The Turkish military is nothing to laugh at. They have held down NATO’s right flank, the Caucasus frontier, and the Dardanelles choke point for Soviet and then Russian Federation access to the Mediterranean for just under seventy years. They are well trained, well equipped, and notoriously tough fighters. Unfortunately, the government has gone from being vigorously secular to militantly Sunni Islamic, still possessing that military and a mutual defense treaty with NATO. Unless the Russians were to decide to go nuclear, a regional fight with the Turks would be at best for them an even match.