Syria has apparently shot down a Turkish warplane, and the details about how it occurred and whether or not the pilots have been rescued yet are still murky since there are conflicting reports. I don’t want to draw any large conclusions yet until we know precisely what happened, but here are some questions to think about while we wait for more details.

1. Was the plane shot down on purpose or was it an accident? A subset of this is whether Syria purposely and knowingly shot at the plane but didn’t realize who it was shooting at

2. Was the plane in Syrian airspace or in international airspace? If the answer is the former, what was it doing there? My bet is that a Turkish plane along the border is PKK-related, but it could be something else entirely.

3. What is the scope of the Syrian apology? It is simply an apology, or is it being backed up by Syrian assistance in a search and rescue mission?

4. Is Turkey talking about invoking NATO Article V, as it threatened to do a couple of months ago when Syrian forces shot across the border with Turkey? That would be a sure sign that it plans on ratcheting things up with Syria.

5. Does Turkey actually want to increase hostilities with Syria? Up until this point, Ankara has been trying its hardest not to get entangled without a serious international effort, which is why the talk about Turkish buffer zones has dried up. Is this going to be the impetus for Turkish forces in Syria? My guess is no, but Erdoğan is headed now to Ankara for consultations with his top defense officials and he may feel pressured to respond in some form.

6. Can Erdoğan leverage the incident to make this a net positive for Turkey? If he can credibly threaten Assad with a military response, he might be able to get some cooperation on getting rid of the PKK or quieting things along the border to alleviate the refugee problem.

 

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