youths who took to the streets in downtown Istanbul.

As Erdogan (then Turkish Prime Minister) found his power challenged more and more following the Gezi Park protests, he fought back with harsher methods and came to be seen as a loose cannon. Even Turkey’s then President Abdulla Gul, who had formerly been close to the Erdogan, seemed to distance himself from the leader.

A critical juncture in the situation occurred in June 2015 when Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) had been unable to win enough votes to form its own government and had found itself unable to create a coalition with the other parties in the parliament.

The result of the inability to create a coalition was that new parliamentary elections were to be held on November 1. Erdogan and AKP knew that to gain the desired number of votes to have a single party government, they needed something that would rally Turkish voters around them and suggest that Erdogan could provide stability for the country. That something took the form of the Syrian conflict.

One of the strongest rebel forces in the fight against ISIS has been the Democratic Union Party (PYD) a Kurdish group with ties to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a banned group in Turkey that has made separatist claims on portions of Turkish territory and that is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe.

PYD had been making gains along the northern Syrian border near Turkey in villages that had a majority Turkoman population, an ethnic group with a language closely related to Turkish.

These gains raised fears of a Kurdish separatist war in Turkey. The logic ran: If the Kurds were able to take the Turkoman villages, they could use them to support incursions into Turkey and support PKK’s efforts to separate from the rest of Turkey.

For this reason, Erdogan’s government, which had previously sought to reconcile with the country’s Kurds, began supporting the Turkomans against the Kurdish combatants and to crack down on Kurdish groups within Turkey itself.

The Clash

With political stakes this high in Turkey, Russia’s military adventures in northern Syria raised tensions between the two countries.  The attacks on the Turkoman village of Latakia began on November 16 as Assad’s ground forces expanded their operations with Russia’s air support. At that time Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu came out against the attacks, saying, “Bayirbucak Turkmens have been living in that region for many centuries. We condemn the attacks. No one can legitimize the attacks against the Arab and Turkmen populations in the region.”  The Russian Ambassador had also been summoned over the attacks.

Moreover, this conflict simply added to strain derived from previous Russian planes straying into Turkish airspace.  In October NATO had warned Russia about incursions into Turkish Airspace, noting that they created a dangerous situation.

The downing of the SU-24 shows that NATOs warnings were correct.

All Action

A meme has made its rounds on Facebook in which Obama and Putin are talking on the phone about the downing of the Russian plane, and Obama asks why, since Erdogan had warned Russia several times not to violate Turkish airspace, had Putin done it. Putin answers, “I thought he’s like you and the EU, all talk and no action.”

We’ve seen in this article it wasn’t that Erdogan was simply not all talk, but rather the political situation led to Turkey’s actions. The internal political environment in Russia and Turkey make the current situation extremely volatile.

The Russian government’s need to assert itself and show itself as more than merely a shadow of the Soviet Union leads to the type of brinksmanship that put the SU-24 in Turkish airspace. And Erdogan’s need to show himself a force for Turkish stability will make him more apt to act and less apt to talk.

One positive sign may be Turkey’s invoking article 4 of the 1949 Atlantic treaty, which states, “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of the members, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.” Turkey’s actions suggest that they are seeking to signals to Russia that it needs to be careful what steps it takes and demonstrates Turkey’s attempts not to inflame the situation.

Any further steps by Russia could lead to the invoking of article 5, which would widen the conflict and have repercussions around the world.

The U.S. and other NATO partners need to maintain a clear statement of allegiance with Turkey, but they also need to seek to decrease the tension between the countries. At the same time, observers and actors alike should make certain they look beyond simply the conflict between the countries and understand the internal politics of Russia and Turkey that have led to the current situation.

The precariousness of the leaders’ situations and unchecked power plays a role in the actions of the Russia and Turkey. Although political openness would not ensure that such tensions would never arise, it could diminish the chances that such brinkmanship will occur.

At the same time, the countries inside and outside the region should seek solutions to the conflict in Syria since the contagion effect seems to spread rapidly and broadly, as the downing of the SU-24 seems to show.