While I’m not exactly a fan of Putin’s - or Erdogan’s for that matter, in a situation like this, in which Russia and (presumably) Turkey are trying to destroy ISIS, a brief overflight of a corner of Turkish airspace shouldn’t necessitate the downing of a Russian aircraft. During the Cold War, we and the Russians violated one another’s airspace along the German border on several occasions and, while we locked on to one another’s aircraft, we never actually shot one down.
Given Turkey’s increasingly fundamentalist direction and allegations that they’re supporting ISIS from behind the scenes, I’m not necessarily inclined to side with Turkey, especially given that the Russians and now the French are the only ones putting a hurt on ISIS.
Exactly. There was a reason we were concerned about violating Pakistani airspace for the Bin Laden mission.
It’s because we new were Pakistani sympathies were. The Russians know the same about Turkey.