US F-35 shows off its insane vertical takeoff capability
Can land vertically like a helicopter and take-off in very short distances. This allows it to operate from austere, short-field bases and a range of air-capable ships. The F-35B is operated by the United States Marine Corps, the United Kingdom, and the Italian Air Force.
Turkey has such a vast array of Cold War (and later eras as well) tanks because they figured out that upgrading existing machines is cheaper than buying new ones. Their M48s, M60s, and Leopard 1s are certainly not the best tanks in the world by any means, however they work just fine in supporting infantry on the low intensity battlefields of the Middle East.
The M48 Pattons of the Turkish army are upgraded with night vision equipment, an improved engine, and a better fire control system. Some are equipped with ERA, I believe.
The Leopard 1A5s of the Turkish Army also have an improved FCS, but no armor upgrades to speak of (unlike Canadian Leo 1s, which had composite armor upgrades).
The M60s of the Turkish Army are unrecognizable from their original form. This is what they looked like when Turkey bought them
This is what they look like now.
The M60 Sabra has a 120mm gun, ERA, composite armor inserts, improved optics and FCS, more powerful engine, and an internal mortar for some reason!
Expensive upgrade, but cheaper than buying new tanks. That being said, Turkey is developing its own tanks, like the Altay, which will be their most modern MBT. When the Altay enters service, the Leopard 2A4s and M60s will replace the M48s and Leo 1s as the second string tanks of the Turkish army (most likely).
Ryan Perry
The British travel writer Mark Sykes (of Sykes-Picot), a great fan of the Turks, spent years travelling through the hinterland of Turkey in Asia. Here is a piece he wrote a century ago on the public works on the road from Diyarbekir to Mardin, in what is now southern Turkey.
The road is a good example of the impressionist style of engineering, in which the (Turkish Government’s long distance roads) excel. The artistic way in which a bridge is suggested by five stones in the middle of a river, the subtle insinuation of a made road by ten yards of pavement in the centre of a boundless plain, the carefully considered gradients which exist on the gentle slopes and are conspicuous by their absence on the steep hills cannot fail to fill the observer with admiration for the ingeniousness of the designers and workmen.
(end of sarcasm:) The inhabitants (of Mardin) are among the cleverest masons in Turkey: every house of consequence is not only well built, but nobly designed and delicately ornamented, the architects being common workmen, uneducated and poor… It is strange that an ignorant peasant should be able to conceive original plans, and intuitively to know the exact amount of ornamentation required to beautify without overloading. Yet the artistic masons of Mardin by no means fulfil the Ruskin ideal, for on being questioned they stated that they not only detested the work, but would willingly undertake any other kind of business if they could.
(in the Jezira:) We passed several ruined villages, and it would be as well here to notice that ruined villages in Turkey in Asia do not necessarily mean a state of things worse than when those villages were inhabited. Murray’s ‘Handbook to Syria’ (1858) says, with a throb in its voice, ‘Syria is a land of ruins, and its ruins are increasing every day.’ Of course they are; but the handbook does not explain that people in Turkey, especially Kurd and Arab, in whom the nomadic instinct still remains, will move off on the very slightest pretext and build another collection of huts two miles farther on… in Syria every stone has an interest, every hill has been trodden into paths, man has left his marks on every rock; the very caverns are inhabited by troglodytes; and every stage of early society is to be seen—the cave-dweller, the villager, the townsman… The road from Damascus to Aleppo has seen nations rise and fall, vanish, revive, and die out; many have trodden its dusty paths, and there are more to come.
Sweden harshly reacted to Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch which targeted the terrorist orga- nization in 2018. In this context, former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström canceled an official visit to Turkey.
PKK/YPG supporters can freely conduct their activities and carry out terrorist propaganda in Sweden without encountering any restrictions. PKK/YPG sympathizers wave PKK/YPG flags ex- plicitly without any intervention by local security forces. Moreover, PKK/YPG members can even meet the country’s Foreign Minister.
The Swedish government provide massive state of the art technology arms to the terrorist group. These weapons are used in terrorist attacks against Turkish security forces.
Sweden, refusing to extradite PKK/YPG members, also safeguard members of Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) being harbored in the country.
