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1.) Continue to be active in Northern Syria – it has 4 mandates for this: legal, political, sovereign, and strategic. The loss of this plane, even several others, is militarily and strategically acceptable.
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2.) Concretize the discourse – following up on the ISIS finance investigation and Putin’s statements today – that Russian activity in Syria that happens to be anti-Turkish is in fact anti-Terrorist and therefore lawful action. Distinguish between Turkey as a sovereign state, Turkish long term interests, and thirdly the individual players running the Turkish establishment (Erdogan, AKP, et al) in anti-Turkish activities in Syria. Make Turkish support for ISIS a criminal matter of ‘the regime’ and its supporters, and not Turkish security and the Turkish state all together.
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3.) Continue to invoke the Paris attacks as further pretext for anti-ISIS actions in Syria: Perpetuate the rift between anti-ISIS France and pro-ISIS Turkey, focus and broaden the scope of this obvious contradiction. Create a security related ‘amicus brief’ to the French prosecutors and courts pursuing the Paris attack matter: this should focus on Turkish connections to ISIS. Push the Paris-Berlin axis to oppose Article 5 invocation.
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4.) Russia must not be controlled by any forced response, but must forge its own activity. Initial public statements may suffice – further actions should follow the doctrine of mirrored/parity based response. These do not need to be carried out immediately. Again, single plane and the loss of a single pilot is an acceptable loss in purely strategic and military terms. The only possible problems are internal public discourse, as well as diplomatic. Russia must regain control time and timing. Among Turkmen fighters in Syria are Turkish nationals as advisers and leaders: Deploying a Syrian, Iranian, or Russian special force to neutralize or arrest these individuals would be an example of a mirrored/parity based response.
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5.) Activated Russian 5th and 6th column threats exist at top levels, but cannot create much political instability in Russia outside of mass media. Thus, their modes of attack in this stage are primarily rhetorical. Therefore, activities to neutralize these should be rhetorical.
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a.) The Kremlin must continue its course of public statements. Rule number 1 – never directly address the 5th and 6th columnists, only make statements which are totally based in one’s own policy and proclivities, and never as a response to the critiques of others, which may seem to give the specter of legitimizing such criticisms. The opposition cannot be helped to exist as a viable source of policy formation, in any way.
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b.) Neutralizing the 5th column, this is along the lines of acknowledging the risks and responsibilities that go along with military action – emphasizing the need for them, invoking a combination of the Sinai terrorist attack, the Paris terrorist attack, and Russia’s own experience with Wahhabi terrorism from Chechnya.
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c.) Neutralizing the 6th column, reaffirm the need and plan for a robust and adequate counter-measure, while emphasizing the need to avoid being ensnared or losing sight of the mission; this will tacitly accuse the 6th column of promoting an irresponsible course without ever addressing them.
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6.) Aggressively push Bulgaria back onto a South-Stream course. All options on the table including the complete utilization of the Color-Spring technology: ‘peaceful’ regime change in Bulgaria if necessary
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a.) Russia can here capitalize on its successes to thwart NATO attempts at Color-Spring maneuvers in Macedonia and Montenegro. Publicly affirm that Serbia’s course towards the EU is a positive one. Welcome increased security integration of the Serbian military and deep-state into already developing Russian structures in Serbia.
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b.) Alternately, Romania can be a surrogate for Bulgaria in South-Stream – at least as a stand-in to push Bulgarian energy and political elites into the course of a pro-Russian oriented power transition. Romania can be brought in with adequate resolution of Moldova and Transnistria issues, as well as other more mundane – but still outstanding – matters relating to grain and real estate.
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7.) Publicize Bilal Erdogan’s role in supporting ISIS – engage in a media campaign which personalizes an otherwise state-based, abstracted accusation into a personality based, anthropomorphic version of the same. Publicly connect Turkey’s actions against Russia to the criminal activities of Bilal Erdogan.
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8.) Re-activate the pro-Eurasianist NGO’s which took part in the ‘Turkish Spring’ at Taksim Gezi park in Istanbul. Here is where Russia first showed its ability to utilize the Color-Spring tactic outside of defensive internal counter-operations. Capitalize from the Russian success in getting Dogu Perincek released from prison, along with other pro-Eurasian military leaders, former generals, and members of the Worker’s Party (now called Patriotic Party), following the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy and Sledgehammer cases. Raise the demands – “political reform, anti-corruption, infrastructure, healthcare, education, anti-war/militarism, pluralist and civil rights”. Pursue full support for the active socialist or social-nationalist opposition groups in Turkey today. These are not likely to succeed in taking power, will succeed in creating internal disruptions that make present Turkish regional aims more difficult to pursue.
1.) Increased Turkish support for Tatar extremist groups in Crimea, making a two-pronged attack on Crimea following the recent Kiev backed attack on the power station. These extremist groups exist based on Turkish support, actual Crimean laws in the wake of the constitutional process to re-join Russia have granted minority status rights to Tatars which were denied to them by previous Kiev governments, including rights to language, schools, and plural and civic institutions. Therefore, today’s Crimean Tatar extremist groups cannot exist outside of artificial foreign backing. Moderate Crimean minority leadership is institutional and supports the Crimean government and, by extension, Russia.
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2.) Increased support of Turkey for Azerbaijan – supporting their aims in the conflict with Armenia over the contested border regions. Russia will increase its support for Armenia. This will act in connection with the Azeri natural gas project controlled presently by the Shah Denis consortium, now running the Shah Dennis 2 or Full Field Development (FFD) project. This will revive the Nabucco project in the wake of the total freezing of Turkish-Russian stream speculation. This will mitigate the economic/speculative impact on energy markets of this major cooling in Russian-Turkish bilateral relations.
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3.) Turkey will collaborate further in supporting ISIS with Qatar and KSA in Khorasan/Kwarazem and Turkmen regions east of the Caspian, broadly speaking, Turkic lands – creating a total or final link between Caucus conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Syria-Iran conflict with Qatar/Israel/Turkey/KSA, and Afghan ‘Al Qaeda’ Mujahideen who will attempt push into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
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4.) Final short-term goal will be breach of security in pro-Russian Kazakhstan, and Russian Dagestan, and Chechnya. Uzbekistan pulled from the CSTO in 2012, but remains in the Chinese SCO: NATO destabilization attempts in the region hold the promise of pushing Uzbekistan closer to Russia (while remaining close to China).