You might think that no country can drag us into a war we don’t want to be in but you would be wrong. It can be done and if Turkey has anything to say about it, it will be done. If you look at the NATO charter Article 4, you will see that any member nation can call for a conference of all the members and Turkey has exercised that right. This is the first step in dragging NATO into war.
Turkey is upset because Russia killed 33 of it’s soldiers. However, this occurred in Idlib, Syria. Russia is in Syria by invitation of Syria. Turkey is not. Hopefully, this will give us an out in preventing going into a war we don’t want. Article 5 of NATO’s Washington Treaty says that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
But, dos that just apply if you are attacked within your borders or does it include an unwanted incursion into a foreign country as well? That is a question that will be taken up in the conference. Personally, I feel if you are the aggressor, you have no right to drag your fellow members into war.
The article was invoked shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks and remains a powerful and final tool in NATO members’ arsenals.
It appears that if NATO is called to war, the United States has one major asset in the region to swiftly engage any enemies.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with its carrier strike group complement, is now a short sail away from the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean Sea.
Any involvement in Syria will undo much of President Donald Trump’s work to move American forces out of the Middle East.
It’s unclear whether Turkey will continue to push member states into a war against Russia-backed forces.