How Turkey Became NATO’s Indispensable Partner

TURKEY

For decades Turkey sought acceptance from the West. Now, as Russia reshapes Europe’s security landscape, NATO increasingly depends on Ankara’s geography, regional influence and strategic autonomy.

By Owen Williams
Middle East, North Africa and Turkey Analyst

TODAY marks the close of the 2026 NATO summit in Ankara and Turkey’s second time hosting the event since Istanbul in 2004.

In 2004, Turkey was actively moving towards EU accession, and its then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was still widely viewed as a reformist on the world stage.

Fast-forward to 2026, and President Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are cracking down on dissent and political opposition; the economy is fragile; the country has become more religiously conservative; and military operations in Syria and Libya have strained relations with NATO allies.

Yet despite these tensions, Turkey is arguably more important to NATO today than at any point since joining the alliance.

The 2026 summit is not only a diplomatic milestone for Turkey but also a turning point in its NATO story.

Turkey once used NATO to demonstrate its Western identity. Now NATO needs Turkey because it can operate beyond the West, bridging Europe, the Black Sea and the Middle East in ways few allies can.

To understand that shift, we need to go back to 1952.

Turkey joined NATO on 18 February 1952 under Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, although the process had begun several years earlier after the Soviet Union withdrew from the Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality in 1945 and laid claim to Kars and Ardahan provinces.

Ankara saw NATO as both protection against Soviet aggression and a means of confirming its place in the Western world.

Membership was not guaranteed.

Western governments initially preferred Turkey to join a proposed Middle Eastern Command, placing it firmly within the Middle Eastern security sphere. But Ankara was trying to distance itself from its Ottoman legacy and the Arab world, seeking the status that NATO membership would bring.

A Middle Eastern role without NATO would have reinforced the peripheral identity it was trying to escape.

Eventually, Turkey’s strategic importance proved impossible to ignore: control of the Turkish Straits, access to the Black Sea, proximity to the Soviet Union, a large military and valuable bases on NATO’s southeastern flank.

Yet Ankara never fully felt it was treated as an equal partner, believing its geography mattered more than its political standing.

As the Cold War continued, that sense of exclusion persisted. Military interventions in 1960, 1971 and 1980 undermined Western confidence in Turkey’s democratic credentials.

The country’s recognition as an EU candidate in 1999 appeared to offer another path towards Western integration.

But even during accession talks in 2004 and 2005, Turkey was often treated as a special case rather than a normal European candidate.

The debate frequently centred on whether it was truly European enough.

Despite major reforms, accession stalled, exposing the limits of Turkey’s Westernisation for many politicians in Ankara.

At the same time, the Turkish parliament rejected US troop transit for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, signalling that Ankara would no longer act simply as a NATO platform and reinforcing concerns that Western policies could threaten Turkish security through Kurdish dynamics.

The real turning point came after the Arab Spring and Turkey’s intervention in Syria.

NATO’s perceived lack of support during Turkey’s security crises, including IS attacks, and US backing for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fuelled growing tensions.

Relations with Russia also evolved.

After Turkey shot down a Russian jet in 2015, the two countries gradually rebuilt ties through pragmatic cooperation over Syria. The failed coup attempt in 2016 further deepened President Erdoğan’s distrust of the West, particularly as he blamed Fethullah Gülen, then living in Pennsylvania.

Syria transformed Turkey’s regional role, turning what had long been viewed as a strategic liability into one of Ankara’s greatest geopolitical assets. The Middle Eastern engagement that Ankara had once feared would marginalise it instead became a source of leverage within NATO.

That was reinforced by Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defence system in 2019. Ankara paid a price through its removal from the F-35 programme, but remained inside NATO, underlining that it was too strategically important for the alliance to lose.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further reshaped the relationship.

Initially, Turkey sought to balance between Kyiv and Moscow.

It closed the Turkish Straits to warships under the Montreux Convention while maintaining ties with both sides. However, its dependence on Russian energy and refusal to join Western sanctions attracted criticism.

Following the 2023 elections, Ankara began a more visible realignment towards NATO.

This was not a break with Russia but a recalibration.

Turkey had already supplied Bayraktar drones to Ukraine, continued to support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and grew increasingly concerned by Russia’s actions in the Black Sea, including threats to Turkish-linked shipping.

Moscow’s unwillingness to compromise and the economic consequences of the war pushed Ankara closer to its Western partners.

Once again, Russian pressure had made Turkey central to Western security. But the balance of leverage had changed. In 1952, Turkey needed NATO for protection and recognition.

In 2026, NATO needs Turkey because of Russia, the Black Sea, the Turkish Straits and, crucially, Ankara’s influence across the alliance’s southern neighbourhood and the Middle East.

As the summit concludes, it is clear NATO is treating Turkey more like an equal partner. Yet Turkey has achieved that status without fully Westernising. Ironically, it is Turkey’s differences that have made it indispensable. Ankara is hosting NATO not as a supplicant seeking Western approval but as a regional power broker.

That reality is already shaping the risk environment.

While Western leaders gather in Ankara, Turkish authorities continue to arrest political opponents and suppress dissent. Yet serious public criticism from allies is increasingly unlikely as Turkey’s strategic value becomes embedded in alliance priorities. Instead, the summit may generate new opportunities in defence, aerospace, dual-use technology and energy.

In 2026, the irony is clear.

Turkey’s Middle East-facing posture, once seen as incompatible with its Western ambitions, has become central to its value inside NATO.

At a time of renewed confrontation with Russia, the alliance once again finds that Turkey’s geography, regional influence and strategic autonomy have become indispensable.

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