World unity hope shot down in 17 seconds

The cool, calm, clear thinking that kept the Nato alliance intact as it weathered the Cold War with the Soviet Union has been shattered. 

Decades of careful diplomacy and nail-biting inaction during the potentially world-annihilating nuclear arms race of the 1950s, 60s and 70s appears to have been sacrificed in a few brief seconds by Turkey.

During the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the deployment of nuclear weapons in western Europe in the 1980s and many other causes of strife, Nato did not take on the Soviet Union or Russia directly; nor did Moscow attack.

That all changed when Turkish air force jets shot down a Russian bomber Tuesday -- the first time a Nato country has taken such action since 1952. And in those moments, Russian President Vladimir Putin was given a strategic goal: Destabilize and divide Nato.

More may have been sacrificed, too. Any chance of a quick end to the war in Syria seems to have gone up in smoke.

Putin has been trying to undermine the unity of Nato for years. Whether it's been Russian planes flying in Baltic airspace, aging bombers buzzing the coast of Britain, the destabilization of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, he has needled Nato, testing its resolve and probing for division.

Back then Nato -- a military alliance formed after World War II by countries in North America and Western Europe that now has 28 member states committed to defending each other -- stood firmly as one.

But, already, German and Czech officials are expressing surprise at Turkey's action -- taken after the Russian plane was inside Turkish airspace 17 seconds or less, according to US calculations.

President Barack Obama urged Russia to strike at IS targets in Syria, in concert with their coalition -- rather than going it alone. Perhaps that seemed more possible this week, with both France and Russia mourning losses from ISIS terror and when they were collectively trading their national tragedies for compromises to find a solution in Syria.

Hollande lost 130 people to ISIS in the Paris attacks this month and Putin 224 to terrorist bombers who blew up a Russian passenger jet a few weeks earlier. Both have a moral authority to galvanize collective action.

It was a rare moment in international diplomacy and some diplomats were beginning to think Russia's policy on Syria and its support for Bashar al-Assad could be changed. Not quickly, or easily, but the chance was there.

And Erdogan has squandered it.

The downing of the Russian jet smacks of what Erdogan's enemies accuse him of -- of aspirations to resurrect the Ottoman Empire -- and leaves him open to claims he is too soft on radical Islamists. Putin has gone further -- saying that Erdogan, the head of state of a Nato member, is siding with the terrorists.

And that's why -- at first analysis -- this looks like a disaster, beyond the loss of life of one pilot and a would-be rescuer.