Military Intervention Without Mutual Borders

Powerful states have intervened in the affairs of others to give shape to the world. Their main argument has been to maintain order and to discourage developments that would prevent their envisaged order. Of course these interventions served their global interests. We call these states global powers.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the main global power was Britain. The US took its place in the 20th century because the former could not meet the challenges of its rivals and the demands of the times. The US overwhelmed others with the economic, technological and military energy that it created.
Its contender, bearing a different political-economic system, the USSR, challenged the US but failed. However, it generated a global capacity to influence international affairs. They competed all over the world, intervening either directly or by proxy, to create zones of influence. Today, the heir of the USSR, the Russian Federation, is no global power but drawing on its past it is determined to play the role of a major international actor that can make a change when the US fails in its role or harms the interests of Russia. So far it has demonstrated this resolve in Central Asia, north of the Black Sea, and now in the Mediterranean basin.
Syria is the home of Russia's only naval base (Tartus) and strategic foothold in the Mediterranean. Moscow lost the strategic upper hand to the US a long time ago in the Near East. But, taking advantage of the American interventionism in Iraq that destabilized this country and of Washington's failure to stop the civil war in Syria, Russia appeared in the Syrian theater as the missing knight fighting jihadism and the international terrorism that threatens the globe.
Ruling Turkish figures have expressed their disapproval of Russia's military support of the Syrian government, which they have striven for years to bring down, with the following statement: “Russia has no borders with Syria. Why is it so interested in Syria?”
One would wonder as much if these words were not uttered by someone who has masterminded all kinds of interventions in Syria, including organizing the armed opposition, equipping them, treating them in Turkish hospitals and allowing free passage to all kinds of radical elements which both the West -- including the US -- and Russia alike are presently fighting against.
Secondly, Turkey has sent military contingents to various countries with whom it does not share a border. After World War II, the United Nations and NATO organized multinational aid and protection forces in which Turkey has participated. These military personnel were sent under the name Peace Force. Oddly enough, the US has used the same arguments -- bringing peace and liberating the people of Iraq -- that Russia now uses as its justification for intervening in Syria. What can you say? Might make right!
As regards to which countries Turkey has sent military troops/personnel in past years, here is a list of them:

1) Somalia: (1993-1994), as part of the UN operation in Somalia, a peace force that was sent for humanitarian relief.
2): (1993-1995), as part of UNOSOM II, sent to set up safe zones.

3) Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1996), to take part in the NATO Implementation and Stabilisation forces.
4) Bosnia and Herzegovina (2004), to take part in the UN Protection Force as well as the Implementation and Stabilisation forces coordinated by NATO and the EU.
5) Albania (1997), to help the safe distribution of humanitarian aid.

6) Albania (1999), to help refugees in Macedonia and Albania.

7) Kosovo (1999), to take part in the aerial campaign executed by NATO.

8) Afghanistan (2002), to take part in the International Security Assistance Force.
9) Lebanon (2006), to take part in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
10) Libya (2011), to take part in the NATO Operation Unified Protector with five ships, one submarine and 1,028 military personnel.

We have no borders with any one of these countries. Yet our government officials ought to know this brief history of their country's international military operations.

DOĞU ERGİL (Cihan/Today's Zaman)