Can the United States Extricate Itself from a Turkey Gone Bad?

Turkey’s turn from the West is obvious to all but the most ardent apologists. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey [Türkiye] has become a money-laundering hub, a sanctions evasion lifeline for both Iran and Russia, a proliferator of weaponry to dictatorships and perpetrators of genocide, the largest prison for journalists, and an unrepentant terror sponsor. Erdogan’s decision both to extort NATO over Finnish and Swedish membership and Turkey’s refusal to refuse to return classified F-35 schematics should end any notion that the United States can trust Turkey on defense.

Despite this, the White House, and many in the State Department and Pentagon argue that the defense relationship with Turkey is simply too important to risk a further crisis with the problematic partner. On the three greatest issues of U.S.-Turkey defense partnership—Turkey’s role in NATO, U.S. use of the Incirlik Air Base, and the TPY-2 early warning radar near Malatya—such concerns are wrong.

On paper, the assets Turkey brings to NATO are sizeable. Turkey ranks second in men under arms after the United States, and has more active duty military personnel than Germany and Italy combined. In reality, this metric is irrelevant. What matters is not size of military, however, but willingness to use it. When NATO plans operations, it invites representatives from its members to detail what they will contribute. If Turkey decides it will only offer six truck mechanics, but Luxembourg provides 100 soldiers, which country would be more important?

Others cite practicalities. By any objective measure, Turkey should not be part of NATO, but the defensive alliance cannot expel Turkey because there is no mechanism within NATO statutes to do so. To antagonize the country could encourage Ankara to retaliate. Because NATO operates by consensus, Turkey could act as a Trojan horse and paralyze NATO decision-making. While this problem is real, submitting to blackmail is not a strategy. History provides numerous lessons about how policymakers could bypass the Turkey-in-NATO problem.

Incirlik is also no reason to rationalize Turkey’s behavior. Too often, problematic partners host U.S. bases because they understand them to be “get-out-of-jail-free” cards to escape accountability for malign behavior. This is the case not only with the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but also with Incirlik. Incirlik’s importance, however, has declined since the end of the Cold War both because of Turkey’s insistence that it have veto power over U.S. operations launched from Turkish territory and because the Soviet Union’s collapse provided other alternatives. Both Romania’s Fetesti Air Base and its Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base already support U.S. operations including by F-16s and F-22 raptors. Crete’s recently expanded Souda Bay is a crucial hub for both the U.S. Navy’s surface warfare fleet and its naval aviation. Rich Ghazal, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and JAG, told me Souda Bay could easily fill the gap for theater mobility access. Landing Helicopter Docks, small aircraft carriers capable of supporting F-35 joint strike fighters, Harrier jump jets, and Ospreys among others, can exceed the capabilities Incirlik provides due to their greater mobility and flexibility.

Incirlik’s importance however goes beyond air power to its role as a repository for U.S. nuclear missiles. The U.S. placed nuclear missiles at the base in 1959, where perhaps 50 remain. Today, however, these are a liability rather than asset. Given Turkey’s volatility, Incirlik is perhaps the most vulnerable U.S. base in the world, in line to be the next Wheelus Air Force Base, the U.S. air base in Libya evacuated after Muammar Qadhafi’s rise to power. As Turkish mobs have repeatedly surrounded Incirlik, braying for the arrest if not murder of U.S. personnel inside, any nuclear missiles remaining in Incirlik are up for grabs should the base fall.

Perhaps the greatest contribution Turkey makes to U.S. and European defense is to host the TPY-2 radar, a missile-defense system that can detect, classify, and track ballistic missiles. NATO installed the TPY-2 at Kürecik in 2012 following an agreement two years earlier at the Lisbon Summit to create a ballistic missile detection and defense system for all members of the alliance. Geographically, Kürecik, a town in eastern Anatolia 40 miles west of Malatya and roughly equidistant between Aleppo, Syria and Turkey’s Black Sea Coast, is well-suited to detect launches from both Iran and southern Russia, where many of Russia’s ballistic missiles are clustered. While the United States initially had operational control over the facility, President Barack Obama’s transfer of Kürecik’s control to NATO gave Erdogan leverage over the facility that he previously lacked.

I spoke to John Ferrari, a retired U.S. Army major general who previously commanded the White Sands Missile Range, about the importance of the TPY-2 system to NATO defense. He said the TPY-2 remains essential to both sort out decoys and shoot down real missiles and to provide maximum warning to Europe given the 30-minute flight time of ballistic missiles launched from southern Russia or Iran.

From the White House point-of-view, Erdogan might be odious but the early warning Kürecik gives provides opportunity to shoot down missiles before they strike Europe, bypassing the need for a counterstrike that could escalate within hours to nuclear Armageddon. Alternatives exist, but the Pentagon dismiss most as flawed. For example, it would be theoretically possible to keep AEGIS afloat in the Black Sea, but that body is both increasingly crowded and the ships would be vulnerable to attack by Russian or other forces. Space-based monitoring could not replace the TPY-2’s ability to differentiate between proxy and real, nor could it feed as well into systems to intercept ballistic missiles. Moldova or Ukraine could be a Plan B, but locating the radar station further West would decrease warning time. By the time Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania would independently detect launches, it would be too late for effective defense. Russia would oppose any permanent deployment of U.S. forces to Moldova, and its efforts to conquer Ukraine remain unabated. Russia also occupies chunks of Georgia and continues its efforts to subordinate the Georgian government in Tbilisi to Kremlin interests.

Here, Armenia’s reorientation to the West might provide a new opportunity to detect launches from both Iran and Russia. While the United States has provided moral support for Armenia’s efforts to extricate itself from Russia’s sphere of influence, lofty praise does not protect Armenia from Russian revenge. A greater strategic investment in Armenia to match France’s growing partnership, however, could pay disproportionate dividends to European defense.

Support for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s collapse could also diminish the strategic importance of the Turkish facility. The problem with Iran’s potential nuclear missiles is less the missiles themselves than the regime that would wield them.

For too long, Turkish officials have exaggerated Turkey’s real and potential contributions to European and NATO defense. In essence, they promote the big lie that strategists accept through repetition. A benign, pro-Western Turkey could contribute to European defense, but today Turkey is a liability rather than asset.

It is time to assess Turkey realistically. They should judge Turkey’s NATO membership not by the theoretical assets Ankara contributes, but rather by its behavior. Similarly, what Incirlik brings to the table is no longer worth the price. Alternatives from Greece to Romania to sea-based platforms can replicate Incirlik’s benefits for force projection at a fraction of the diplomatic or actual cost.

It will be less easy to replace Kürecik, but NATO survived prior to 2012, and Armenia’s reorientation provides new opportunities. Rather than put all Europe’s eggs in Turkey’s strategic basket, perhaps it is time to diversify European defense with an eye toward ending Turkey’s ability to blackmail the West once and for all.