Erdogan teaches his NATO allies some unpleasant truths

On the occasion of NATO’s 75th anniversary meeting, only two leaders of NATO member states dared openly speak about issues that in a reasonable organization shaped by mutual respect that seeks the most effective and responsible policies would be the subject of intense debate among all members. The president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, made their dissent clear on the eve of the meeting. A third leader, Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, issued an urgent warning afterwards, arguing that making Ukraine a NATO member – not the same as the misguided but fortunately non-binding talk about ‘irreversibility’ that the meeting proudly produced – would be a “guarantee of World War III.”  

Both Erdogan and Orban broke with the conformism that is the unwritten law of NATO now more than ever. Instead of simply following the often misguided and selfish lead of the US, they signaled three things: Rational dissent on policy reflecting both reason and national interests; that such dissent is normal, useful, and should be welcome; and that they won’t join in the ideological and detrimental groupthink that suppresses dissent inside NATO, and more broadly, the Collective West. 

Orban delivered his dose of healthy independence through diplomacy, traveling to Kiev, Moscow, and Beijing on the eve of the summit (meeting with former and likely future US President Donald Trump was just a final touch). Erdogan made his views explicit most of all in an important set of statements in the American magazine Newsweek.

Türkiye, it is worth recalling in this context, has the second-largest military in NATO. Its officers and troops have extensive experience in actual military operations, its arms industry is both growing and constantly modernizing, and last but not least, its location, spanning Europe and Western Asia and controlling access to the Black Sea, is as strategically significant as can be. For all these reasons, it is fair to say that Erdogan’s intervention was especially important. 

Reminding Newsweek’s mostly American readers that Türkiye is important to NATO as well as being in solidarity with its other members, the Turkish president quickly signaled that Ankara’s commitment is not blind but rests on the assumption – or condition – that NATO should pursue solutions that are both “sustainable” and in accordance with common sense. This implies a rejection – diplomatic but clear – of the idea of waging a forever war in Ukraine, because this strategy is a perfect example of what is not sustainable. And given the ongoing human suffering, economic losses, and severe risk of regional and perhaps even global escalation that the strategy also entails, it is not reconcilable with common sense, as Erdogan spelled out explicitly later on as well. 

Next, the Turkish president outlined three areas in which Ankara disagrees with its Western partners. First, regarding the fight against terrorism, Erdogan noted a profound Western failure – with Washington in the lead – to act in solidarity with Türkiye’s key national interests. From Ankara’s point of view, this is an intolerable situation that is not “consistent with the spirit of alliance.” In the realm of diplomacy, this language could not be clearer.

Second, concerning the Ukraine conflict, Erdogan confirmed that Türkiye will continue its policy of not being a party to it, while instead focusing on the pursuit of peace by diplomacy and maintaining dialogue with both Ukraine and Russia. 

And third, with regard to the ongoing mass deaths of civilians in Gaza perpetrated by Israel and its Western helpers against the Palestinians, the Turkish president may not have used the term ‘genocide’, but his meaning was nonetheless clear.

He explained that what is happening in the “open-air prison” of Gaza is not a war, but Israeli attacks on civilians “that disregard human rights and international law” and amount to “massacres” in which, Erdogan stressed, the US government is “complicit.” All of this, moreover, is not an exception but part of a long-standing pattern of usurpation and “systematic state terrorism.” He also insisted that “Israel’s threats against the countries of the region, particularly Lebanon,” and Israeli “attempts to spread the conflict… must stop.”

In addition to these three major concerns, Erdogan also commented on the rise of the far right in the EU, which he – correctly – linked to the normalization of “racist, anti-Islamic, anti-foreign rhetoric of the far right” and the hypocrisy of European politicians whose violation of their own touted values is undermining their credibility.

Taking a step back, there are two things to note about Erdogan’s initiative. It is representative, in both a narrow and broad meaning of the term, and NATO (and generally speaking, the West as well as its leaders in Washington) have no adequate answer to it.

Regarding representativeness understood in domestic terms, the Turkish president reflects large currents of opinion in Türkiye. We know from polls that, on the whole, the population realistically perceives a world in which potentials for threats as well as cooperation are distributed in ways that do not correspond to simple ideological patterns. Key institutions of the West are treated with healthy and deserved skepticism. According to a poll of March 2022 – that is, immediately after the escalation of the war in Ukraine – 75% of respondents saw the EU as prejudiced against Türkiye “for religious and cultural reasons.”

Whereas the EU has a nasty history of first promising and then denying Türkiye membership, Ankara has been a member of NATO since 1952 – almost from the beginning of the alliance. NATO, while benefitting mightily from Turkey’s presence, also offered benefits in return, at least during the Cold War of the last century. In March 2022, 60% of Turkish respondents thought Türkiye should stay in NATO, while a hefty minority of 28% felt their country should get out. 

If the picture of NATO is ambiguous, that of its leader is largely negative; 52% of those polled identified the US as the greatest threat to Türkiye. Compare this to the Turkish public’s general assessment of Russia, once a dangerous rival power for centuries. Before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, only 5% of Turkish respondents saw Moscow as the greatest threat; and even after February 2022, that figure, while rising to 19%, remained well behind that for Washington.

Yet, beyond the question of how representative Erdogan’s intervention is in terms of Turkish opinion, there also is the fact that it stands for a larger global trend. The Turkish president made no secret of the fact that Türkiye sees no contradiction between being a NATO member and seeking good relationships with nations such as China and Russia or international organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS+. This means that, in a world that “has changed immensely,” Ankara claims the right to conduct policy in the national interest within what is, in effect, already a multipolar world order.

And that, for the hardliners of the West who want to fight a new Cold War (or two, one in Europe and one in Asia) – and some hot wars as well – is what is most unbearable about the Turkish position. It does not confront NATO, the West, or the US with absolute rejection. That would be a method the neo-Cold Warriors could at least process since it would mirror their own primitive approach to international politics. Rather, the core of Erdogan’s alternative is to reject the principle of ideologically driven exclusiveness that the West’s current obstinacy is based on. 

In its stead, the Turkish position implies that the West as well will have to learn to live with being one center of power among several, and that states with leaderships that still take their country’s national interests seriously will insist on this change, even within the associations still controlled by the West. Ultimately, it will be for the elites of the West and especially of the US to decide if they wish to adapt to the global change Erdogan has referred to. If they refuse to do so, they will only have themselves to blame for accelerating their own decline.