The Turkey In The Straw

 After decades of the desire to remain neutral (big bad wolf being on their border) Finland has faced facts.

The big bad wolf is really bad.

Finland beat the wolf last time, but the Finns are a pragmatic lot: why not get the protection of Article Five?

And I can't think of a people that I would personally be more happy to welcome into that sort of protective envelope.

The Finns punch way above their weight class: they have some of the best educated people in the world and they have endorsed a real democracy as their ruling principal.

NATO would benefit from them being in the alliance.

But the Joe Manchin of the NATO alliance, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of Turkey is going to vote no.

Because that to be inducted into NATO, all 30 members need to vote yes, that kills the deal.

Much like Manchin and most of his republican cronies, Erdoğan is in thrall to Putin.

The only downside I can see to purging Turkey from NATO is that Erdoğan would immediately sign up for a military alliance with Russia.

Since we already have that situation, I don't see any downside to such a purge.

Right now Erdoğan has it both ways: Turkey is in NATO so it has Article Five protection, AND Erdoğan buys Russian weapons systems, which don't mesh with NATO weapons systems, AND he allies with Putin at every fork in the geopolitical road.

Finland is too important to let Erdoğan continue to screw up the Atlantic Alliance.