Europe’s Turkey Dilemma

Europe needs Turkey to shore up its defense. But is Ankara committed to European security?

The European Union is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it faces an onslaught from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which is determined to overturn the rules-based world order, and on the other, from US President Donald Trump, who has a similar agenda.

Anne Applebaum, in Autocracy, Inc., quoted Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as saying: “This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order. The current crisis is a fateful, epoch-making moment in modern history. It reflects the battle over what the world order will look like.”

In February, Trump’s pitbull, Vice President JD Vance, was sent to the Munich Security Conference to put the Europeans in their place. In his remarks, Vance stated that President Trump had made abundantly clear that their European friends must play a larger role in guaranteeing the continent’s security.

Trump’s “liberation day” on April 2, in which he announced a range of tariffs on US imports, has upset global trade and is still reverberating. The EU has buckled to Trump’s trade demands at his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland.

The EU, which had long enjoyed “the peace dividend” since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has received the message and is galvanizing into action. In March, the EU’s foreign affairs leader, former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas, presented Readiness 2030, a plan to provide up to €800 billion in defense spending.

In May, the EU presented SAFE, a new financial instrument that grants up to €150 billion in the form of loans for defense procurement. However, regardless of the means the EU provides and how far European NATO member states live up to their commitment to spend 5 percent of their respective GDPs on defense, it will be an uphill struggle.

In February, the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel estimated that 300,000 more troops and an annual defence spending hike of at least €250 billion would be needed to deter Russian aggression.

The lack of a unified command and control is a significant handicap. For the same reason, the combat power of 300,000 US troops is substantially greater than that of the equivalent number of European troops distributed across 29 national armies.

Defense procurement is another major issue, and the report questions whether this could be achieved without access to the US military-industrial base. Can Kasapoglu and Peter Rough have also determined that European strategic autonomy is an illusion for this reason.

European readiness is disparate. Denmark, at the gateway to the Baltic, has difficulty mustering a combat-ready brigade. Still, in a defense line stretching from Norway, Finland, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) to Poland, the border states stand ready to repel a Russian attack.

Last Friday, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said that General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s new commander in Europe, echoed US reports that Russia could confront Europe as early as 2027, increasing the sense of urgency.

The EU’s transport commissioner, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, has warned that Europe’s roads, bridges, and railways are unfit for moving tanks, troops, and military supplies quickly across the continent in case of war with Russia. It will cost €17 billion to overhaul Europe’s infrastructure to boost military mobility.

British prime minister Keir Starmer, backed by French president Emmanuel Macron, had attempted to establish “a coalition of the willing” to provide a peacekeeping force for Ukraine, but like the mice that agreed to bell the cat, nobody was prepared to step up. Nevertheless, the Northwood Declaration, where France and the UK reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear cooperation, could be considered a revival of the Entente Cordiale.

This was followed by the Kensington Treaty between the UK and Germany, which, in 30 articles, delineated specific areas for cooperation. In essence, this trilateral partnership could serve as the foundation for a European security framework.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan had also been invited to the London meeting and, in an interview, expressed Turkey’s interest in being part of a new European security architecture. With its rapidly expanding defense industry, Turkey also has a clear interest in benefiting from the EU’s SAFE instrument.

However, there is a proviso that Turkey’s participation would require unanimous European approval and that no country that threatens the interests of the EU and another EU member state can be included.

In view of Turkey’s defense buildup and President Erdogan’s attempt to dismantle the secular opposition, there is good reason to question the wisdom of the German and British decision to approve the sale of 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Turkey.

The US has already approved the sale of 40 F-16 fighter jets in return for Turkey’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership, and President Erdogan is confident Turkey will be readmitted to the US F-35 program.

Six years ago, Macron warned that Europe was confronted by the rise of China and the authoritarian turn of regimes in Russia and Turkey. Three years ago, Turkey’s President Erdogan threatened Athens with a missile attack, and its “Blue Homeland” maritime doctrine targets both Greece and Cyprus.

Faced with the possible resignation of Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and the unstable political situation, it would be folly for Europe to put its eggs in this basket.

*Robert Ellis is a Turkey analyst and commentator. He is also an international advisor at RIEAS (Research Institute for European and American Studies) in Athens. He is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press. Earlier, he was an advisor to the Turkey Assessment Group in the European Parliament and a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute in New York.

 

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/europes-turkey-dilemma