Thanks for the thorough response. Not gonna lie, I mentioned about a year ago that I live in Cyprus and I am worried that Turkey is eyeing the other half of the island the same way that China is interested in Taiwan.

It’s not exactly the same situation, because the Chinese hold Erdogan by the balls, since he could not secure loans from the IMF, ECB and had to borrow from Xi Jiping.

At the same time I understand that Russians are allied with Syrians and I was hoping they do a number on him before he goes out for natural gas ‘exploration’. Basically I am hoping that old Joe and Putin do something against the Turkish dictator or at least let things implode in his face before making an invasion.

If he does, then pray for me.

Good question. I would start with The Unz Review, because that presents a number of useful alternative views. I also recommend The Diplomat, The National Interest, and even The Moscow Times. Note that these three outlets all have notably pro-Western views, though they are not necessarily anti-Russian.

For a more Russian- or Chinese-centric point of view, I recommend Russia Beyond and Channel News Asia, or at least, their opinion section.

The problem with all of this is that you have to get a number of different points of view, and much of what you find in the English-speaking press, outside of Russia, is almost completely aligned with the GloboHomoPaedocracy of the Pharisatanists. It’s very, very hard to know what the truth is these days – you really have to do your own research.

The only way to do this sensibly is to take a number of different views and see where they overlap, and where they do not, and see how those line up with objective fact.

With respect to Erdogan, specifically, I have very little insight into Turkish politics, but I can tell you this: Erdogan is essentially trying to turn himself into another Ottoman Caliph, and as such, is trying to carve out a distinctively Islamic identity for Turkey. This is due to the fact that the population growth in Turkey is coming from the central and eastern parts of the country, where Islamists are much more deeply rooted than in the more European-aligned and cosmopolitan western side. This is why he is playing off the Western powers against Russia.

He also has strong interests in imposing Turkey’s will on Syria, which is a 5-sided total fustercluck. The Russians were invited in by Bashir al-Assad, a Sunni Ba’athist, to keep him in power. Turkey intervened to bomb the shit out of the Kurds, whom the Turks absolutely hate, and prevent them from joining up with the Kurds in northern Turkey to break away from the country. The Turks shot down a Russian plane in Syria some years ago, actually, which caused a huge row between the two countries and which the Neo-Tsar had to defuse.

My, very limited and not-very-well-informed, reading of Erdogan is that he is trying to play both sides against each other to secure the best results for Turkey, and to hide the sheer ineptitude of his mismanagement of the country. Turkey has inflation between 20% and 50%, depending on whom you believe, and their economy is a complete mess – but it is also a very real and serious growth market for electronics and consumer goods. So it remains to be seen how things will play out, but I reckon that Erdogan is likely to continue to consolidate his grip over Turkey and Islamise the place.