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Holy shit! That building is "Ε.Φ. ΠΟΡΟΣ", I actually did part of my service there (6 months) when I was in the military about two decades ago, serving in the 534 ΕΤΠ (man, this brings back memories). That's not a black site lol, it is a well known army border outpost. Or at least, it was (I...

I'm not hearing good things on this side of the border, and I'm really not liking where this is going.

Wouldn't that practically be a coup though? Turkey has a civilian control of the military doctrine. The ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making is (and should always be) in the hands of the civilian political leadership.

If the Turkish army and its allied rebel forces were waiting for NATO they would not have attacked Nairab, which prompted the Russian response. It is what it is. Unless you are saying that they are waiting for NATO now, so as to start an offensive again.

Not sure about the veracity of the above.

Wouldn't that make things even worse at this juncture? (for everyone)

Most of the diplomatic assets and decisions though lie indeed in the hands of the executive branch. Therefore, it is possible to imagine a Sanders presidency where some things in strategic posture and diplomacy are changed. This is of course a hypothetical. While - in my honest opinion - the...

It basically reiterates what was written in the article above. Some specific information about the AA systems used by the Cypriot National Guard in the test, namely Buk-1M and Tor-1M assets.

The gist of the matter is, I (and I believe many others) can think of a lot of other projects that would serve a better fiduciary function for the monies involved. President Erdogan is essentially talking about building an expensive canal next to a natural strait, duplicating a function that...

While we could certainly argue about the "actual" effectiveness of Frances' counter-value capability, the important thing to understand here is that the presence of said capability itself was a priori enough to ensure that theater containment was not an option for both the US and USSR during...

One of the primary reasons that gave birth to Force de frappe was to provide France with a NATO-independent deterrence force. There was a valid argument back then that US could choose to "sacrifice" Europe to contain a potential nuclear conflict inside the continent after an invasion by USSR in...

Of course not. Unless it is doing this under NATO orders.

GFP uses an in-house "Power Index" formula to essentially tabulate and compare counting stats on a number of publicly available factors that it deems important when assessing military strength. I assume that there is an amount of weighting for the factors themselves. While having said factors...

Agreed. Heads would probably start exploding left or right in both sides of the Aegean before even an attempt at sober bilateral discussion and analysis started. To be frank, this is really the first time I'm hearing this. If I could wager a guess, I'd say that whoever wrote/said that must not...

Legally? You would need arbitration for that. Which is not saying much anyway, since you would have to enter the arbitration process while pre-affirming to respect the result. A pretty tricky proposition in itself (see the China-Philippines case linked above as an example). In reality? This is...

From a legal standpoint (as regards to UNCLOS), no. Part VIII is pretty self-explanatory. PART VIII REGIME OF ISLANDS Article 121 - Regime of islands 1. An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water,which is above water at high tide. 2. Except as provided for in paragraph...

Thank you for the insight. I was talking about Turkey's stance towards TRNC though as regards to maritime rights, not about Greek or Cypriot claims. It is impossible for Turkey to say Cyprus - including TRNC - has EEZ rights, while (for example) Crete doesn't. So Turkey is simply not saying it.

The problem here is that Turkey cannot officially project an externally satisfactory legal argument differentiating Cyprus from the Greek islands, as far as maritime rights are concerned. It is impossible de jure to contend that the Greek islands do not have EEZ rights (because they are...

The expanded military deal was one of the four "concessions" that PM Mitsotakis gave Trump when they met this month in the US (the other three being Soleimani, 5G and F-35). It seems that the deal will be ratified, since both the ruling ND party and the (former PASOK) center-left coalition...

The funny part in this story is that one of "similar threads" PDF gives is this one: Far-Right Leaders Loathe the European Parliament, but Love Its Paychecks A very true statement. And John Rabbit (what Ioannis Lagos means when translated in english) is a special kind of idiot.