Turkey's military incursion into Syria to attack Kurdish forces caught NATO's strongest European powers - France, Germany and Britain - by surprise. France's president on Friday decried NATO's inability to react to what he called Turkey's "crazy" offensive into northern Syria and said it was time Europe stopped acting like a junior ally when it came to the Middle East. Turkey's military incursion into Syria to attack Kurdish forces, launched after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled American troops out of the way, caught NATO's strongest European powers - France, Germany and Britain - by surprise. It left them incensed, fearing the fighting would cause a security vacuum in which Islamist militants would escape Kurdish prisons and pose new danger, undoing a Western-led coalition's success in dismantling Islamic State's territorial "caliphate". The Turkish assault also left European Union powers scrambling to form a coherent response beyond refusing to pay Turkey to contain any new refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-10-18/frances-macron-criticizes-nato-reaction-over-turkish-offensive