Strategic Atlas | Turkey

A member of NATO by treaty, a free agent by conduct. Turkey is the point at which the word “ally” ceases to signify alignment.

Strategic Atlas No. 005

Written by Luca Salvemini

Here are all the previous issues on Mexico, Vietnam, the UAE, and Israel.

On July 7, in Ankara, Erdoğan received the heads of state and government of the Atlantic Alliance for a summit he had spent years positioning himself to host.

It was the second NATO summit on Turkish soil after Istanbul in 2004, and the image was that of a country planted firmly at the center of the Western security architecture.

In the very same weeks, Turkey was backing a government in Damascus that Israel was bombing, was being kept out of the stabilization force for Gaza by an ally’s veto, and was pursuing in Syria a line of its own in open competition with the interests of another partner of the United States.

Its public, meanwhile, wanted by a wide majority to stay clear of the Alliance’s posture toward Iran.

This is the Turkey of 2026.

A full member of the Western military alliance that in its own neighborhood behaves as an autonomous pole, often at cross-purposes with the allies who applauded at the summit.

The word “ally,” applied to Ankara, no longer describes an alignment: it describes a formal membership that coexists with an independent course of conduct.