Is It Time for Turkey to Leave NATO? Türkiye'nin NATO'dan Ayrılma Zamanı Geldi mi?

Security alliances are only as strong as the commitment of their members.  Ever since he rose to power in the early 2000s, Turkish president Recip Tayyep Erdoğan has worked to consolidate his rule domestically and project Turkey’s influence throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond.  As his policies have become more repressive over time and his foreign policy less in line with the objectives of NATO, of which Turkey is a member, the question arises: Is it time for Turkey to leave NATO? 

Turkey has been an important NATO member.  It has the second largest army of any member and it is situated at a strategically important juncture between Europe and Asia, controlling the key Straits of the Bosporus and Dardanelles which connect the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Nuclear weapons are positioned in Turkey.   

 

When Turkey was largely controlled throughout the 20th century by the military, democracy was never fully consolidated as several Islamist governments and parties were arbitrarily abrogated by the army’s intervention.  Nevertheless, Turkey held regular elections and power was transferred between secular political parties.  The press enjoyed relative freedom and a wide range of political views populated Turkish political discourse.  As a NATO member, Turkey always conformed to the alliance’s policies. 

 

Under Erdoğan, especially after 2010, Turkey has increasingly moved towards autocratic rule. The Turkish president has intervened to curb the power of the judiciary. He has removed secularists from positions in the education system and replaced them with political cronies, most notably appointing Islamist rectors to all prominent Turkish universities.  Erdoğan has imprisoned large numbers of journalists who have been critical of his rule.  Indeed, Turkey has the dubious distinction of having the highest percentage per capita of jailed members of the press of any country in the world.

Revealed: the terror and torment of Turkey's jailed journalists 

 

It is bad enough that Turkey has over 300,000 Turks in jail who have been accused of having links to the 2016 coup attempt which sought to overthrow Erdoğan.  However, during the largest and most dangerous ground war to threaten Europe since World War II, the Turkish autocrat has blocked the admission of 2 critical countries – Finland and Sweden – to join NATO. Because all 30 members must agree to the admission of any new state, Erdoğan has been able to thwart Finland and Sweden’s membership bid. 

 

With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, a strong security and psychological blow would be dealt to Russian president Vladimir Putin. One of his goals in invading Ukraine was to prevent another country becoming a NATO member along Russia’s border. With Finland joining NATO, the alliance would gain an added 830-mile defensive capacity along Russia’s Western border.  

 

Both Finland and Sweden have modern and sophisticated armed forces.  Sweden’s navy would help better defend the 3 Baltic republics, Latvia, Estonia. And Lithuania, which Putin would like to annex and reintegrate into Russia as part of his effort to rebuild the geographical reach of the former USSR.

Sweden’s Gotland Island is only 200 miles from Russia’s border. Since Putin illegally annexed Crimea in 2016, the Swedes have been fortifying the island to prevent Russia from trying to mount a military attack in the eastern Baltic Sea. Thus, Putin completely miscalculated the response to his invasion of Ukraine which has only strengthened, not weakened NATO. 

 

Erdoğan’s argument that he must remain “neutral” in the war so that he can help mediate a ceasefire and end to the conflict has, to date, accomplished nothing.  While thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians have been summarily executed by Russian troops, schools, hospitals, and nurseries bombed, and Ukrainian cities and towns reduced to rubble, Erdoğan’s “neutral” posture is, in effect, an implicit endorsement of Putin’s genocidal policies in Ukraine, a country the Russian tyrant insists doesn’t exist. 

 

The question then is whether Turkey, under Erdoğan’s rule, has the right to remain in the NATO alliance.  It currently enjoys all the benefits of the alliance but has contravened its rules, namely supporting democratic governance domestically and working in tandem with the entire alliance to pursue a unified foreign policy which rejects the willful and unprovoked destruction of a sovereign state by the force of arms.

Erdoğan and Putin after S-400 Russian missile deal

At least twice, questions have arisen whether to try and remove Turkey as a NATO member. After Erdoğan’s forceful repression following the failed 2016 coup d’état, and then again in 2019 when his forces invaded northeastern Syria to destroy Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State, many calls were heard for ending Turkey’s membership. His $2.5 billion of a  Russian S-400 mobile anti-missile system in 2017 infuriated the US and NATO and led the US to impose sanctions on Turkey. 

U.S. sanctions Turkey over purchase of Russian S-400 missile system

 

Turkey could be forced to leave the NATO alliance if it can be shown that it has not lived up to the requirements for membership in the alliance.  However, as many analysts have noted, that would be a difficult process and one most NATO members wouldn’t be comfortable taking as long as the Ukraine war continues. 

 

However, there are other alternatives.  First, NATO can insist that Turkey conform to its policy towards Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.  If it continues to refuse to do so, the alliance could cut off sharing intelligence with the Erdoğan regime. While the immediate impact might have limited military consequences for Erdoğan, the very fact of a public announcement by NATO would be a huge embarrassment to his regime. 

 

Turks demonstrate against the high rate of inflation

Second, the US and European Union members of NATO could refuse to support economic efforts by Erdogan to address the serious financial problems facing the country, where the inflation rate is currently estimated at almost 70%. The IMF,World Bank and other international financial institutions should make any form of cooperation with the Erdogan regime contingent on joining the sanctions regime against Russia.

Turkey's Inflation Rate Soars to Almost 70% 

 

Third, the US should withhold its proposed sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.  There is no need to make the delay public.  Instead, the Biden administration can send a tacit message that there will be no further arms sales until Erdoğan drops his opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. A combination of a threat to censure Turkey by NATO, Western economic pressure, and the refusal to sell Turkey Western arms is the only language Erdoğan understands.  Hard-nosed realpolitik is the course NATO should pursue to force the Turkish dictator to become a committed member of the alliance. 

 

NATO is the most important organization standing between Putin’s destruction of Ukraine and his efforts to build a new Russian empire stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.  It also represents a bulwark against rising levels of autocracy in the world, including in Turkey.  The stakes regarding Turkey’s NATO membership extend far beyond the Anatolian Peninsula. Indeed, they have serious ramifications for the future of the world order.