A NATO Win for Erdogan  

NATO’s Ankara Summit is over and, as expected, the winner is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish host has a lot to be happy about. 

First, the summit put on display his special relationship to Donald Trump.  Trump made it clear that he showed up at the Bestepe Palace largely thanks to his ties to Erdogan.  In the run-up to the summit but also in Ankara, the US president spared no word of praise for his Turkish counterpart. He even promised to lift sanctions on Turkey, which could open the way to the procurement of F-35 fighter jets by America’s ally.   This reverence stood in sharp contrast with Trump’s missives against European leaders, including one-time fellow traveller Giorgia Meloni.  Before the summit the US president brought back the issue of Greenland and berated Europeans for failing to join the war on Iran.  The rhetoric on Turkey was much friendlier, even though Ankara is likewise neutral in the conflict.  But Trump gave Erdogan (“a great leader”) for staying out of the conflict, reasoning that Turkey’s spat with Israel would have placed it in Tehran’s camp.  The claim is questionable, of course, but the bromance appears to be going from strength to strength. 

Second, Erdogan managed to knock heads together in order to preserve the semblance of a cohesive alliance.  The final communique strikes a reasonable tone.  It called out Russia as a threat and pledged some EUR 70bn in training, equipment and assistance to Ukraine over 2026.   The European allies and Canada reconfirmed their promise from last year to ramp up defence spending, reaching 5% of GDP by the mid-2030s.  They noted that an extra US 139 bn have already been disbursed since NATO reached the decision (under pressure from Trump) at the 2025 Hague Summit.  The alliance announced new procurements to the tune of USD50bn, some of which presumably will be absorbed by US defence manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin.   The allies highlighted critical capabilities such as deep precision strike, integrated air and missile defence, uncrewed systems, cutting edge technologies, and intelligence.

Turkey hopes that some of this money will reach its own manufacturers and will help growth and innovation within the country.  It finds itself in a similar position as the US.  Much of the additional spending on defence has been agreed at the EU level – through multibillion programmes such as SAFE.  But Turkey – as the US – is a third country and therefore at risk to be excluded.   Greece already blocked Turkish participation in SAFE. But as the funding expires in 2027 and EU members are negotiating its successor, the issue about external partners is as pertinent as ever. The Turkish government but also prominent defence manufacturers such as ASELSAN, Baykar or ROKETSAN will be watching closely.  Turkey would like to leverage its diplomatic and political weight within NATO in order to integrate more deeply in the budding European defence ecosystem.  

Third, ERdogan is proving to be an effective go-between Trump and Zelenskyy. Ankara Ankara hosted productive bilateral talks between the two leadersTrump and Volodymyr Zelensky.  The meeting yielded an agreement to produce US-designed Patriot missiles in Ukraine.  That is a significant development given the Ukrainians shortage of interceptor and the vulnerability of civilian infrastructure to Russian strikes. None of the 23 ballistic missiles the Russians launched last Sunday was intercepted by Ukraine’s air defences.  Of course, production could take months.  PAtriots are likely to be manufactured and even deployed in the EU – to shield them from Russia – but if they arrive in sufficient numbers that could strengthen significantly Ukraine’s position.   

More to the point, the US administration seems to accept Kyiv’s view that the current drone campaign against Russian refineries is the right strategy for bringing Putin to the negotiating table.  Marco Rubio, the foreign secretary and national security advisor, opined that the Ukrainain strikes were needed to show Russia  “how difficult it is to defend its airspace”. “It’s an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that can help lead to an end [of the war ],  Trump said. 

That attitude contrasts with statements made by Trump in 2025.  Back in June that year, he criticised the so-called Operation Spiderweb – a daring drone attack against Russian  air bases scattered across the country’s territory all the way to the Far East –  as inviting retaliation.  At that point, Trump’s play was to lean on Zelenskyy in order to accept Putin’s conditions for a ceasefire (e.g. withdrawal from the remainder of the Donetsk oblast’).  Now,  the president is seemingly siding with Ukraine.   The main obstacle to peace is Putin and therefore the only way forward is to pile pressure on him.  While Turkey and Erdogan personally pursue a different line on Russia and steer clear from hawkish statements, it is obvious that they could and no doubt will claim some of the credit for the positive turn in relations between Zelenskyy and the White House. 

In the grand scheme of things, the NATO summit put on display, once more, the Janus-faced nature of Turkish foreign policy.   On the one hand,  Ankara behaves as a pillar of the transatlantic alliance, including its deterrence strategy vis-a-vis Russia.  Membership in NATO gives Turkey status and influence in European geopolitics.   On the other,  Turkey claims to be a strategically autonomous middle power pursuing with determination and zeal its own national interests.  Its refusal to join Western sanctions on Russia is a case in point.  The balancing act is often not easy to pull off but Trump’s return to the White House has given Erdogan much more room for maneuver.   There is no doubt Turkey will try to make most of it, extracting some concessions from its allies but also cooperating with the likes of Russia and China.   Erdogan might be facing a dilemma domestically on account of his ever shrinking popularity and growingly autocratic methods of ruling.  Externally however he remains a top league player.