Aletho News

Türkiye-NATO: Strategic Security Or Strategic Revision?

By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – February 9, 2026

Currently, Turkish interests and NATO logic are diverging increasingly. Turkish society and expert circles are actively discussing both the prospects of maintaining NATO membership and the possibility of leaving the bloc.

Historical roots of the Turkish dilemma

Türkiye’s complex relations with Western powers have deep historical roots. During World War II, demonstrating inconsistency in choosing a strategic partner, Türkiye effectively supported Hitler’s Germany. Hoping for German military success against Russia – as in World War I – Ankara was forced to hastily join Great Britain and the USA in February 1944 to avoid direct military conflict with the USSR. Joseph Stalin characterized Türkiye’s policy during that period as “hostile neutrality,” denounced the Soviet-Turkish treaty, and put forward territorial claims, including control over the Black Sea Straits and Western Armenia.

Thanks to flexible diplomacy, Türkiye managed to restore its strategic alliance with Great Britain and the USA. However, this required accepting Washington’s political conditions: transitioning from a one-party to a multi-party system of governance, becoming NATO’s “southern anchor,” and entering into a diplomatic alliance with the West against the USSR. As a result, Türkiye was able to curb the Soviet threat, obtain security guarantees under the US nuclear umbrella, and become a full member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in February 1952.

Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions and the price of NATO membership

The alliance with the West, however, significantly limited Türkiye’s economic and political sovereignty, drawing it into a tenacious dependence on US diktats. Ankara, like many European capitals, lost the ability to independently determine its allies and adversaries – these decisions were made in London and Washington. The West dictated the parameters of Türkiye’s strategic security, determined the pace of its economic development, and controlled its domestic politics. All military coups that occurred in Türkiye in the second half of the 20^th century (in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) were the result of US interference through the Turkish General Staff in the country’s internal political affairs under the pretext of protecting the secular regime.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the “Soviet military threat,” Türkiye’s strategic significance for NATO began to decline. The NATO accession of Black Sea countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Georgia and Ukraine looking to integrate with the West, is shifting the focus in the Black Sea basin. In the Middle East, the main ally of the USA and NATO besides Türkiye is Israel. Furthermore, the US gained operational room for maneuver in Iraq, Syria was destroyed by years of civil conflict, Iran was weakened under American-Israeli pressure, the Palestinian issue shifted towards the reconstruction of Gaza, and the resource-rich Arab countries of the Persian Gulf remain in financial and military dependence on the West.

Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions are not widely supported by the US and Europe: none of these powers are interested in the emergence of a strong and independent Türkiye as a new geopolitical center. Türkiye’s plans to revive the Turkish golden age by controlling parts of North Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia (the doctrines of Neo-Ottomanism and Neo-Pan-Turkism), are viewed by the West, led by the USA, merely as a tool for penetrating these regions, especially the post-Soviet space, via Turkish hands.

Intra-bloc contradictions and searching for a policy orientations  

Intra-bloc contradictions are a common phenomenon for NATO. A striking example is Turkish-Greek disagreements and the occupation of the northern part of Cyprus in 1974. It is worth noting that this event did not occur without the consent of the US, which sought to punish Greek nationalists and Archbishop Makarios III for their pro-Soviet orientation.

Relations between the two NATO allies, Greece and Türkiye, are still far from ideal today. The difficult relations between these two NATO members are also reflected in Greek Minister of National Defense Nikos Dendias’ speech before the Greek parliament, who believes that Türkiye represents a geostrategic risk for Greece. During a discussion of the 2026 budget at the end of December, the minister stated that Türkiye is the main and fundamental threat to Greece. To support his thesis, Dendias cited statistical data: Türkiye spends 28.7 billion euros annually on its defense industry, while Greece has a military budget of 5-7 billion euros. Reminding Athens of its participation in European military plans, Dendias stated that the European defense structure is inadequate. The US has moved away from its historical role as a security guarantor in the region and insists on a compromise end to hostilities in Ukraine, including territorial concessions by Kiev. Meanwhile, Europe continues to militarize without the protection of a reliable guarantor.

Türkiye at a crossroads between the multipolar world and NATO

During the years of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule, Türkiye, by developing mutually beneficial partnerships with key Eurasian powers such as Russia and China, has significantly strengthened its economic and political sovereignty.

The idea of a multipolar world where Türkiye will be one of the key geopolitical centers, possibly leading a “Turkic pole,” is actively discussed in Ankara. Calls for the creation of a new military alliance, a “Turan Army” led by Ankara, are increasingly common within Turkish expert and political circles. Some politicians, such as the leader of the opposition Vatan Party, Dogu Perincek, and the head of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, openly call for Türkiye’s withdrawal from NATO.

 NATO from the view of the Turkish military and Ankara’s ambitions

Retired Rear Admiral Cem Gurdeniz, who held important positions in the Navy from 1987 to 1991 and is considered the ideologist of the Blue Homeland concept, argued that the US and NATO have repeatedly dragged Türkiye into local conflicts against its interests, for example, in Libya in 2011. According to the admiral, the unipolar world led by the US has ceased to exist, and NATO, as a relic of the Cold War, should become a thing of the past. Gurdeniz is convinced that the world is moving towards a multipolar system, where Türkiye is destined to become an important geopolitical center. In an interview with the Tele-1 TV channel, he emphasized the need to revise Türkiye’s security strategy and withdraw from the crisis-ridden NATO.

Another retired lieutenant general, former head of the General Staff Intelligence Department, Ismail Hakki Pekin, in an interview with a Russian publication, also criticized NATO, accusing the alliance of insufficiently helping Türkiye in the fight against international terrorism, implying Kurdish armed groups in Syria.

Türkiye sees obvious contradictions between the US and the EU related to the creation of a European NATO Bureau. In this context, Ankara does not exclude the possibility of creating an Asian NATO Bureau with Türkiye’s simultaneous participation in the European strategic security system. However, despite public discussion of this idea, the Turkish elite so far presents it as a way to expand NATO eastward and strengthen the alliance through an Asian (Turkic) bureau.

Despite all its revanchist ideas, the Turkish elite maintains a realistic view of things. It understands that it cannot alone create and lead a combat-ready and self-sufficient military alliance, as it lacks modern military technologies and production capacities comparable to the West and Israel. To this day, Türkiye cannot launch production of the 5th-generation KAAN fighter jet due to the lack of its own engines and the US refusal to supply them. The Turks still hope for a military deal on modernized F-16s and F-35s or the purchase of Eurofighters. Finally, Türkiye realizes that a premature exit from NATO could entail serious geopolitical costs for the country’s territorial integrity in the event of intervention by the US and Europe.

Thus, Türkiye is in a difficult geopolitical situation, balancing between wanting to strengthen its influence in a multipolar world and the need to maintain pragmatic relations with existing alliances. Ambitions to create its own military bloc clash with objective technological and production limitations, as well as potential risks to national security in the event of a sharp break with NATO. The idea of an Asian NATO Bureau can be seen as Ankara’s attempt to find a compromise solution that would allow it to strengthen its regional influence without leaving the Western military-political bloc.

Alexander Svarants – PhD in Political Sciences, Professor, Expert in Turkish Studies and Middle Eastern Countries

February 10, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Militarism | Greece, NATO, United States