Image by Arzu Geybullayeva
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attendance at NATO's 75th annual summit in Washington once again underlined the fundamental ways in which Ankara seeks to undermine the alliance’s vital security interests. NATO is a military alliance, consisting of 32 countries, which came into existence in 1950, with the premier mission to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union. While this alliance has historically been fairly unified, Ankara is pursuing a strategy of hedging against NATO, thereby endangering the group's efforts to mitigate the security challenges of great power competition, specifically against the threats posed by Russia and China. Whether it's countering Russia’s efforts to seize Ukraine or defining the term “terrorism,” there is seemingly nothing that the vast majority of NATO members and Turkey can agree on.
The divide between Ankara and NATO’s interests seemed to become even wider when, on July 28th, Erdoğan threatened to invade Israel over its conflict with Palestine. Such comments are not only inflammatory and aggressive, but they are representative of Turkey’s increasing antagonism of Israel, which has been designated a major non-member ally of the alliance for decades.
As a collective, NATO consistently fails to hold Ankara to account, not because it does not want to but because it does not know how. This must change, and strategies to coerce one of NATO’s oldest members back on the right path must be found. Failure to rein in Turkey will continue to bring us closer to an irreparable split between the alliance and Ankara.
Preparing for a Trump presidency
On July 18th a week after the NATO summit concluded in Washington, Erdoğan spoke with former U.S. President Donald Trump on the phone. Erdoğan praised Trump, stating that his “bravery following the heinous attack is admirable” — in reference to the attempted assassination of the former president — and that the continuation of the Trump campaign was strengthening American democracy. The phone call, one of very few between Trump and world leaders since the incident, indicates Ankara’s growing assumption that the former president will win the election in November and will radically reconfigure NATO.
Trump has consistently told his American base that NATO members “rip us off” and has promised to downsize America’s security commitments to its allies in Europe. Erdoğan is hyper-aware of the fact that NATO will become less beneficial to Turkey if Trump rolls back American funding and security guarantees. His calculus that this reality may come to fruition after the November US election, is emboldening him to act brazenly and make unpopular demands, a pattern that has continued since Turkey’s outsize role in delaying Sweden’s membership bid. Between 2022 and 2023, Turkey slowed the addition of Finland and Sweden to the NATO alliance, mainly because of Erdoğan's imposition of a quid pro quo: Unless Washington approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, Turkey would indefinitely delay NATO's expansion. Erdoğan's demand disrupted the alliance's plans, which directly benefited Russia. Erdoğan's crass treatment of NATO demonstrated to friends and adversaries of NATO, that the alliance was plagued by discord.
Alliances beyond NATO
Erdoğan has branded Ankara’s increasing proximity to NATO’s rivals, particularly Russia and China, as an asset for the alliance and a way to negotiate toward peace in several key regions. While Turkey and Russia often find themselves on opposite sides of conflicts, such as in Ukraine, the Caucuses, Syria, and Libya, Erdoğan has gone out of his way to maintain a cordial relationship with President Vladimir Putin and position himself as a potential mediator.
Beyond conflict resolution, Turkey has sought deeper ties with the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the economic alliance BRICS, both considered growing rivals of NATO and the G7 countries. Only days before arriving in Washington for the NATO summit, Erdoğan was in Kazakhstan for the SCO summit, signaling Turkey’s desire to be upgraded to a permanent member. On the margins of the summit, Erdoğan met with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin.
The juxtaposition of Erdoğan’s maneuvering in Kazakhstan versus his brazen and undermining behavior at the NATO summit is stark. Turkey’s accelerated pursuit of membership in these blocs may, in part, be an emotional reaction to ongoing stalled EU accession talks, but it is also representative of Erdoğan’s changing worldview. He has publicly stated that the world’s economic center of gravity is shifting East and criticized the West’s limited perception of Russia and China as enemies. Turkey seeks to be a major player in a multipolar world rather than a state confined and defined by the political and economic demands of Western powers.
Turkey may rely on NATO now for its security, but it is also investing in its future by creating contingency plans if the West and NATO’s strength is dwarfed by Russia, China, and the emerging global South.
Undermining NATO’s security
Ankara’s hedging gives alliance members plenty of reasons to worry, but there are also even more stark examples of Turkish behavior that NATO simply cannot tolerate. Turkey’s hardened anti-Israeli stance is not simply a policy issue that Turkey and the rest of NATO disagree on. Erdoğan has made it Turkey’s mission to materially support Hamas, an organization that the other NATO members widely classify as a terrorist organization.
Turkey’s explicit support of Hamas is not a new issue. In 2011, Erdoğan invited the organization to open offices in Turkey. Since Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel, which killed over 1,200 Israeli civilians, Erdoğan has only elevated his rhetorical praise of the group and escalated the scale of support.
Turkey is complicit in escalating violence against Israel. On July 21, Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, thwarted a terrorist attack that it identified as being directed by Turkey. Five students at Birzeit University in the West Bank, affiliated with a student group “Kutla Islamia,” acquired weapons and cash with the intent of murdering Israeli citizens. Although Israel’s foreign minister drew attention to and condemned the attack and Turkey’s role in it, no other Israeli ally followed suit.
In September 2023, Israeli customs authorities revealed that they had intercepted 16 tons of explosive material on its way from Turkey to the Gaza Strip two months previously. In December 2023, Israeli customs officials foiled another attempt by Turkish affiliates to smuggle thousands of weapons parts into the West Bank.
Turkey’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be spoken about as an ideological rift with NATO members; instead, it is an egregious example of a NATO member championing and furthering the violent interests of a terrorist entity.
A similar pattern can be found in Syria, where Turkey has purposefully undermined the objectives of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a mission spearheaded by the United States and its coalition partners to degrade and eliminate the Islamic State (ISIS). Ankara targets and carries out military strikes against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), accusing them of being “terrorists” intent on attacking Turkey. On several occasions, Turkish military strikes have come close to hitting US military personnel assisting the SDF.
Instead of participating in OIR’s counterterrorism mission to eliminate ISIS, Erdoğan has chosen to admonish its treaty allies. He has bashed the mission and stated that it is “not consistent with the spirit of the alliance for the ringleaders of terrorist organizations that pose a threat to Türkiye's national security to be accepted as legitimate actors.” It should be noted that the SDF has been critical in thwarting the inhumane violence and expansion carried out by ISIS, and there is no evidence that they are affiliated with terrorism.
In private, many NATO leaders are not just concerned with Turkey’s stance on the major security challenges facing the alliance; they are outraged. This, however, is not helpful. It seems that the alliance has chosen to prioritize avoiding a public spectacle over confronting Ankara.
Hesitation to hold Turkey accountable is partially understandable. NATO was created to counter the systemic threat posed by the Soviet Union. It has no developed mechanisms to counter internal threats caused by member states. From acquiring Russian missiles to delaying NATO expansion, Ankara is operating in uncharted territory by constantly blowing past established norms and boundaries. This trajectory must be interrupted.
In the face of a multiplicity of threats facing the alliance, it is now more important than ever to ensure that members are on the same page. What this means in practice is that the alliance must nail down what is collectively understood as strategic threats, how we define terrorist actors, and what the responsibilities of membership entail. NATO’s operational cohesivity and capability, as the most effective military alliance, cannot and should not be hamstrung by the actions of one member. It is past time to stand up to Erdoğan.
