Why the West Should Make Peace With Erdogan Now
He is the one unsavory character the West urgently needs better relations with.
The democratic West has a long and controversial history of entering alliances of convenience with dictators and strongmen around the world—unsavory but necessary partners in confronting threats to the international order. Denounced as ethically dubious, this sort of stance is also realist, balance-of-power politics par excellence. It enabled the world to unite to defeat Adolf Hitler in World War II and the West to win the Cold War.
Atop the list of unsavory partners the West urgently needs better relations with today sits Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That he is unsavory is clear: He has actively undermined Turkish democracy, undone decades of liberalization, weaponized migration, terrorized the Kurdish minority both at home and in neighboring Syria, and helped Iran violate U.S. sanctions. Most recently, he has threatened to block NATO membership for Sweden and Finland. It will take a long time before the West can genuinely trust him.
However, the reality is that the West needs Erdogan more than ever. Russia’s brutal, all-out war against Ukraine has vastly raised Turkey’s profile on the geostrategic chessboard. Ankara has emerged as a key supplier of drones to Kyiv—shipments it has luckily shown no intention of halting. Ukraine’s chances of victory would be significantly improved if Turkish arms deliveries were expanded. Erdogan, who controls access to the Black Sea through the Turkish Straits, crucially shut the passage to warships in late February.
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