If Turkey blocks Sweden and Finland, will NATO start Turkey?
In 2009, when I became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, London was not the first capital I visited, despite the UK being the strongest supporter of our collective efforts in Afghanistan apart from the US. Nor did I choose to go to Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid—not even Athens, despite my Greek-American heritage. The first place I went to was Ankara, Turkey. I wanted to acknowledge everything the Turks had done for NATO before and after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Turks had provided troops, aircraft and ships to every NATO mission for years – Afghanistan, peacekeeping in the Balkans, counter-piracy, cyber security and so on. Under my command, they provided combat capability to the 2011 intervention in Libya, something other major allies chose to avoid. Every time I asked for something they delivered.
I became good friends with Turkish Defense Chief Ilker Basbug and Foreign Minister (and later Prime Minister), Ahmet Davutoglu. I met General Hulusi Akar, who is now Ankara’s defense minister, and toured the many Turkish bases that support NATO’s mission. And I met Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, several times. He struck me as a very stubborn individual, determined to pursue whatever course of action he believed was right for his nation.
Turkey is taking this counterproductive stance over what it sees as the Nordic nations’ support for terrorist groups among Turkey’s Kurdish minority, particularly their refusal to extradite dozens of Kurds wanted by the government. I can understand that. The governments of all three nations should consult closely to ensure that nothing any alliance member does interferes with the internal security of another member. But above all, Sweden has already made many, many concessions to Turkey during the expansion process.
The major challenge for the alliance is not terrorism: it is Russia’s unconscionable invasion of Ukraine. Putin continues to shadowbox NATO member Estonia, which has a significant ethnic-Russian population. He repeatedly talks about his “nuclear options” and tries to scare Europe in general and NATO in particular.
This is what has spurred the two known neutral nations to apply for NATO membership. Both have fought Russia over the long centuries. Both stayed (at least technically) on the sidelines during the Cold War, when a brutal Soviet dictatorship threatened the free world. That they now chose to drop their neutrality should give a sense of how seriously they take Putin’s threat to the global order.
Sweden has a high-tech military and produces the fifth generation Saab Gripen fighter aircraft, which I was proud to have in our operations over Libya. The Finns, a nation of only five million, can field hundreds of thousands of well-trained and fully equipped ground combat forces in a matter of weeks. We want them on our team.
Soon some NATO members will start asking: “If it’s a choice between Sweden/Finland and Turkey, maybe we should look at our options.” That would be a mistake. Turkey has the second largest army in NATO, has key facilities including Incirlik Air Base and hosts NATO’s overall land warfare command in Izmir.
NATO needs Turkey to remain an active and positive member. It also needs to be added to Finland and Sweden. No one wants to have to choose between them. It’s up to Erdogan to make sure that doesn’t have to happen.
More from Bloomberg Opinion:
• NATO’s nuclear war game is a risk it must take: James Stavridis
• Erdogan’s Ego Trip undermines NATO: Andreas Kluth
• NATO should think twice before accepting Finland and Sweden: Emma Ashford
This column does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A retired US Navy admiral, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and Dean Emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, he is Vice President of Global Affairs at the Carlyle Group. He is most recently the author of “To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision.”
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