IT'S WAR

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VermontSavant was the one who dragged in the topic of "CENTRAL Asia". Not me. I am just talking about "
Asia" vs Europe.

1)Modern and ancient geographers (including my eigth grade geography teacher) draw the boundary line between Europe and Asia thus: running south to north: the Aegean sea, the narrow waterways between the main part of Turkey (Turkey-in-Asia) and that little piece of Turkey that is west of the Dardenelles and the Bosporus( Turkey-in-Europe), and then the vast Black Sea (south of the Black sea is Asia, north is european Russia), and then the Caucasus, and then the Caspian Sea, and then the length of the Ural Mountains in Russia. The main part of Turkey is part of Asia. I can post videos but I cant post still pics. But a still pic would show what I am talking about.

2) The original meaning of the Greek word "Asia" was "Anatolia" (the landmass that is now Turkey). Thats all "Asia" was to the early Ancient Greeks. Later the ancient Greeks expanded the word "Asia" to mean "everything east of Greece" as their knowledge of the world expanded. And then they finally subdivided it so that there was "Asia Minor" (little Asia), and "Asia Major" (big Asia). The former meaning what we now call "Turkey" and the later meaning the rest of the Middle East, and India. Post renaissance European Geographers expanded the label "Asia" further to mean everything east of the Aegean all of the way to the Pacific (Japan, China, Siberia, etc).

3)Yes...there was an interval when the Greeks under Alexander ruled Asia Minor, and then the Romans Ruled it, and continued to rule it as the Byzantines. And the Byzantines were a bullwork of Christendom against Islam. So arguably during the Byzantine times Turkey was culturally more Europe than Asian. But if you're going by physical natural geographic features: it's less arbitrary to put Turkey and the Caucasus former Soviet Republics into Asia than into Europe.

Yes. You would expect it line up with: Russia on the side of Armenia. And Turkey and Iran on the side of Azerbijan. Except that Russia and Iran are allies in Syria, because both support Assad, and both oppose the US in both Syria and in Iraq.

It's a hard call,there are complex cultural issues in play.
If a country in the Caucuses is Islamic I'd call that Central Asia,if eastern or oriental orthodox Christian I'd call that Europe,but I would never say middle east.
The middle east are Arabic speaking countries immediately around North Africa and mesopotamia.

Good or bad thing?

Bad thing!
Ask someone from southeast Europe,it would be like Hitler or Stalin.The Ottomans were fierce.

This would serve to really throw a wrench into Russia's geopolitics in the region. They'll support Armenia directly or indirectly along with Georgia (and maybe Greece?). This will put them in direct conflict with Turkey, with whom Putin has been trying to curry favor to draw them away from NATO and the EU. Supporting Azerbaijan would leave Iran even more diplomatically isolated by alienating both Russia and NATO.
Worst-case scenario, we have a regional war stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Caspian.
Given all this I feel like Russia might try to mediate to prevent this conflict from escalating and driving a wedge between them, Turkey, and Iran. Erdogan seems pretty intent on escalating the situation though.... I'm fearful.

The Russians will find a creative way to talk from both sides of there mouth,whether you believe Putin is moral or not you can't deny his genius.

It's good only if you're Turk or Turkic*.

For all else, scream.

* Erdogan is ethnicitist; in his last speeches he emphasized that the Turkic peoples scattered in the world (ie. Azeris, Turkman, Uzbeks, Tatars...etc) will be as protected by him as the Turkish people; and there were instances he did so: like when he threatened the Iranian-backed Militias in Iraq if they attack the Turkmen areas, he also took military actions to protect the Turkmen in Syria, he also came once to Lebanon and promised citizenship and support to the Turkic ethnicities here (some still speak Turkish to this day), we also have Greek Muslims.
He's trying to create a world Turkic national kinda of sentiment; if he succeeds in that then they (Turks + Turkic peoples) will be a significant world force to reckon with.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-societ ... ances.html

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 29 Sep 2020, 6:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

One correction: Iran is closer to Armenia, Iran always had "up and down" relations with Azerbaijan (surprising I know, since they're both Shia).

Well yeah there are always privileges and winners and all, but coming from the point of view that you either have an empire or are part of someone else's: if the American one is evaporating, along with its EU arm, would an neo-Ottoman empire headed by Sultan Erdoğan be the worst? Better than a Chinese one maybe?

A good synapses of thousands of years in a few minutes.

But there is one thing wrong the film. Towards the end it shows something called "European Colonialism" spreading across north africa and the middle east. And it correctly shows the regions taken over by Britain, France, and Italy. And then how their colonies became the modern nation states of the region. But the rise of the Russian Empire ( Czarist and Soviet) should ALSO be shown as being part of "European colonialism". It should show a blob of color expanding out of Moscow the cover Siberia, and then spreading south to cover Turkistan and the Caucuses regions. And then it should show how there are now seperate nation states that were once Soviet "Republics" like...what were talking about: Azerbeijan, Armenia, and Georgia.

Jeez!! ! This is spaghetti!

Whoever drew these borders was probably drunk on vodka.

Perhaps they don't consider Russia to be part of 'the West' culturally.

I don't disagree with your take, a lot of people don't understand how Siberia used to be an independent khanate and not just another name for eastern Russia.

I can't post still pictures. Wish I could post the map in Wiki. You will have to go that Wiki article about "the Azerbaijani language" to see what I am about to talk about.

That map you posted here looks a little less crazy when you see the map in the Wiki article. The Azerbaijani people, and their language, extend south of the former Soviet-Iran border well into Iran. And Iranian Azerbajanis occupy an area of northeast Iran as big (or bigger) than the entire independent former soviet republic of Azerbaijan.

This means two things: (1) why Iran is so uneasy about the Azeri people, and (2)why your map is how it is.

That little orange enclave of Azerbajan thats seperated from the main part of orange Azerbaijan is actually part of a big continuous Arc of the Azeri ethnic group and language that extends down into Iran back up again into the former USSR. If the Azeris of Iran were to break away from Iran and to join their cousins in present day Azerbaijan to form one big country (shaped like a bird with beaks biting down on Armenia) - that enclave would then be part of the contiguous whole (would be part of the bird's lower beak), and your map would make more sense. Look at the blue on the Wiki map to see what I mean.

The Azeris of Iran DO periodically try to break away from Iran. Hence Iran's lack of love for them, and probably explains Iran's uneasy relationship with the extant independent former Soviet Azerbaijan. If the Azerbaijani minority in Iran were to succeed in breaking away from Iran Iran would lose a fair sized chunk of land in its northeast that borders Turkey.

The map of Azeri-speakers from Wikipedia:

(Illustration to the post above)
It can be seen that the Azeri-speakers in Iran occupy an area greater than the post-Soviet Azerbaijan itself.