AT ISTANBUL’S naval museum, around the corner from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s residence, reminders of one of Europe’s biggest geopolitical rivalries are everywhere. A bust commemorates Hasan Pasha of Algiers, a commander in a battle in which the Russian fleet burned the Ottoman one to a crisp. The remnants of the Mahmudiye, a galleon that led the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, overlook rows of gilded boats used by the sultans. Such flare-ups are not just things of the distant past. In 2015 Turkish pilots shot down a Russian warplane, and the two powers appeared on the brink …read more
Source: The Economist
