7 ms·

While still concerning, they really buried a key detail: "About two thousand U.S. military personnel remain stationed there."

venomsnake 10y ago
How long will they hold in case of an ally betrayal? In the unlikely event of having crazy Islamist dictator with imperial ambitions as the God Emperor of Turkey?
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Aren't most/all airplanes, missiles, etc... operated by the Turkish military from the U.S.? Doesn't the U.S. have the capability to disable them remotely?
  - avar 10y ago
    No, the US doesn't export its armaments with any sort of remote disabling functionality, who would buy arms like that?
    - cloakandswagger 10y ago
      Actually it should be a simple as expiring whatever API key the jets use to communicate back to the US-based control servers. So when it POSTs to a StartEngine endpoint or whatever, it wouldn't start.
      - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
        You're joking, right?
      - goodplay 10y ago
        Lol. No government would buy unreliable weapons.
        jsprogrammer 10y ago
        No government could guarantee the reliability of purchased weapons. It is already known and been demonstrated that sabotaged arms will be bought.
        DonHopkins 10y ago
        What if they came with an Enhanced PROMIS Contract that guaranteed their reliability and lack of back doors and trojan horses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        If web developers ran wars the world would be a safer place.
        patates 10y ago
        Apart from war machines communicating through HTTP, I can't help but giggle to the thought of such a dialog: - I repeat, the enemy seems to be not responsive. - What, you already killed them? - No we came with a bigger force but their layout didn't change. I don't think they're war-scale. Joking aside, there's nothing making HTTPS inherently less secure than any other secure channel out there, right? (disclaimer: I'm a web developer)
    - sargun 10y ago
      Yes it does. The US nuclear weapons have PALs, and although they're not remote disabling functions, they require special codes, which are not given to the host country for arming them.
    - conjectures 10y ago
      After WWII we Brits sold cracked Engima machines internationally. You need to assume a foreign power would be willing to try and sell you equipment with backdoors. If they reasonably believed you wouldn't be able to spot them, or change actions if you did.
    - dorfsmay 10y ago
      I remember this in the news, and again during the first Irak war (the stories were that the U.S. were asking France for the "code"), hence my question: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/11152/can-exocet-missiles-be-remotely-disabled-with-secret-codes http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/11152/can-exocet...
  - vikiomega9 10y ago
    As purchased supplies? That would be disasterous for the industry, no?
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    With current cad/cam systems I think it is possible to design a not bad Katusha analog in a weekend. And produce a couple in the next week. 20-30 of those build in secret could deliver a nasty first blow.
  - cm3 10y ago
    I'd have to look it up online, but while they used to import jet fighters from the US, Turkey builds similar F?? fighters and also drones like the Heron and other tools. But as a NATO member, I don't think they'd have a problem getting gear from third parties.
jacquesm 10y ago
Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.
- idlewords 10y ago
  And Incirlik is in an urban area of 1.7 million people.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken very seriously. Nobody wants to be the guy who thought it would all blow over and got it wrong.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Then how come they are still there? If what you write is true they should have had clear warning about that coup attempt. It might have succeeded.
    - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
      I'd be surprised if they don't have the capability to disarm them and destroy the "interesting" components relatively quickly. I would also be surprised if (besides initial instability) the expected outcome of a military coup is much worse than the status quo. With the current situation there's probably not much good of saying "yeah, that place is pretty fked so we gtfo'd." Which exactly the message sent by loading up all your nukes and gtfoing at ~Mach 2.
    - mdrzn 10y ago
      Unless this is exactly what they planned.

venomsnake 10y ago

How long will they hold in case of an ally betrayal? In the unlikely event of having crazy Islamist dictator with imperial ambitions as the God Emperor of Turkey?

dorfsmay 10y ago
Aren't most/all airplanes, missiles, etc... operated by the Turkish military from the U.S.? Doesn't the U.S. have the capability to disable them remotely?
- avar 10y ago
  No, the US doesn't export its armaments with any sort of remote disabling functionality, who would buy arms like that?
  - cloakandswagger 10y ago
    Actually it should be a simple as expiring whatever API key the jets use to communicate back to the US-based control servers. So when it POSTs to a StartEngine endpoint or whatever, it wouldn't start.
    - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
      You're joking, right?
    - goodplay 10y ago
      Lol. No government would buy unreliable weapons.
      - jsprogrammer 10y ago
        No government could guarantee the reliability of purchased weapons. It is already known and been demonstrated that sabotaged arms will be bought.
      - DonHopkins 10y ago
        What if they came with an Enhanced PROMIS Contract that guaranteed their reliability and lack of back doors and trojan horses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      If web developers ran wars the world would be a safer place.
      - patates 10y ago
        Apart from war machines communicating through HTTP, I can't help but giggle to the thought of such a dialog: - I repeat, the enemy seems to be not responsive. - What, you already killed them? - No we came with a bigger force but their layout didn't change. I don't think they're war-scale. Joking aside, there's nothing making HTTPS inherently less secure than any other secure channel out there, right? (disclaimer: I'm a web developer)
  - sargun 10y ago
    Yes it does. The US nuclear weapons have PALs, and although they're not remote disabling functions, they require special codes, which are not given to the host country for arming them.
  - conjectures 10y ago
    After WWII we Brits sold cracked Engima machines internationally. You need to assume a foreign power would be willing to try and sell you equipment with backdoors. If they reasonably believed you wouldn't be able to spot them, or change actions if you did.
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    I remember this in the news, and again during the first Irak war (the stories were that the U.S. were asking France for the "code"), hence my question: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/11152/can-exocet-missiles-be-remotely-disabled-with-secret-codes http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/11152/can-exocet...
- vikiomega9 10y ago
  As purchased supplies? That would be disasterous for the industry, no?
- venomsnake 10y ago
  With current cad/cam systems I think it is possible to design a not bad Katusha analog in a weekend. And produce a couple in the next week. 20-30 of those build in secret could deliver a nasty first blow.
- cm3 10y ago
  I'd have to look it up online, but while they used to import jet fighters from the US, Turkey builds similar F?? fighters and also drones like the Heron and other tools. But as a NATO member, I don't think they'd have a problem getting gear from third parties.

jacquesm 10y ago

Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.

idlewords 10y ago
And Incirlik is in an urban area of 1.7 million people.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken very seriously. Nobody wants to be the guy who thought it would all blow over and got it wrong.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Then how come they are still there? If what you write is true they should have had clear warning about that coup attempt. It might have succeeded.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    I'd be surprised if they don't have the capability to disarm them and destroy the "interesting" components relatively quickly. I would also be surprised if (besides initial instability) the expected outcome of a military coup is much worse than the status quo. With the current situation there's probably not much good of saying "yeah, that place is pretty fked so we gtfo'd." Which exactly the message sent by loading up all your nukes and gtfoing at ~Mach 2.
  - mdrzn 10y ago
    Unless this is exactly what they planned.