Türkiye and À la Carte NATO

International relations theory requires that shifts in global power be analyzed not through the froth of momentary crises, but through states’ capacities, geopolitical determinism, and the structural transformation of alliances. It is possible to assess the 2026 NATO Ankara Summit, beyond the shallow protocol coverage offered by the international media, as a threshold of structural restoration at which the Euro-Atlantic security architecture confronts its own ontological crises. For a continental Europe waking from the comfortable illusions of the post-Cold-War period, and a Washington forced to divide its strategic priorities between the Pacific and its domestic politics, the picture in Ankara shows that an actor once coded as the southeastern flank has evolved toward becoming the system’s center of gravity. Examining the anatomy of the summit through the cold, rational logic of raison d’État requires reading a wide spectrum — from the capacity bind of an expanding alliance to attempted outside encroachments on its cohesion — through a structural lens.

The historic symbolism of the 16 Turkic states representing those who greeted Western leaders at the summit’s opening ceremony can be read as more than the superficial choreography that the foreign press, with an orientalist reflex, tried to portray as merely a cultural display. In international relations, symbols are often among the important indicators of power and intent. To European allies whose own political stability is tied to short election cycles, who face domestic polarization, or who are still searching for economic-strategic direction, a powerful message was sent at the symbolic level in Ankara. This message underscores that facing them is not merely a conjunctural security partner, but an actor with a long tradition of statehood, capable of drawing on its historical memory in the production of foreign policy. At a time when the global system has entered turbulence, Türkiye has taken its seat at the table not only with its military capacity but also with a claim to developing a long-term strategic perspective.

Turning to the concrete rationality on the ground, the debates raised by the NATO 3.0 vision, the most critical item on the agenda, stand out. This strategy, which envisions the Alliance expanding its mission and area of effect from Scandinavia to the Baltics, from cyberspace to AI-enabled autonomous battlefields, raises significant question marks from the standpoint of structural realism’s core assumptions. As an alliance expands geographically and in mission, coordination and capacity problems that centrifugal effects can create also tend to increase. In a security equation where the British Army’s personnel numbers have historically fallen to low levels and many European militaries face significant capacity problems in conventional deterrence, which actors will bear the military burden of the expanding NATO 3.0 vision is one of the central debate topics.

Initiatives that became more visible in the summit’s corridors, aimed at building greater European defense autonomy within NATO, can also be assessed as a result of this search for capacity. These efforts, developed against the possibility that Washington will reduce its military engagement in Europe in the long run, contain an important paradox of their own. It appears that the viability of the strategic-autonomy vision France has tried to lead is seriously questionable without Türkiye’s military-industrial capacity and demographic potential. That countries such as Poland and Romania, which directly feel the Russian threat, have markedly strengthened their security cooperation with Türkiye in recent years can also be read as one indicator of this trend. Allies revisiting certain technological restrictions on Türkiye and barriers in the defense-industry field can be read less as a diplomatic gesture than as the natural result of changing security needs. The unmanned systems, smart munitions and conventional production capacity Türkiye has developed are settling into an increasingly important position both for NATO’s deterrence and for the sustainability of any prospective European defense initiative.

Alongside the capacity debates, the strategic risks created by actors trying to influence the Alliance’s internal cohesion from outside have also been one of the summit’s less visible dimensions. Decision-making mechanisms must take into account the political influence exerted not only by allied states but by different regional actors and various pressure groups. In particular, the extent to which conflicts in the Middle East will spill onto NATO’s agenda has become one of the important areas of debate. Türkiye’s core approach in this process is that NATO’s collective-defense mission should be kept separate from regional agendas outside the alliance. While bringing its security concerns over the PKK/PYD to its allies’ agenda, Ankara has also argued that NATO’s institutional priorities should not be eroded by different regional crises. This approach can be assessed not only from a national-security perspective but also as an effort to preserve the Alliance’s institutional legitimacy and core function. In this respect, Türkiye stands out as one of the leading balancing actors within NATO.

The general picture that can be drawn from between the lines of diplomatic texts and from the assessments of leaders leaving the capital is quite striking. In the current conjuncture, where the United States is redefining its global priorities and European countries continue their search to increase their security capacity, Türkiye’s strategic weight is markedly increasing. The summit can be read as one of the important indicators of a new era in which realpolitik calculations come to the fore more than normative security approaches. Türkiye has now moved beyond being a peripheral actor implementing decisions taken at NATO headquarters; it stands out as one of the central actors influencing security equations in the basin stretching from the Black Sea to North Africa, becoming one of the core components of any prospective European defense architecture, and whose weight in the Alliance’s strategic orientation is steadily increasing. Assessments that Ankara’s geopolitical and strategic weight has become more determinative than in previous periods, in the process of the new international system taking shape, are also increasingly being discussed.

This article was first published on 11 July 2026 in Bursa Hakimiyet.