Turkey’s Place in the Western Alliance
Turkey occupies a position the West cannot ignore. It controls NATO’s southeastern flank, fields the alliance’s second-largest military, manages Europe’s most sensitive migration routes, and sits across critical energy and trade corridors linking East and West. No Western strategy for Europe, the Middle East, or the Black Sea functions without Ankara.
Yet under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become increasingly difficult to integrate into the Western order it formally belongs to. A NATO member that buys Russian weapons systems, an EU candidate that imprisons journalists, and a self-styled mediator that openly hosts Hamas leaders, Turkey defies the assumptions on which Western alliances are built.
Western governments have responded with cautious accommodation. Turkey is seen as too strategically important to confront and too disruptive to isolate. But this strategy has produced the worst of both worlds: an emboldened Ankara and a West that hesitates to enforce its own standards.
As 2026 begins, the question is no longer whether Turkey is drifting from the West. It is whether Western institutions are ready to acknowledge that drift, and respond decisively.
Europe’s Conditional Partnership
The European Union’s relationship with Turkey is a case study in strategic avoidance masquerading as engagement. Since granting candidate status in 1999, Brussels has promised membership while lowering expectations that democratic convergence would ever happen. That illusion has now collapsed.
The European Parliament’s latest assessment depicts a country where judicial independence has been hollowed out, media freedom curtailed, civil society constrained, and corruption left unchecked. Accession talks have been frozen since 2018, with no realistic prospect of revival.
Ankara dismisses EU criticism as biased, pointing instead to cooperation on trade and migration. But Turkey’s core strategy is clear: access to European markets and political legitimacy without accepting Europe’s legal and democratic obligations.
The EU has largely chosen expediency over principle. Hosting near three million refugees (down from four million) gives Turkey leverage Brussels is reluctant to challenge. Quiet diplomacy and financial arrangements replace conditionality, sending a signal that democratic backsliding carries little cost.
Critics warn that this is not a temporary deviation but a structural transformation. Erdoğan has replaced the secular, Western-oriented foundations of the Turkish republic with a political model rooted in religious nationalism and centralized authority. The EU no longer shapes Turkey’s trajectory; it manages the consequences of having lost influence.
NATO’s Most Ambiguous Ally
If the EU exemplifies stalled partnership, NATO faces a more urgent security dilemma. Turkey’s military weight and geography make it indispensable, yet its behavior increasingly undermines alliance cohesion.
Purchasing Russian S-400 air defense systems created a direct interoperability crisis, leading to U.S. sanctions and Ankara’s removal from the F-35 program. Turkey has repeatedly used its NATO veto power to extract concessions, including delaying Nordic enlargement. It maintains open channels with Moscow even as the alliance confronts Russian aggression in Ukraine.
More concerning are internal contradictions. Turkish forces have attacked Kurdish groups that fought alongside the United States against ISIS, putting NATO members on opposite sides of active conflicts. Periodic threats against Greece raise the unthinkable possibility of confrontation within the alliance itself.
Ankara insists NATO treats Turkey as a second-class member, ignoring its security concerns. There is truth in this grievance. But alliances rely on predictable behavior, and Turkey’s hedging between the West, Russia, and China erodes the credibility of collective defense.
The result is mutual mistrust. Most Turkish citizens doubt NATO would defend them if attacked, while Western capitals quietly question whether Turkey would honor Article 5 commitments. That uncertainty weakens deterrence far beyond Turkey.
Turkey and Israel
Turkey’s transformation is perhaps clearest in its relationship with Israel. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the two countries shared robust military, intelligence, and economic ties. That partnership gave Turkey regional leverage and Israel a rare Muslim ally.
Erdoğan has systematically dismantled that relationship. By 2026, Turkey hosts Hamas leaders, has suspended trade in response to Israeli military operations, closed its airspace to Israeli flights, and issued arrest warrants against Israeli officials. Erdoğan now frames Israel not as a partner, but as a destabilizing force.
Israel has responded by recalibrating its regional strategy, deepening cooperation with Greece and Cyprus while explicitly excluding Turkey. What was once a triangular partnership has become a rivalry with military, energy, and diplomatic dimensions.
The risks are no longer theoretical. Turkish naval power could disrupt Israeli shipping routes. Turkish operations in Syria increase the risk of clashes with Israeli air forces. Analysts warn that an unmanaged Turkey-Israel rivalry could destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean and place NATO in an impossible position between a member state and a key U.S. partner.
Domestically, Erdoğan has turned this rivalry into a political tool. Critics lament the loss of the pragmatic partnership that once delivered economic and security benefits, but Erdoğan’s narrative, casting Turkey as the defender of the Muslim world against Israeli aggression, resonates with his base and reinforces his broader regional ambitions. It is precisely this domestic ideological project that makes Turkey’s external behavior unpredictable and dangerous.
The Limits of Strategic Patience
What emerges is not chaos, but a coherent, if risky, strategy. Erdoğan seeks to position Turkey as a regional power independent of Western constraints, leveraging migration, military reach, religious identity, and strategic geography to extract concessions from all sides.
But the strategy is riddled with contradictions. Turkey wants Western economic integration without accountability, NATO protection while undermining cohesion, and regional leadership while alienating Arab states wary of its ambitions. Each contradiction narrows Ankara’s room for maneuver.
Western patience has enabled this trajectory. By avoiding confrontation, the EU, NATO, and the United States signal that Turkey’s deviations are tolerable. That assumption is increasingly dangerous.
A more disciplined approach is overdue. EU access must be tied to measurable democratic benchmarks. NATO should define clear red lines on cooperation with adversaries. Washington should engage Ankara as the difficult partner it has become, not the ally it once was.
The alternative is drift toward crisis: escalation in the Eastern Mediterranean, migration weaponized against European politics, and steadily eroding alliance credibility. Strategic importance cannot be a blank cheque.
Turkey will remain essential to Western security. But an alliance that cannot enforce its own rules risks becoming one in name only. The Erdoğan paradox is not that Turkey is powerful and problematic; it is that the West has known this for years and still refuses to act.
Dre Lapiello
Independent Researcher | Broker