Concrete Evidence Regarding the Relations Between the Swedish Government and the PKK/YPG Terrorist Organization
SWEDISH DEFENSE MINISTER Peter Hultqvist met with Mazloum Kobani, one of the so-called commanders of the PKK/YPG. After the meeting, Kobani made a statement expressing that Sweden will closely cooperate with the terrorist organization.
SWEDISH FOREIGN MINISTER ANN LINDE met with PKK/YPG members many times and declared some of such meetings on social media explicitly. The Turkish Foreign Ministry reacted to these meetings repeatedly, yet the Swedish side refused to cooperate.
THE PKK/YPG RECEIVES MASSIVE ANTI-TANK weapon support from Sweden. Hence, the terrorist organization has a huge amount of AT4s, a Swedish Saab production anti-tank weapon, in its hands. During the operations conducted in rural Hakkari in southeastern Turkey in September 2021, and Operation Claw and Tiger which started on 17 June 2021, scores of AT4S were captured in caves and shelters of the terrorist organization by Turkish security forces.
As a region that shares deep-rooted historical, cultural and neighborhood ties with Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa region is going through a process of serious political and social changes. Therefore, it became necessary to follow these complex and dynamic developments as well as to interpret them. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM) was established in January 2009 to inform the general public and the foreign policy community on the Middle East. ORSAM is a nonpartisan and non-profit research center based in Ankara.
ORSAM provides information on Middle Eastern affairs and exposes the Turkish academia and political circles to the perspectives of researchers from the region. ORSAM, by facilitating the visits of Middle Eastern statesmen, bureaucrats, academics, strategists, businessmen, journalists, and NGO representatives to Turkey, seeks to ensure their knowledge and ideas are shared with the Turkish and international community. To that end, ORSAM carries out research on social, economic and political developments in the Middle East and shares these with the public. Striving for a healthier understanding and analysis of international politics and the Middle Eastern affairs, ORSAM produces stimulating and policy-relevant information for the general public and decision-makers.
For that purpose, ORSAM offers projections that suggest alternative perspective on regional issues as well as analyzing regional developments. In order to provide comprehensive and solution-oriented analyses, ORSAM takes advantage of geographical proximity to pressings issues and hands-on research by competent researchers and intellectuals from diverse disciplines. ORSAM has a strong publishing line that transmits meticulous analyses of regional developments and trends to relevant audiences. Our center that is also in the process of re-organization is expanding its cadre and areas of research focuses on publication and teaching activities such as seminars on Middle East affairs and Arabic courses.
Yes, mainly in Istanbul, albeit a small one as compared to Ottoman Days. This is sad and we are perhaps the main cause for this. Based on the fact that all the diverse peoples who made up the population of Istanbul, having lived together for 500 years, would be able to conform to the concept of “one nation, one flag, all citizens are equal Turks”. Wishful thinking, obviously. All the old mutual differences were suddenly brought to the surface when the ”one nation” concept was interpreted as “them and us” by all. Were Turks lilywhite in this misunderstanding ? Hardly. Were our Rums lilywhite ? Hardly.
Today, I believe the population is around the 2,500 mark which is very small indeed compared to my childhood. I grew up in a village on the Bosphorus of about 1300 people, of which roughly 600 were Rum, 200 were Armenian, 100 were Jewish and the rest a mixture of Turks, Albanians, Bulgarians, emigre Russians and so forth. In 1944, in my early teens, my first love was a Rum teen girl called Anula. Nobody saw anything odd in this and frankly, I remember and miss her as if it were yesterday that all of us were swimming off of my boat in the Bosphorus. The sad thing is an old friend who continued to live there died recently and there was not enough Rum people to form a cortege from the church to the grave yard according to Orthodox custom. The old boys telegraph came into play and 3 Rums, one Armenian, and 8 Turks gathered to see Dimitri off with the proper priest, candles, crosses and so forth. I have never felt as sad as I did that day, not even when my parents passed away. I thought our Rum friends should know how I felt and my generation will soon fade and the Z generation will never understand what we had.
Salih Atalay
Kings and Generals’ historical animated documentary series on the history of Ancient Civilizations and Nomadic Cultures continues with a video on the Seljuk Turkification of Anatolia – the period that started in the XI century with the battle of Manzikert and was largely concluded by the XV century when the Ottomans rose to power, as the Seljuks and other Turkic peoples entered Anatolia, slowly pushing the Greeks and other locals to the coastal regions, slowly weakening the Eastern Roman Empire.
