Carving Turkey Away From NATO
10th November 2023
The sole Muslim-majority member of NATO, Turkey is a formidable strategic asset. This makes the possibility of decoupling it from NATO a powerfully attractive prospect for the West’s adversaries. Situated in a vital location, on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, it is also the only nation bordering Europe (Greece and Bulgaria), Asia (Georgia and Armenia), and the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, and Iran). Cleaving Turkey from NATO would mean taking out many U.S. and Western bases and intelligence gathering posts—most or all of which China, Russia, and Iran would surely step in to replace. Turkey’s armed forces are NATO’s second-most numerous and double those of third-place France, an important consideration when a large-scale conventional war seems more likely than at any other time since 1945.
China and Russia know that high-definition, streaming images showing Israel—“America’s closest ally,” to quote countless American politicians—using American bombs, weapons, and intelligence against Sunni Muslims in Gaza will undoubtedly provoke an intense anti-American and anti-European reaction among fellow Sunni Muslims in Turkey.
The evidence is already accumulating.
Turkey has no business in a NORTH ATLANTIC Treaty Organization. The original reason, to counter the Soviet Union, no longer exists. Turkey causes ten times more problems than any other member of NATO. Time to get rid of it.