RUSSIAN -TURKISH RELATIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WEST
INTRODUCTION The relationship between the Russian Federation and Republic of Turkey is dynamic, complex, and high stakes. In recent years, military tensions between Moscow and Ankara have risen to the point that war looked possible. At other times, the two seemed so close that Turkey’s exit from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and an alliance with Russia seemed conceivable. Whatever direction they take, ties between Moscow and Ankara will have a significant impact on the geopolitical, military, and economic state of the region that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. The relationship moves quickly between cooperation and confrontation, often in the span of only months. The dynamism and complexity of ties between Moscow and Ankara have demanded flexibility and an ability to “compartmentalize” from both capitals—cooperating in one area while competing in another. For all these reasons, the Russia-Turkey relationship deserves serious scholarly examination. It also deserves attention from policymakers in Western capitals. NATO’s original adversary and one of its oldest
members were at the brink of war after Turkey shot down a Russian jet along the Syria-Turkish border in November 2015. Less than a year later—in the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which he accused the United States of supporting1—Russia and Turkey reconciled and began cooperating in Syria. When that cooperation later expanded to a Turkish purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, Washington expelled Ankara from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. By summer 2020, when Turkey found itself embroiled in a naval standoff with France2 over arms shipments to Libya, Ankara threatened to leave NATO.3 More recently, an escalation of violence between Armenia, a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and host of a Russian military base, and Azerbaijan, which enjoys strong Turkish support, again raised the specter of a RussianTurkish confrontation. The prospect of a Russian-Turkish clash or of a Turkey increasingly distant from NATO should cause alarm in Western capitals. Although an often-troublesome
1 Tim Arango and Ceylan Yeginsu, “Turks Can Agree on One Thing: U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup,” New York Times, August 2, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/world/europe/turkey-coup-erdoganfethullah-gulen-united-states.html, accessed September 29, 2020. 2 Lorne Cook, “France-Turkey spat over Libya arms exposes NATO’s limits,” Associated Press, July 5, 2020, https://apnews.com/045a9b8eb0f7eb5adc33d1303fafa95d, accessed September 28, 2020. 3 Jack Beyrer, “Turkey Escalates Threats to Leave NATO,” Washington Free Beacon, July 8, 2020, https:// freebeacon.com/national-security/turkey-escalates-threats-to-leave-nato/, accessed September 28, 2020.
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