Russia and Turkey allied obliged?

Between Russia and Turkey there is an alliance, which seems almost obliged by the facts. The two countries have similarities in relations with the world, which derive from an isolation that must be fought out of necessity. If from a military and diplomatic point of view Putin's moves have brought Russia back, one of the main protagonists of the international scenario, Moscow's economy suffers a regression due to an internal crisis, but that is mainly due to the lack of diversification of the factors economic, too dependent on prices and the trend of raw materials: the only current economic engine of the former Soviet country. Russia pays for the lack of industrialization and the weakness of a manufacturing sector on which effective policies have never been undertaken. Turkey is experiencing a financial crisis, which could endanger the industrial fabric of a country that has grown a lot in recent years, but which has undergone significant social deterioration. The foreign policy of Ankara has had to suffer some not indifferent defeats, ranging from the refusal of Brussels for entry into the European Union, to the frustration of Erdogan's aims to restore the Turkish influence on the territories of the ancient Ottoman empire. The Turkish president's internal liberticidal policy has resulted in a closure of the country itself, which has produced very heavy frictions and divergences with the American ally, causing some analysts to question whether Ankara can still remain within the Alliance Atlantica. In fact, on Ankara's reliability there are many doubts, above all for its ambiguous policy towards the Islamic State, for its relations with Assad and for the treatment of the Kurds, natural allies of Washington on the battlefields. If now the dispute with the United States also concerns economic issues, such as the duties imposed by Trump, which is consistent with its economic policy towards all foreign countries, this appears to be a natural evolution of a relationship that has become too much deteriorated. Relations between Moscow and Ankara have lasted for a good many years, and although they were endured by the Americans, they took place within a framework where the Turkish government was marked by the values ​​of Western democracies and not by the religious nationalism advocated by Erdogan. For the USA, Turkey was necessary within the Atlantic Alliance because it represented a moderate Muslim country, where religion was secondary to the secular state and this was considered a determining factor in a strategic and geopolitical function. Although Trump seems close, as political manners, to Putin and Erdogan, the United States is endowed with a series of political counterweights, which in Russia and Turkey are missing altogether. Here, then, that the similarity between the two politicians, of Moscow and Ankara, made up of nationalism and the desire to be protagonists, both in the internal and in the foreign sphere, brings the two states closer together. The common interests of the Asian euro zone, that is to say to the states of central and middle east Europe, for the moment constitute a common ground, especially in key anti-Europe and anti-US; however, this very common ground could also cause deep disagreements between the two countries. For the time being, the economic aspects are valid, which constitute an excellent argument to bring the two countries closer together: Turkey is, in fact, the largest importer of Russian gas and has recently bought, infringing Trump's directives to the allied countries, a sophisticated Russian anti-missile system. With China, which maintains an autonomy in foreign policy that makes it virtually unapproachable, the contact between Turkey and Russia seems to have become a real necessity for the two countries to stop international isolation harmful to both. It will be necessary to see what the times and the ways of this progressive approach will be and what it will entail in terms of international balances. For example, a posting of Turkey from the Atlantic Alliance could force Trump to review his disengagement programs in the Middle East, to avoid a preponderance of the presence of Moscow, presumably reinforced by Ankara. The situation is in progress, but it remains very difficult for Turkey to move away from the West without taking an unofficial way to become official.