Trump's favourite European strongman is looking to gain from Nato’s fears

As Donald Trump dominated conversations at last week’s Nato summit in Ankara, a striking win for the UK went largely under the radar.

During the summit, the UK and Turkey signed a milestone defence and security pact covering defence industries and technology, cyber security, hybrid threats, counter-terrorism and space, while also “reaffirming their shared commitment to shoulder greater responsibility for building a stronger Europe in a stronger Nato”.

Turkey’s military importance to Britain, and Nato more broadly, is rising fast, amid wars in Europe and the Middle East, as well as an unreliable US and a more imposing China.

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Yet Turkey is a problematic, obstructive ally at times, and is viewed with suspicion and even outright hostility by some Nato members. As Britain and others move closer to Ankara, they will need to be wary that the benefits Turkey brings may prove a double-edged sword.

A win for Britain

Turkey is a serious military power and has been a member of Nato since 1952. It has the alliance’s second-largest army and is a major developer and exporter of arms – it has supplied Ukraine with Bayraktar attack drones to fight back against Russia’s invasion.

The country has undergone a “defence industrial revolution” in recent years, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has said.

Turkey is also on track to spend 5 per cent of its GDP on defence by 2030, compared with around 2.7 per cent for the UK. Top military brass have warned that without a significant increase, Britain will be incapable of defending itself in the event of a Russian attack.

The UK-Turkey defence deal is therefore a significant development, and follows Turkey’s £8bn order of 20 UK Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes last October. The pact opens up the possibility of greater access to and sharing of technologies that could help to plug gaps in UK defence.

Alper Coşkun, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Europe programme, called the deal “hugely important”.

A Bayraktar TB3 drone during a live-fire exercise in Izmir, Turkey, in May (Photo: Mehmet Emin Menguarslan/Anadolu)

“Turkey’s defence industry is objectively very important,” he told The i Paper. “There’s a huge capacity there, and there’s a proven success story in many areas on a lot of niche capabilities, like automated weapons systems. We’ve all heard of the drones and so on, but it goes way beyond that.”

William Owens, n aanalyst at intelligence firm Sibylline, pointed to Turkey’s advanced capabilities in areas like unmanned systems, missiles and guided weapons, radar, armoured vehicles and naval shipbuilding.

“On top of that, you add the fact that they’re cheaper than US or European alternatives,” he said. “It’s also faster production, greater manufacturing capacity, access to its markets, things like that.”

Non-EU powers flexing their muscles

The deal is also a political statement and a warning to the EU about the perils of excluding two traditional powers like Britain and Turkey from the bloc’s defence schemes. It “helps show that the UK is still a central partner when it comes to European security,” Owens said.

Britain and Turkey have long been close partners and already engage in training and capacity-building, joint military operations and trade in defence technologies. Even when the UK was in the EU it acted as “sort of a balancing actor as far as Turkey is concerned to ensure that any Eurocentric developments included non-EU allies,” said Coşkun.

Brexit has changed things, with the UK now locked out of the EU’s £126bn SAFE rearmament scheme.

“As a non-EU member, Turkey and the UK find themselves in the same camp, trying to penetrate the walls that are being erected through an EU fortress mindset,” he said. “The critical mass that countries like Turkey, the UK, and [non-EU] Norway have, when they come together… is really important. They are heavyweights.”

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Keir Starmer sign a bilateral agreements in Ankara this month (Photo: Utku Ucrak/Anadolu)

Last week, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged Nato allies to lift defence industry restrictions so his country can join EU-only initiatives. “Restrictions among allies on defence co-operation, especially in the defence industry, must be lifted… excluding ⁠allies that are not members of the [European] Union would lead ⁠to artificial divisions in Europe,” he said.

The EU and Nato also know they must urgently scale up their defence industries as the strategic environment deteriorates, with Trump threatening allies who do not pay their way, and shrinking US military assets and capabilities to defend Nato’s borders in a crisis.

Turkey will play a central part of that.

Western powers need Turkey

Turkey’s geography alone makes it a key power. Sitting at the intersection of the Mediterranean, Middle East and the Caucasus, it is strategically critical in defending Nato’s southern flank and acting as a bulwark against Russia.

While it has maintained relations with Russia and refused to join Western sanctions, Turkey has nevertheless backed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, supplied it with weapons, and now appears to be pivoting from closer alignment with Moscow back towards the West.

Turkey’s strategic importance in Nato is growing as it shifts its role within the alliance from that of a passive participant to an active architect, wrote Pınar Dost, a non-resident fellow and former deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Turkey programme, earlier this month.

Turkey is assuming significant responsibilities, including air policing in the Baltics and command of the Allied Reaction Force in 2028. Erdogan has also told allies he has allocated an additional $24bn ⁠for Turkey’s Steel Dome project ⁠to boost Nato air and missile defences.

“It definitely marks a turning point in the recent history of Nato and Turkey’s relationship,” said Owens. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a concerted shift from Ankara to move closer towards Nato, primarily, I think, as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and also Turkey’s strategic realignment.”

Turkey has the largest military among European Nato member states (Photo: Mehmet Emin Menguarslan/Anadolu)

Turkey is a problematic ally

Yet Western democracies have limited trust in Turkey, which has proven a problematic and obstructive ally that has frequently clashed with other European governments.

Disputes with Greece and Cyprus remain unresolved, as do questions over Erdogan’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and alleged Islamisation of immigrant communities in Western Europe. In 2017, Turkey bought Russian S400 air defences, prompting a crisis in the alliance and its removal from the US F-35 fighter programme. It later held up Sweden’s and Finland’s entry into Nato to squeeze out concessions for itself.

Turkey’s democratic backsliding is also a major concern.

In recent years, Erdogan has tightened his grip on the country, including the military, legislature, media and courts. His biggest rival, Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has been imprisoned on charges the opposition says are politically motivated.

Yet public statements of concern from allied capitals have been strikingly absent. Indeed, Trump has lavished praise on Erdogan, and professed his backing for Turkey, pledging to let it back into the F-35 programme. This would be a massive win for Ankara.

Whether they like it or not, Western powers know that as the world gets more precarious, Turkey is too important to sideline.

“Nato allies will approach this from the perspective of saying that Nato is not a political union,” said Owens. “This is realpolitik. We need to work with Turkey. That’s who’s strategically important, and therefore we’re not going to criticise them.”

He added: “That’s a huge signifier for me of how important Turkey has become within Nato.”

Trump’s favourite European strongman is looking to gain from Nato’s fears