(Business Insider) – President Donald Trump’s threat of economic warfare against a NATO ally could destabilize a key US alliance that has been essential to US power in the Middle East for decades and is complicating the US’s nuclear arsenal stored there.
Following an announcement late Sunday night that the US would pull troops out of northeastern Syria and would not prevent an incursion into the area by Turkish forces — effectively abandoning Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces instrumental in defeating the Islamic State in Syria — Trump issued a warning to the US’s NATO ally.
“If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off-limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!),” he tweeted Monday morning. While the US’s relationship with Turkey has been strained due in part to Turkey’s decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 air defense system, the fact remains that a substantial part of the US’s nuclear arsenal is housed at Inçirlik Air Base — likely about 50 B61 gravity bombs. READ MORE
