Facing Threats, NATO Finds New Value In Turkey
Just a few years ago, Turkey was seen as the bad boy of NATO.
It rankled allies by slow-walking bids from countries seeking to join the military alliance. It refused to apply Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir V. Putin, as a “dear friend.” European and American officials worried about Mr. Erdogan’s strongman tendencies.
Now, global developments, including the wars in Ukraine and Iran and the return of President Trump to the White House, have dealt Turkey a new hand, increasing the country’s value in the eyes of its NATO allies, according to analysts and officials from a number of NATO countries.
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When Mr. Erdogan welcomes NATO leaders in the Turkish capital, Ankara, this week for their summit meeting, it will be as the head of a country whose defense industry and large military are seen as critical for the alliance’s future, and as a leader with a unique ability to charm Mr. Trump.
“There is a recognition” of Turkey’s importance to NATO, Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said in an interview with The New York Times the week before the summit. “There is an awakening in light of the new security and threat environment in Europe.”
The summit will take place amid an extensive crackdown on Mr. Erdogan’s political opponents. But the alliance’s great power, the United States, has stopped speaking out on such issues. And so private concerns among other NATO members about Mr. Erdogan’s autocratic governance are unlikely to be raised publicly. Many member states are prioritizing building their ability to deter, and possibly defend against, Russian attacks.
“The wolf at the door is not the state of Turkish democracy for Europeans,” said John R. Bass, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey.
This NATO summit will be the first in Turkey since 2004, when George W. Bush was president and Mr. Erdogan was a first-term prime minister. Turkey has planned the event to showcase its status as a rising power.
Arriving delegations will land on a freshly paved runway and enter a gleaming new V.I.P. terminal. The summit, on Tuesday and Wednesday, will convene inside Mr. Erdogan’s sprawling presidential compound. The first day will feature a defense forum, allowing Turkish companies to show off their drones and other Turkish-made weapons. The allies will convene on the second day to discuss defense budgets and military industrial capacity.
Many alliance members are concerned about the future. The war in Ukraine has depleted European arsenals, putting a focus on the ability of NATO members to manufacture arms and munitions. Mr. Trump has threatened to reduce the role of the United States, or completely withdraw from the alliance, raising fears that he might not send forces if Russia were to attack NATO allies.
It remains unclear what concrete gains Turkey could reap during the summit. Trump administration officials have said they would like to sell Turkey advanced F-35 fighter jets, which Turkey was barred from buying after it acquired a Russian S-400 air defense system in 2019.
But Mr. Erdogan can claim one victory before the event even begins. Without him, Mr. Trump might not have agreed to attend.
“If not for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don’t think I would have gone for it,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office recently.
Turkey joined NATO in 1952, but relations with its partners have not always been smooth. When Ankara acquired the air defense system from Russia, that led some allies to see Turkey as being too close to a major adversary. These concerns deepened after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Turkey kept buying Russian oil and gas and Mr. Erdogan continued his cordial meetings with Mr. Putin.
Turkey has long accused its allies of ignoring its domestic security concerns, holding back on defense cooperation and failing to appreciate the competing pressures of its geographic position between Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The past few years have led to a new appreciation of what Turkey brings to the alliance. Its broad diplomatic relations include not just major countries in the East and West, but also across the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. Turkey has used these relationships to mediate in various crises.
Turkey helped to keep Syria from collapsing into chaos after the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024. It leveraged its relationship with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in peace talks aimed at ending the Gaza war. It has maintained contacts in Iran throughout the war there, despite being repeatedly targeted with Iranian missiles. Its leaders talk regularly with top officials from both Ukraine and Russia, and even Mr. Erdogan’s relationship with Mr. Putin is seen in a new light.
“As the conflict in Ukraine has dragged on, some of the European allies find it useful to have a conduit that can engage the Russians,” said Mr. Bass, the former ambassador.
Nothing has driven the reassessment of Turkeys’ value to NATO more than the war in Ukraine and Mr. Trump’s disregard for the alliance. These have heightened concerns among the other allies about how to produce the arms needed to support Ukraine, deter Russia and remain strong if the United States scales back.
Turkey figures significantly in a possible reconfiguring of NATO. It has the alliance’s second-largest army after that of the United States, controls maritime access to the Black Sea and makes up much of NATO’s southern flank.
It also boasts a growing defense industry that chalked up more than $10 billion in exports last year, of everything from drones to artillery shells. Turkish companies are known for manufacturing more quickly and less expensively than Western producers.
“Turkey has built a unique ecosystem in which its production times are faster than European averages and its finishing of projects more reliable,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the German Marshal Fund’s Ankara office.
Many Turkish military products come with the added value of having been tested in battle, inside Turkey against Kurdish militants, in Ukraine, the Caucasus and around the Middle East, he said.
Trust remains low between Turkey and some other NATO members because of political disputes or concerns about Mr. Erdogan’s commitment to democracy. Ankara has bristled at being excluded from efforts to shore up European defenses through the European Union, of which Turkey is not a member.
For now, the desire to work with Turkey while NATO confronts its challenges has won Mr. Erdogan a key benefit: silence from his allies as he further expands his domestic power.
Turkey’s most prominent opposition presidential hopeful, Ekrem Imamoglu, the former mayor of Istanbul, remains in jail while defending himself in what is widely viewed as a political trial. A Turkish court recently ousted the leadership of Turkey’s main opposition party, replacing its head with a man Mr. Erdogan already defeated, in the 2023 presidential election.
In private, officials from NATO countries worry about Turkey’s commitment to the values outlined in the alliance’s founding treaty: individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
But amid deep concern about the security of their own countries, few speak up.
“European capitals have less bandwidth to focus on the erosion of democratic practices and norms in Turkey,” Mr. Bass said.
