To the great surprise of many observers, Turkey—a key NATO member—is purchasing advanced weapons from Russia. This new arms relationship has caused the United States to cancel the planned sale of advanced F-35 fighters to Turkey.
War and the threat of war has often defined the relationship between Russia and Turkey. From 1768 through World War I, Turkey and Russia were at war seven times and either near war or involved in skirmishes on several other occasions. The causes of this near-continual state of hostility rested in Russia’s efforts to gain control of the north coast of the Black Sea (and ultimately access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean), Russia’s territorial ambitions in the Caucasus, or Russian support for Orthodox Christian citizens of the Ottoman empire. The last also resulted in interventions in the Balkans and included Russian occupation of significant territory in eastern Turkey, which Russia only returned to Turkey in the 1920s, after almost 50 years of occupation.
In contrast, Turkey’s relations with the United States historically have been cordial. Although the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during World War I, the United States never declared war on it, and the United States played a significant role in stabilizing Turkey after the war. Turkish military forces fought under United Nations command during the Korean War (1950–1953). The nation turned its eyes westward, joining NATO in 1952, and subsequently became a candidate for full membership in the European Union (EU) in 1999.
But in recent years, things have begun to change. Turkey became more inward-looking, less friendly to the United States, and apparently more interested in looking eastward—toward nations of the old Ottoman Empire—than west. Many observers date the beginning of the change to the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister in 2003 and president in 2014, but pressures that built up in Turkey over the previous 50 years contributed much to the change.
These pressures include a variety of factors:
- The perception that the United States favored the Greeks during the Cyprus crisis in the mid-1960s
- Erdogan’s belief that the CIA was behind the abortive 2016 coup against him
- The refusal of the United States to extradite Fethullah Gülen, a former Turkish cleric with a strong following in Turkey who now lives in Pennsylvania and whom Erdogan believes was the power behind the 2016 coup attempt
- Perceived American support for the Kurds, who are in almost open revolt in Eastern Turkey,
- And, most recently, the passage of the Resolution Affirming the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide (H. Res 296) and the Resolution Expressing the Sense of the Senate that it is the Policy of the United States to Commemorate the Armenian Genocide Through Official Recognition and Remembrance (S. Res 150)
More important than these irritants, however, is the reluctance of the EU to admit Turkey to full membership, primarily (though not exclusively) because of its human rights record under Erdogan. Turks perceive this as a slap in the face, an intrusion into internal Turkish matters, and outright prejudice by the Christian West against a Muslim nation.
Considering himself as a modern-day successor to Kemal Ataturk and anxious to remold Turkey into his own vision of the dominant power and influence in what considers an emerging Muslim civilization in the Middle East, Erdogan has found a kindred spirit in Vladimir Putin—another autocratic leader bent on reshaping his nation while reclaiming international power and prestige. Both leaders reject western liberal democracy and its notions of human rights, and both consider that the western democracies have deliberately denigrated and isolated them. They form what Torrey Taussig of Brookings Institute refers to as an “Axis of the Excluded.”
Russia has seized on this to expand its influence in Turkey, perhaps ultimately prying Turkey away from NATO and then gaining by diplomacy the traditional Russian aims which they have not been able to gain through two-and-a-half centuries of war. More than 6 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2018, and Putin has announced Russian intentions to expand trade with Turkey from $25 billion to $100 billion a year. Construction is well underway for the Russian-designed Akkuyu nuclear power plant (at a cost of some $20 billion) and the Turkstream natural gas pipeline across Turkey. (Turkey is already the second-largest consumer of Russian natural gas.)
But most significant is Turkey’s purchase of the sophisticated S-400 advanced air-defense system and an offer for Turkey to build modern Russian-developed fighter aircraft, ships, and even submarines under license. (It is assumed the submarines would be the export model of the Russian Kilo class long-range diesel submarine.) While former Warsaw Pact nations that now are NATO members remain equipped with some leftover Soviet-era equipment, Turkey would be the first and only NATO nation to purchase advanced military systems from Russia.
The potential political and military realignment of Turkey has obvious implications for NATO, U.S interests in the Middle East, U.S. Air Force basing rights in eastern Turkey, and Sixth Fleet. The Turkish Army, some 350,000 strong (with almost the same number as reservists), is the second largest standing army in NATO and the largest land force in the eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish Navy is capable, professional, and being modernized. The navy operates a dozen modern submarines (variants of German Type 209s constructed in Turkey), some two dozen frigates and corvettes, plus fast-attack boats, patrol craft, mine warfare ships and several dozen small amphibious ships. Most significantly, Turkey is building its first “aircraft carrier,” the amphibious assault ship Anatolia—a 27,000 ton Juan Carlos–class LHD designed to operate 12 F-35Bs and 12 helicopters.
But the S-400 purchase caused the United States to terminate Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program, which likely will result in Ankara purchasing Soviet aircraft for this ship, possibly the Su-33, an improved version of the Su-27 designated Flanker D, which was designed for use on board the Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetzov. The commissioning of the Anatolia, expected in 2021, will make the Turkish Navy the strongest in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey is a valuable ally for the West with significant military/naval power and economic potential and the ability to exert great influence over events in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Turkey will ultimately emerge as the leader of a regional Muslim confederation. It is not in the interest of the United States, NATO, or the European Union, to see it forge a de facto alliance with Russia.
NATO and the United States have recognized this and are taking steps to improve military-to-military relations—and to persuade Turkey that no alliance with Russia could ever provide the security and the economic advantages offered by NATO membership. But this process will require time and patience, and it is unlikely to result in a near-term diminution of Turkey’s relationship with Russia or a return to the NATO-Western European orientation that characterized Turkey’s first 50 years in the alliance. Turkey has reoriented; future military/naval relationships with Turkey, while probably cordial and cooperative, will be different. It will be particularly important in exercises and other military-to-military relations for U.S. and NATO leaders to recognize this change and demonstrate through professionalism and respect that Turkey’s interests will continue to be best served by close cooperation with NATO and the West.
