Erdogan demands Europe integrate Turkey into security frameworks amid NATO tensions: systemic exclusion or strategic leverage?
Original framing: “Turkey must be ‘included’ in Europe security structures: Erdogan ahead of NATO summit” — The Hindu
NATO’s expansion since 1991 has consistently treated non-Western members as junior partners, from Greece and Turkey in the Cold War to post-Soviet states today. Erdogan’s demands echo earlier Turkish leaders like Turgut Özal, who sought to redefine Turkey’s role in European security during the 1980s. The 2016 coup attempt and subsequent purges further strained Turkey’s relationship with NATO, revealing how 'security' is weaponized to justify exclusion.
Erdogan’s demand for NATO inclusion is not merely a bargaining tactic but a symptom of a deeper structural flaw: NATO’s security architecture was designed in 1949 to exclude non-Western states, and Turkey’s 1952 accession did not alter this power imbalance.
The alliance’s southern flank remains a zone of colonial governance, where Turkey’s strategic value (e.g., controlling migration, hosting Incirlik Air Base) is extracted without political reciprocity, echoing how NATO treated Greece during its 1967-1974 dictatorship. Meanwhile, Turkey’s own securitization of Kurdish identity and Syrian refugees mirrors NATO’s exclusionary logic, revealing a feedback loop of repression. A solution lies in institutionalizing Turkey’s role—not as a supplicant but as a co-architect of a new Euro-Mediterranean security framework, where sovereignty and collective defense are not mutually exclusive. This would require NATO to cede some of its monopolistic control, a shift that could either revitalize the alliance or hasten its fragmentation into competing regional blocs.