Turkey's relations with NATO in parallel to signs that the United States and the European Union have embarked on a process of greater transatlantic integration demands closer attention. Certain developments such as the Turkish Parliament's March 1, 2003, decision to deny the U.S. the use of its territory in the Iraq war, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, France's decision to return to NATO's military wing, and the presence of NATO's naval vessels on the Black Sea, have been perceived as defining a period where Turkey is diverging from NATO's periphery. The ways in which the policies of Turkey and NATO regarding the Black Sea issue differ, Turkey's position concerning Afghanistan and the Caucasus, and how certain developments have reflected on Turkey-NATO relations is important. With the new Turkish foreign policy concept theorized by Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, chief foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey is increasingly adopting a multi-regional perspective, encompassing Europe, the Balkans, Asia, the Middle East, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, conceptualized as Afro-Asia. The underlying logic is that Turkey cannot be defined as belonging to one geographic region alone and this necessitates it to act multilaterally in its foreign policy approach. In practice, this leads to a moment where Turkey cannot depend solely on a one-bloc alliance-the days where Turkey had this luxury are over. This reality forces Turkey to pursue broader, multi-regional policies and is an indication that its relations with its "old partners" will not be the same again.

In spite of the NATO presence in the Black Sea subsequent to the Russian-Georgian clash in the Caucasus, Turkey's neutral position, grounded in the Montreux Convention, resulted in some questions in the alliance relating to Turkey. NATO's entrance into what can be called a period of U.S.-EU integration with President Nicolas Sarkozy's acknowledgement that France will return to NATO's military wing represents a critical turning point in relations between NATO and Turkey. In the coming days, especially on the occasion of NATO's 60th anniversary summit, where the last step of this process will be taken upon France's formal acceptance, Turkey's role will gain importance. For this reason, Turkey should evaluate the process around the transformation of NATO into a U.S.-EU strategic alliance carefully.

Founded in 1949, NATO had faced its first major crisis in 1966 when Charles de Gaulle's France decided to withdraw from NATO's military wing. Later, when France moved forward with the creation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) independent from the U.S. and NATO, and took a major step in formulating the process in 1993, tensions reached a climax. The European-Atlantic Partnership Council was founded in 1997 in order to settle the deficit between NATO and the EU on the issue of a security structure. The Council, which stands at the core of transatlantic relations, is a crucial undertaking in sustaining U.S.-EU cohesion within NATO. Conversely, 2003 was a milestone year because it marked conflicting interests between the U.S. and EU in NATO. With the round of NATO's enlargement in 2004, the U.S. divided the EU into two new axes, between old and new members. These developments resulted in the emergence of a duality in NATO's transatlantic relations and a crisis in the functioning of the organization. Such an impasse in NATO led the U.S. to function outside the NATO command structure within the concept of coalition forces and the "coalition of the willing" which led to criticism that the alliance was insufficient in dealing with international security questions.

NATO's transformation into a U.S.-EU alliance

Together with Obama's election as U.S. president, not only the failures of the Bush administration, but also the global financial crises and its far reaching impact, forced a crucial amelioration of transatlantic relations between the U.S., NATO and the EU. This transformation has to do with developments taking place on a systemic level and the joint dynamics of the waning influence of the U.S. on the one hand, and the rise of emerging powers such as the EU, Russia, and China on the other. Parallel to the weakening of U.S. power, the resistance of the France-Germany alliance to Georgia and Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, U.S. dominance in the organization is perceived to be falling apart. On the other hand, factors such as the tension in Russia-U.S. relations felt over the Europe-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific nexus, the emergence of two centers of influence on the economic realm and the effects it has had on political and military concerns, has led the U.S. to seek closer ties with the EU. With the transformation of the crisis that began in American markets into a global economic crisis, it became clear that the quartet of European leaders of Britain-Germany-France-Italy were facing the same plunge towards an economic slowdown as the U.S. This provided the first indication that a closer alliance was on the horizon, for reasons necessitated by the economic crisis. Closer ties with the quartet were attempted in the latter part of the Bush administration, and signaled the beginning of the end of the U.S. policy of unilateral action. In the security arena, improvements in France's relations with the U.S. through NATO and its decision to return to NATO's military wing, started to consolidate U.S-EU cohesion in the organization.

In this way, the identity crises and any shortcomings felt in transatlantic relations were overcome and NATO's transformation into a full-fledged U.S.-EU alliance was completed. From a broader perspective, France's re-integration into NATO's military command points to a process whereby Western hegemony over the international system is restored. However, the U.S.-EU integration process which molds NATO from a defense pact into a global security organization reveals other problems. First of all, it risks weakening the ESDP, an initiative which the EU had pushed for, or even abandoning it all together. It is understood that fortifying a strong Western and European-Atlantic character within NATO will come at the expense of the organization's global identity. NATO's transformation into a definitive organization would lead to a greater pull towards counterproductive formations and the creation of new alignments such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), or could lead the current ones to pursue closer alliances that would escalate tensions in relations between the Atlantic and Asia-Pacific. This would result in a new conjectural situation heralding developments that could risk leading to new power bloc rivalries.

