All strategens are grounded in Ontology by default, your projecting a Grand Strategy, not a strategem. A strategem would be a classic chess rouse, or a famous maneuver. That’s not strategy, it has similar names because the ancient Greek and East Roman name for a general was Stratigikos, and because in western doctrine for cadets traditionally, they couldn’t grasp the difference between strategy and tactics, and so the emphasis till the turn of the 19th century was tactics and strategems, a more principled idea of a tactic not based on a tactical synthesis that you could build a higher logic out of piece by piece.
The nuances are lost on most, and that system of instruction is dying off, slowly. Just keep it aware.
No, Turkey isn’t the one single nation that matters from a NATO perspective, US matters much, much, much more. US isn’t coequal to the idea of NATO, however much we like to think of it as such.
Egypt isn’t in NATO, has tried to enter, matters equally as much as Turkey, more so that Turkey does, as Turkey has pre-NATO treaties with Russia allowing access to the straights.
Likewise Morocco has near importance for a middle eastern strategy, and Saudi Arabia trumps the importance of all three combined. Trailing in importance is Pakistan, but it isn’t without very important influence. 50/50% chance Trump might say fuck it on Afghanistan and then they will decline even lower, they aren’t exactly in a position to check any state that threatens us otherwise, and to be honest, I could live with Pakistani ambition to conquer Afghanistan, but they can’t even control their own territory right now.
Turkey is the third most important nation in NATO against Russia, and Second most within NATO for Middle East, and from a US perspective, highly dysfunctional. I don’t know how well Turkey would respond to a full Russian drive through the Caucauses, the talks earlier this year that Turkey was building a base in Azeribaijan was mostly a bust, they merely got a lease on a flight hanger Turkey already uses for ferrying troops to Afghanistan. The region, Azeribaijan, Georgia, and Armenia Hayes each other and Turkey, but has been aligning more and more on western tactics and technology, and standards of government, and I think Turkey would much rather prefer them to be independent than under Russian Control. Very high chance during Trunp’s administration Putin will restart the war in Georgia while enticing Azeris to attack Armenia when he can’t directly and openly pressure Trump on Iran or Ukraine, and Trump will eventually cone around on Ukraine.
Lots of nations add to the middle east, Saudi Arabia is a powerhouse with Egypt as support. UAE, Oman, Qatar behave not to dissimilar to Italian city states. Algeria isn’t that bad right now, relatively stable. Morocco us the US’s longest running Arab ally, and it us improving relations with the African Union and Arab League. It is very important for you to grasp US tends to back blocs over nations when it comes to military cooperation, the one regional exception being Israel.
I’m a analyst more than anything else on this forum, and your in desperate need of developing this skill in your imaginings. Doesn’t make much sense to have a hard on for Russia in a foreign policy sense if you can’t calculate basic orderings, you should focus on that skill set first, then decide what countries you like. Putin isn’t a Savior, not even for Russia, you can’t make him into your Nietzschean over man and expect a happy ending. Russia is facing dark times ahead.
When you study strategy, I recommend picking a ancient era not obvious to the modern world in terms of nationals, and look at it’s chief writers in war, diplomacy, theory of government and economics. You don’t play favorite, change them out often, switch to a new era, new country, repeat.
I’m neither friend nor enemy to russia. I fully expect to absord them into a NATOish alliance later this century, but only because they are so horribly maladepted to survive Islam from the steppes. It is very much not going in a long term positive direction at all for them, and the Russia we will inherit with be a horrible fucking mess by that point, much smaller in a de facto sense. Think of the Golden Horde era. It is better to have Russia than not to have Russia in such a scenario, but you gotta realize, we are going to be dealing with a Caliphate capable of striking Moscow in force by that point. We are in for a very nasty 21st century in the steppes. Nothing stops a expansionary state in the region from exploding, the Ottomans proved it by conquering the region just prior to their collapse. Your not even aware of these things. You just think Nietzsche, Overman.
