Putin’s getting it all his way

Perhaps – and given Trump’s propensity for picking fights with his allies while lauding his country’s adversaries – old Vlad is delighted by the erosion of US-EU relations, blows to Nato cohesion, and all this in conjunction with the Helsinki snafu in which he comprehensively turned Trump over.
For the even older Donnie-boy, stubbornly haemorrhaging credibility from every conceivable (or inconceivable) orifice, this is another setback (but not to him personally, mais naturellement) to add to the myriad upchucks besetting a chaotic White House. The US-Turkey imbroglio could and should have been avoided. Incarcerated and immovable pastors notwithstanding, of course, and the solid fact that this administration has yet to appoint an ambassador to Turkey, which would have validated the rationales for having diplomatic relations in the first place. But, to be fair, they’ve only had about 19 months in which to do so.
Quite apart from Russia’s leader batting eyelids at Turkey’s strongman and the warming bromance that is currently underway, we have to consider the security context in which this situation finds itself. The seriousness of this cannot be overstated. An alliance constructed to counter the perceived threat of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact, Nato now has to contemplate what is emerging from its successor. In this sense, a breach in the alliance is potentially highly damaging, especially when we consider that Turkey’s military inventory is second only to the US in size within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The costs of losing that vital component to an essential militarily constituent part would be incalculable.
Broadly discussed, however, and to gain a better appreciation of the intellectual premises that pertain to all of this realpolitik, I would direct the reader to take a shufti at Thucydides’ “Peloponnesian War”, paying particular attention to the Melian Dialogues and the nature of power. Turkey is Melos, by the way, whether Erdogan accepts that or not. 
Dr Frank