Turkey: Sliding away from NATO's periphery

These developments, especially NATO's move in the U.S.-EU direction, concern Turkey at close range. A NATO member since 1952, Turkey has treated the organization as the backbone of its defense and security policies. Nevertheless, with the new Turkish foreign policy concept formalized by Davutoglu, Turkey has been making important strides towards practicing a multi-dimensional foreign policy.v This being said, it should not be forgotten that Turkey has long been integrated firmly into Western political and economic institutions as well as security and defense ones. For this reason, when Turkey implements a broader proactive foreign policy, it raises doubts about Turkey's fundamental direction. For instance, this has increasingly put the well-known question of whether Turkey is ‘changing it axis' on the agenda. In this respect, Turkish foreign policy has alienated Turkey from the West as compared with its previous position. However, certain events over the past few years have brought the differences between Turkey's policies and NATO's strategies to the fore. The Turkish Parliament's decision of March 1, 2003, was a critical turning point in relations between NATO's two important partners. Afterwards, the U.S. invasion of Iraq stirred disagreements not only between the U.S. and NATO's European members, but also with Turkey directly. U.S. policies that risked propelling Iraq towards disintegration were on a collision course with Turkey's policies on maintaining Iraq's unity and territorial integrity. At the time, questions surrounding Turkey's position in the West were fueled by aggravated U.S. - Turkey relations on the one hand, and signs of rapprochement between Turkey and Russia on the other.

Despite its NATO membership, Turkey's neutral stance in the face of NATO's presence in the Black Sea following the Russian-Georgian conflict, which broke out in August 2008, led to the emergence of a shift in Turkey's direction, a changing in axis from the West to the East and Russia. It is known that the Black Sea policies of Turkey and NATO have been colluding. In fact, Turkey has never been in favor of the U.S. expanding its reach to the Black Sea through NATO and preferred to pursue policies in line with Russia.vi Despite this fact, NATO became a decisive player in the region with Bulgaria and Romania's membership in 2004 through U.S. policies promoting enlargement. Nonetheless, the U.S. took the Black Sea issue off the NATO agenda during the 2004 Istanbul Summit only to reveal such an agenda through plans to enlarge NATO's Active Endeavor operations in the region. However, Turkey and Russia's joint resistance to NATO's plans stemming from concerns that the Montreux Convention would be breached prevented U.S. inclusion into the Black Sea. Above all, the entrance of the Black Sea on NATO's agenda, chiefly for energy security strategies, puts Turkey and the organization on opposing sides. This is a crucial reason for why Turkey is seen to be drawing away from NATO.vii Furthermore, Turkey is facing pressure from NATO on its Cyprus and Afghanistan policies. Although it is not clear for how long Turkey can resist NATO pressure to send operational troops to Afghanistan, it is widely assumed that Turkey will eventually deploy troops mainly to reverse the process whereby it is being pushed outside the decision-making structures of the organization. Besides, it is believed that rather than the government, the Turkish Armed Forces are reluctant to send troops to Afghanistan.

Moreover, despite arguments to the contrary, it is generally recognized that Turkey will not impede France's return to NATO's military wing in the upcoming summit. It can also be said that it is beyond Turkey's capabilities to block the return of a nuclear power which had always remained in NATO's center and is weighing plans to send additional operational troops to Afghanistan. In fact, since the Riga Summit in 2006, NATO has tried to develop an energy security concept; and inclusion of this issue on the agenda of the 2009 anniversary summit reveals that NATO needs Turkey, especially on policy matters concerning Central Asiaviii and energy security.

Turkey is in a critical phase in its relations with NATO. Much of this is owed to NATO's transformation into a U.S.-EU coalition that may distance Turkey from the organization's decision-making mechanisms. Likewise, because Turkey is no longer in a position to be a member of just one power bloc, unlike the Cold War period, it is assumed that Turkey will now focus on managing diverging interests that arise with NATO. In spite of conflicting policies, as a rising regional power and as a country with whom every actor wants to have an alliance, Turkey has to formulate its policies in conjunction with NATO. For instance, the process of normalization in relations between Turkey and Armenia comes out to the fore as an area for improving Turkey-NATO relations. The inclusion of Armenia to the Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan axis in the face of the collapse of the Georgian foot of the alliance after the August war reveals a common sphere of influence in Turkey-NATO relations. In addition to this, Turkey can strengthen its ties with NATO by sending its operational troops to Afghanistan.

Muharrem Eksi is a researcher on Eurasian energy and security politics at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA).

i Tomas Valasek, "France, NATO and European Defence" Policy Brief, Center for European Reform, March 2008, pp. 1-6, p. 2.
ii "Debate: Should NATO play a more political role?" NATO Review, Spring 2005. Available at http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue1/english/debate.html.
iii Madeline Albright, "The Right Balance Will Secure NATO's Future" The Financial Times, 7 December 1998.
iv Ahmet Davutoglu, Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye'nin Uluslararası Konumu [Strategic Depth: Turkey's Global Position] Küre Publications, June 2005.
v Ahmet Davutoglu, "Turkey's Foreign Policy Vision: An Assessment of 2007" Insight Turkey, Vol.10, No.1, pp.77-96, 2008, p. 88. Available at http://www.insightturkey.com/Insight_Turkey_10_1_A_Davutoglu.pdf.
vi Igor Torbakov, "Turkey Sides with Moscow Against Washington on Black Sea Force" Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 3, Issue 43, March 3, 2006.
vii Çınar Özen, "Trans Atlantik İlişkilerin Güvenlik Gündemi"[The Security Agenda in the Transatlantic Relations] Ilgaz Security Academy, December 20-24, 2008.
viii "Central Asian Security: The Role of NATO" NATO Parliamentary Assembly 2006 Committee Report. Available at http://www.nato-pa.int.