Turkey is incredibly valuable not just because they are a large country but also control the Bosphorus. As such they could greatly influence the course trade and naval power in the Black sea and Mediterranean. Turkey does have it's own agenda apart from Europe and a country not part of the EU (which is another sore point) and Muslim country it is an outlier in many ways from the rest of NATO. All of that said I'm pretty sure most of NATO would like to keep Turkey in. At the same time while Erdogan will play both sides he probably doesn't trust Putin either.
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The second half of the article tries to whitewash YPGs ties with its mother organization PKK which is flimsy in any court of opinion or law. The article itself is probably in response to Turkey, Russia, and Syria's allegations that we were sleeping in the bed of terrorists. I get that a large multinational and borderless ethnic group aren't homogenous but when they are power and resource strapped, their leadership coalesces. They have a semi clean state arm, a military arm and the terroristic bully wing that does all the dirty work. YPGs leader was originally PKK. I guess he was promoted from bully wing to military arm... Well we needed a lot of dirty work done in that region when our multi-billion trained and resourced professional army melted like a snowman in the Iraqi or Afghani heat, and they were the best and only alternative motivated enough to take up the task. And now that the US aren't officially their allies anymore, you think their "moral quibbles of foreign legitimacy" gets in the way of working together now more than ever?
I’m listening to former defense secretary Bob Gates on Face the Nation and he’s talking about the relationship between PRC and Russia. While the PRC will buy more oil and gas from Russia they don’t want to be energy dependent on Russia and won’t buy up enough to make up for the loss of the European market. Many in the PRC have been giving rhetorical aid to Russia and in PRC media this is portrayed as that the West forced Russia into the war. What they haven’t done though is given Russia much actual aid military or economic aid. In practice for the most pet they are remaining largely neutral. Gates believes that at the Winter Olympics Putin had told Xi he was going to invade Ukraine and that it would be a short and easy conflict. That it’s turned into a much longer difficult conflict that Russia isn’t winning Xi is probably not happy with Putin and doesn’t want to risk his or the PRCs standing by doing more to help Russia. The performance of the Russian military likely made Xi very uneasy given the similarities between Russia and the PRC. Also how well the Ukrainians are using western equipment and knowledge. This likely has led to the PRC military rethinking their own plans in invading Taiwan or dealing militarily with other US allied countries in the region.
Certainly politics are complicated in the Kurds and it’s also possible that some groups and individuals were aligned or part of the PKK. That said you’re speculating a lot here about the influence of the PKK. It is a fact that the PKK fought other Kurdish groups so it isn’t just a whitewash that there was a spilt between them and many of those who aligned to fight ISIS. Further in many such movements alliances and standing changes. For example the ANC was once considered a terrorists organization but now run South Africa. There are former IRA and members of Protestant militias who are now members of Northern Ireland parliament.
Bit of a derail, final points for me. There's speculating and then there's "looks bad" because YPG is considered a branch of PKK and their leader is former PKK. The threat of ISIS is gone. American support and weapons is mostly gone for the Kurds as well. You're making the point that alliances change. I'm saying they're more likely to change back because the American carrot is gone and the Syrian and Turkish sticks are waiting at home for them.
Again that is speculation about the state of the YPG or whether they will end up back with the PKK. And yes it is a fact that the PKK did fight other Kurdish factions including at one point Iraqi Kurdish groups allied with Turkey to fight the PKK. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Operation_Dawn_(1997) My main point though is they an accommodation is likely possible with Turkey and Finland and Sweden to get them to NATO.
folks following the war in Ukraine should give this a look War crimes trial of Russian soldier was perfectly legal – but that doesn’t make it wise https://theconversation.com/war-cri...tly-legal-but-that-doesnt-make-it-wise-183586
But, the US could have single-handedly blocked Ukraine from joining NATO, so Biden could have promised Putin he'd do so if he wanted to. I don't know why the hell we'd want to do that, but we could have. Of course, cutting a deal with Poland or Turkey to block Ukraine's addition probably would have been easier. Manchin is an apt comparison. I've been inclined to boot Turkey and Hungary out of NATO for abandoning democratic ideals that are ensconced in the charter. Much like I'd be happy to boot Manchin out of the democratic party. Probably I'm too much an idealist to be any good in politics and the actual players will cut a deal to trade ideals for self-interest. So Turkey will probably get some concessions and NATO will keep their access to their critical geography for projecting power into the Middle East (until Turkey flips on us at the worst possible moment).
