By Tom Fort
In 1952, with the stroke of a pen, NATO’s borders expanded for the first time since its founding in 1949, welcoming both Ankara and Athens into its ranks. Whilst NATO today is experiencing greater unity in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ankara’s unwillingness to isolate Russia through economic sanctions has risked undermining Western credibility and providing greater legitimacy to Moscow’s tactics.
Since February 2022, Turkey’s position has remained disjointed when viewed alongside its NATO counterparts. The country has refused to join in with Western sanctions against Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has only recently shifted its stance on NATO’s Nordic expansion. Finland’s approval came first, although after an extensive period of stalemate, while Sweden was forced to wait until as recently as July 2023, despite going above and beyond Turkey’s demands according to Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary-General. Turkey’s consistent role as the roadblock of NATO brought in Budapest too, with the Hungarian government following Ankara’s example of refusing to endorse ascension, caving in only when the Turkish government did so.
Finnish and Swedish membership of NATO provides a unique opportunity to bolster Western forces in the Baltic, and to advance NATO’s intelligence capabilities against Russian movements in the Kola Peninsula, representing a foreign policy disaster for the Russian Federation. Helsinki’s accession represented the closing of a chapter in which Russia was able to rest knowing that Finland remained a neutral state. Instead, there is now a new NATO member only 250 miles away from St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city. Swedish sovereignty extends to the island of Gotland, a large island in the Baltic Sea popular with tourists sailing on to ports further East. The summer cruise stop however can become something of an unsinkable aircraft carrier when viewed in military terms, an outpost able to cater to hundreds of NATO jets and so provide critical support to the alliance’s easternmost states. Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO based on democratic truths, the desire of the respective populations to seek the protection the alliance provides. By attempting to suffocate those wishes, and simultaneously undermining the potential of NATO to more effectively police Northern and Eastern Europe through holding up the alliance’s expansion, the Turkish state found itself becoming extremely isolated as other states rallied to support Sweden and Finland’s accession.
The lukewarm relations with Turkey possesses with many NATO states become closer to frigid as we swing south towards Greece, a state which as mentioned previously, joined NATO alongside Ankara in 1952. Athens and Ankara share something of a rivalry, a bitter divergence of interests which often goes unreported and undiscussed in Western media. Control over the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions remain at the centre of these disputes, complicated especially by the addition of the Dodecanese islands to Greek territory. The Turkish government as recently as September 2022 threated to move against Greece’s territories in the Aegean and has significantly raised the prospect of confrontation by boldly unveiling a new line of ballistic missiles, the Tayfun missiles which, as Ankara boasted, can comfortably reach Athens. In an age when war on the European continent has been raging for over sixteen months and when the prospect of nuclear war seems closer than ever, it is often easy to discard the alarmist language of authoritarian regimes as nothing but bluff. Many experts believe that tensions between Athens and Ankara could weaken NATO’s unity, at a time when Western resolve has helped to ensure ongoing support for Ukraine. The prospect of one NATO state unveiling weapons with the explicit contextualization of them as being able to strike the capital of another NATO state provides an example of such a threat to unity, a growing fissure which could easily become a chasm
And then of course, there is the unusually warm Russo-Turkish relationship, existing at a time when most European relations with Moscow have hit rock bottom. According to Turkish leadership, Turkey’s inability to fully co-operate with Western sanctions against Moscow stems from economic concerns. More precisely, around 50% of Ankara’s gas is pumped from Russia. A dependency of 50% however is certainly not unique to Turkey. Before the war began, NATO members as far West as Germany had similar levels of dependency, with Latvia, one of the alliance’s easternmost and most hawkish states, receiving as much as 92% of its gas from Moscow’s pipelines in 2021. None of these states were afforded the luxury of time. Through energy rationing, self-sacrifice and the hurried arrival of LNG terminals, Europe’s gamble looks to have paid off, even as Russia moved to choke some states entirely of their supply.
As Russia’s war against Ukraine has played out, the Kremlin has spoken of an openness for dialogue in communications with the Turkish government. However, the Russian government has also notably rejected the possibility of Switzerland playing any mediatory role. According to Moscow, Bern’s inability to fulfil this position stems from what the Russian government understands as the erosion of the Swiss state’s neutrality. Consequently, Russia believes that a more suitable candidate for mediation can curiously be found in NATO, rather than in a state with no official military affiliation at all.
The decision of Turkey to finally approve Stockholm’s ascension at NATO’s 2023 summit in Vilnius represented for many both a success and the conclusion of a long period of stalemate. The cost of Turkish consent however was high, specifically a desire for Swedish NATO membership being conditional upon Turkish membership of the European Union, despite both organisations not being automatically linked. For its NATO allies, Turkey’s friendship and co-operation have become difficult prizes to obtain.
For now, Turkey remains a democratic state. Erdogan’s recent successful re-election was a closely fought contest, with the President seeing a significant drop in his vote share and winning the second round of the election by approximately 52%. A future without Erdogan, and a different Turkey, consequently remains possible. The re-election of Erdogan remains the decision of the Turkish people. In Western capitals however, many regard the Turkish regime’s policy as having dealt a significant blow to the West’s security architecture. Consequently, some voices believe it may be time to stop considering Ankara such a critical ally. Turkey has a long history as a part of NATO and its membership has helped to bolster the alliance’s security on its southern flanks. Despite Ankara’s decision to finally permit NATO’s democratically charged expansion, these southern fortifications have been exposed as incredibly prone to rusting.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
Image Source: Daily Sabah