The disputed downing of a Russian warplane over Turkey — or was it Syria? — may not resemble the manifest shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but today we can expect to hear more than a few references, I should think, to Balkans-like powder kegs of rolling calamities. Indeed, President Putin has already deployed a term that was destined to become ominously emblematic of archducal fallout: Russia, he said, has been "stab[bed] in the back" by Turkey.
One looks for comic relief wherever one can find it in such grim circumstances. With my thanks to the NY Times, it comes early in the form of ample understatement: "The incident comes just a day before Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, is scheduled to travel to Turkey for what now promises to be tense discussions."
And that, it seems, is just about the only undisputed element of this entire affair.
A Russian warplane, a Sukhoi SU-24, "entered Turkish airspace over the town of Yaylidag, in the southeastern Hatay province," says Turkey's military. Yet even that province remains a matter of territorial dispute, since Syria still insists that Hatay is Syrian, and not Turkish, ground.
Nonetheless, Russia's military says its plane "stayed exclusively above the territory of Syria," which, one assumes, means the province of Latakia. All that is known is that the warplane went down in Latakia.
Russia says its "two pilots … ejected," which implies twofold survival. Al Jazeera reports "that one of the two pilots was captured and killed."
Russia says its aircraft was downed "presumably as a result of shelling from the ground." Turkey says two of its (our) F-16s "intervened … according to the rules of engagement."
Most nerve-racking is one four-letter acronym cited by the NY Times: "Russia’s entry into the heavily trafficked skies around Syria raised immediate concerns about mishaps, inadvertent or otherwise, that could lead to confrontations involving Turkey, a NATO member, and the United States."
Will American neocons still hail Vladimir's czarist "leadership" if he retaliates against Turkey? For then would come the latter's invocation of NATO's Article 5, and then Austria declares war on Serbia, Germany backs Austria, Russia mobilizes against Germany, and, and …