I’m not suggesting for one second that he actually likes them. What he wants is to keep Turkish cities from being ISIS targets and Turkey itself getting destabilized. ISIS is also the enemy of his enemies (the Kurds and Assad). Its a quid pro quo, he tolerates ISIS and keeps it from being destroyed while they don’t…

I’m with ya. Could Turkey have held off? Sure they could have. But after everything you mentioned should they have? Who knows. But, you can bet your ass that the US would kill an intruder they warned 10 ten times and it still crossed the border. How much of an incursion doesn’t matter. When those F-16s went after that…

It seems that people commenting here are consist of some Russians in a PR propaganda mission for their state and others has no knowledge of military matters. As a start, what does “RoE” mean to everyone? Turkish Rules of Engagement was declared in 2012 after one of their RF-4E was shot down 10 miles of the coastline…