Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). As such other member states are obliged to its mutual defence. With this in mind NATO will deploy Patriot missiles to its southern border to protect itself (only defensively of course) from potential aggression by the Syrian government. The problem is that NATO (just like the UN in some respects) has lost most of its connection to its post-World War II roots.

Last week [see here] Turkey and France, both NATO member states, voted for Palestinian statehood; the UK, a founding member of NATO, decided not to vote. Canada, Germany and the US on the other hand, all voted yes (only nine countries did so). Naturally we cannot and do not expect member states to always vote the same way and we’ve seen this in the recent wars in the Middle East.

So when it comes to a group of states mutually agreeing to defend themselves against an external threat, shouldn’t NATO at least try to determine what that external threat is? This is the issue as I see it: NATO is now fundamentally divided on whether Islamic jihad is a legitimate external threat to any one member state or to the collective, or even a threat at all. When NATO agrees to arm Turkey with Patriot missiles, does Turkey have the same military motives as Canada, Germany or the US? Isn’t it more likely that 60 years after its founding NATO contains member states that have fundamentally different world-views?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nato-ministers-set-to-decide-on-sending-patriot-air-defences-to-turkey/article5952274/?cmpid=rss1