Venizelos

By Doctor William Mallinson* Athens, 7 April 2018 Ever since at least 1791, when English Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger denounced Russia for seeking to...

Modern Turkey is a strange amalgam of Western structures underpinned by Ottoman habits. Their various governments, whether military or not, are still heavily influenced by its huge military, and the contradiction between religion and secularism stills bedevils its development. Russia knows this, and knows that the bazaar mentality prevails in Turkish foreign policy. Rather than provoke a collapse of the shaky Turkish state, Russia prefers to weaken a neurotic NATO, and eventually bring Turkey into its sphere of influence, in the interests of Middle Eastern stability.