Should Turkey Set Course for Europe?

At the cost of repeating the sentence I uttered on that Habertürk programme: the conflict erupting along the U.S.–Israel–Iran axis has placed considerable opportunities before Turkey; yet these opportunities cannot be read, translated, much less converted into policy through our prevailing mindset. A change of disposition is required. And the question at the heart of this reorientation is this: at the threshold of an emerging multipolar order, where shall the prow of the Turkish ship turn?

A Cold Examination of the Eurasianist Temptation

Two centres of gravity stand before us. On one side lies the "Eurasianist reflex" so effectively articulated by Admiral (Ret.) Cem Gürdeniz: a line of thought that regards Europe as the contemporary extension of the Crusader mentality, that converts the asymmetry of the Customs Union into a historical bond of indenture, and that proposes Turkey's reorientation as an autonomous power within its own basin. This line is, in respect of certain of its findings, partially justified. France's posture — for a period — of squeezing Turkey along the Greece–Egypt axis in the Eastern Mediterranean; the European Union's double standards; the de facto suspension of accession negotiations — these are real phenomena.

Nevertheless, the soundness of a diagnosis does not guarantee the soundness of the inference drawn from it. Causa cognoscendi and causa essendi are not one and the same. The problem lodged within Europe's historical perception of Turkey does not foreclose every avenue leading to a strategic partnership. On the contrary, we stand precisely upon the threshold of a historical moment in which those avenues are reopening.

Identifying the Author of the Ukrainian Betrayal

To grasp Europe's present fragility, one must first look to the true architect of the Ukrainian question. It is well established by numerous documents — from James Baker to Hans-Dietrich Genscher — that Russia was given assurances at the close of the Cold War that NATO would "not expand one inch eastward." The breach of that assurance is no coincidence; it is a strategy. Why and at whose counsel the Minsk-I, Minsk-II, and ultimately the Istanbul talks that approached the negotiating table on the very eve of February 2022 were brought to nought is no longer an enigma even within academic literature. The overturning of the table following Boris Johnson's visit to Kyiv is no longer speculation but recorded testimony.

In short, the principal actor in propelling the war towards inevitability is Washington. The strategic objective is plain: a Europe severed from Russian energy, condemned to costly LNG, and stripped of competitive capacity as an industrial base. The fate of Nord Stream is the symbolic epitome of this objective. The logical conclusion follows: the United States' contention with Russia is, on paper, directed at Moscow; in actual economic terms, however, its target is Europe.

This finding inverts the classical Atlanticist reading. And it is significant — for it is determinative of Turkey's choice.

Is Europe Awakening? The Meaning of the French Departure

The proper question is this: has Europe seen it? Belatedly, yes — it is seeing. Macron's discourse of "strategic autonomy" has been institutionalising itself, step by step, since his 2019 diagnosis of NATO's "brain death." Germany's pursuit of independent capacity in defence industry following the trauma of Zeitenwende, the EU's joint armament fund, France's recent voicing of positions distinct from Washington on the Ukrainian question, and even Poland's occasional drift towards this axis — all point to a single truth: Europe has come to recognise the ally that is economically strangling it.

The critical point here is the following: for Europe, Russia is not — nor can it be — a military threat. Russia's conventional performance in Ukraine has caricatured the notion of a force capable of crossing the Polish frontier and marching upon Berlin. The rational policy for Europe is to construct a commercial-energetic modus vivendi with Russia. It is the United States that detonates this rationality. That Europe is at last reading this equation constitutes, for Turkey, a historic window.

A Framework of Shared Interest for Turkey

The matter at hand is no longer the perspective of accession; that ledger — as Admiral Gürdeniz rightly notes — has, in the present conjuncture, been closed. The matter at hand is a different version of contractus societatis: a strategic alliance founded upon shared interests. The ground for this partnership is prepared.

First, the defence industry. Europe's rearmament agenda represents, for the defence capacity Turkey has built over the last two decades, both a historic market and an occasion for integration. The asymmetry concern voiced by Admiral Gürdeniz in the Eurofighter matter is justified; yet the remedy lies not in fleeing British procurement but in entering Europe's armament fund as an equal partner. Opening platforms such as KAAN, ALTAY, and MİLGEM to the European market converts asymmetry into symmetry.

Second, energy. Turkey is the sole point of confluence for the Caspian, Eastern Mediterranean, and Black Sea basins. For a Europe seeking alternatives to American LNG carriers, Turkey is a corridor whose negotiation is mandatory.

Third, migration and security architecture. Europe's internal stability is, de facto, contingent upon Turkey's border regime. This is a dependency Europe is unwilling to acknowledge yet compelled to inhabit.

Fourth, and perhaps most consequentially, the post-Ukraine architecture. The security of the Black Sea, the continuity of the Montreux regime, and regional stability cannot be conceived without Turkey. Europe is at last conceding this reality.

History, Geography, and Reason

Europe's mental schema, originating with the Crusades, cannot be denied. Yet history is not a destiny carrying the force of jus cogens. The same reason that admitted Germany into NATO at the immediate outset of the Cold War transformed, within a single generation, the power that had razed Stalingrad into an equal partner. Historical enmities are categories that recede when the equation of interests shifts.

Turkey's course is neither to be dragged along behind the flagship of the United States, nor to surrender to the blindness towards which the Eurasianist call drifts at the edge of the precipice. The course must be turned — by the rational dictate of our own geography — towards Europe; that is to say, towards a Europe at the very threshold of its weakest, and therefore most dependent, posture vis-à-vis Turkey. This is no submission to the West; it is, on the contrary, the strategic occupation by Turkish reason of the void produced by the West's internal schism.

In a world where the economic target of the United States is Europe, Europe's natural strategic ally is Turkey. We are obliged to perceive this first; for we live in an age in which those who see sit at the table, and those who do not appear upon the menu.

Let us turn the course towards Europe — but this time, let us captain the ship ourselves.