Global Research - NATO’s New Turkiye Plans NATO is creating more risks than providing security. -- By Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz Global Research, --- April 08, 2026

 Global Research 

NATO’s New Turkiye Plans

NATO is creating more risks than providing security.

By Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz

Global Research, April 08, 2026

Region: Europe, Middle East & North Africa, USA

Theme: Intelligence

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The world is shedding its old shell. The old order is collapsing, and a new one is emerging. From Westphalia (1648) to Pax Britannica (1815) and Pax Americana (1945), every hegemonic cycle has ended in transformation. Today, we are witnessing another systemic transition.

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To expand while collapsing.

With each passing day, the United States displays all the characteristics of an empire in decline, burdened by its geopolitical partnership with Israel. At the same time, it is being drawn back into the Western Hemisphere through actions that indirectly target China—such as the Russia-Ukraine war, intervention in Venezuela, the Iran war, and the destabilization of Hormuz.

In this context, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has openly redefined this approach through concepts like the “Greater North America” or expanded hemispheric security framework, extending U.S. strategic space beyond geography into maritime routes and global logistics networks. In other words, while Trump views the Western Hemisphere as a sphere of influence, Hegseth reframes it as an integrated security system.

The United States is effectively ending the Pax Americana by using external theaters, its military power, and proxy actors such as Ukraine and Israel to generate instability on a global scale. These conflicts—from Ukraine to the Israel–Iran war—are not isolated, but part of a broader strategy of controlled disorder.

However, with only around 18% of global production capacity and a debt stock approaching 40 trillion dollars, the U.S. no longer has the structural power to impose global order or produce sustained consent.

Strategically, Washington seeks to block energy cooperation between Russia and the European Union and prevent the EU from emerging as a commercial rival. At the same time, it anticipates an eventual confrontation with China and aims to balance it in the Indo-Pacific by pulling both India and Russia into its orbit.

Within NATO, the United States increasingly acts as a Trojan horse. It has not only distanced itself from the EU but has also avoided fully aligning even with the United Kingdom. On the contrary, Britain—especially through its financial capital structure centered in the City—has become a potential strategic risk for Trump. Recent covers of The Economist reflect this growing divergence.

Israel’s Priorities

Israel has leveraged U.S. power not only as a security umbrella but as a force multiplier to advance its long-term geopolitical and ideological agenda. Netanyahu’s strategy has been to align U.S. military capability with Israel’s regional objectives, first in Gaza and then during the 2025 Iran war. This alignment is not tactical but structural; it reflects a deep integration of political influence and military dependency.

On February 28, 2026, Trump escalated the conflict at a carefully calculated moment—eight months before the midterm elections—while maintaining a strong position in Congress. This timing was not coincidental. It aimed both to consolidate domestic political power and to reshape the geopolitical environment in a way that would extend U.S. strategic maneuver space. In this framework, Israel’s priorities and U.S. domestic politics became mutually reinforcing drivers of escalation.

Incalculable Iranian Resistance

Iran’s resistance fundamentally disrupted these calculations. What was expected to be a short, controlled escalation evolved into a prolonged and unpredictable confrontation. Tehran demonstrated not only military resilience but also strategic patience, altering the cost-benefit equation for Washington.

This unexpected resistance exposed deep fractures within the Western alliance system. Key U.S. allies refrained from providing full political and military backing, signaling a loss of cohesion that had defined the post-1945 order. Countries such as Spain, Austria, France, and Italy resisted deeper involvement, while others limited their support to symbolic gestures.

Faced with this reality, Trump chose escalation over stabilization. Rather than containing the crisis, he allowed it to expand, accelerating the strategic decoupling between the United States and Europe. What emerged was not just a regional conflict, but a visible fragmentation of the Western bloc itself.

Chaos Economy

Image: Strait of Hormuz (Public Domain)

The crisis in the Gulf enabled Washington to transform instability into an instrument of economic leverage. By allowing disruptions in critical maritime chokepoints such as Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb—through which a significant portion of global energy flows passes—the United States created conditions that constrained competitors while opening new economic opportunities for itself.

Despite its inability to fully secure these maritime arteries, the U.S. repositioned itself as an alternative supplier and stabilizer, effectively monetizing the crisis it could not control. Trump’s implicit message— “secure your energy from us”—reflected a deliberate strategy of energy reorientation.

This marks a structural shift. Strategic leadership, once based on stability and predictability, is being replaced by a model where controlled chaos generates tactical economic advantage. In this new paradigm, crisis is no longer a failure of policy but a tool of policy.

The EU and NATO at the Edge

Europe today finds itself strategically disoriented. It has lost the ability to define an autonomous geopolitical course and remains caught between dependence on the United States and an inability to act independently. Trust in Washington has eroded, yet no viable alternative security architecture has emerged. NATO, under these conditions, has lost much of its strategic coherence. Without firm and predictable U.S. commitment, it increasingly resembles a hollow institutional framework rather than a credible military alliance.

At the same time, Europe continues to pursue a confrontational posture toward Russia without possessing the necessary military, economic, or political capacity to sustain such a strategy. A direct confrontation with a Russia that has transitioned into a war economy would therefore represent not strength, but strategic overreach. In this sense, Europe stands at the edge of a geopolitical cliff.

Turkiye Without a Strategic Course

Turkiye, in this rapidly shifting environment, appears unable to define a stable and coherent geopolitical direction. The persistence of Western-oriented reflexes, combined with deep internal ideological fragmentation, prevents the emergence of a unified strategic vision.

Different segments of society—government, opposition, academia, and media—interpret global developments through conflicting paradigms. This results in reactive rather than proactive policymaking.

This condition is not accidental. It reflects a long-term transformation in which Kemalism has been reduced to a formal identity rather than a strategic doctrine, while alternative ideological currents have failed to produce a consistent geopolitical framework. The outcome is a state that reacts to crises rather than shaping them.

The Drift Since 1939

The roots of this strategic drift can be traced back to 1939. Following Atatürk’s death, Turkiye entered into the Tripartite Alliance with Britain and France, marking the beginning of a fluctuating alignment strategy.

Although the Montreux Convention enabled Turkiye to maintain active neutrality during the Second World War, Ankara continuously balanced between major powers. It maintained relations with Germany while also preserving ties with the West, shifting its position as the war evolved.

After 1945, however, this balance was abandoned. Turkiye aligned fully with the Pax Americana system, integrating itself into the Western security architecture. Alternative models of neutrality—similar to those pursued by Finland or Austria—were not considered viable. This marked the institutionalization of a strategic dependency that continues to shape policy choices today.

Post-Cold War Transformation

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO’s original raison d’être effectively disappeared. The threat it was designed to counter no longer existed. Yet instead of dissolving or redefining itself, the alliance expanded.

This expansion—particularly toward Eastern Europe—gradually transformed NATO from a defensive alliance into a geopolitical instrument of containment. The systematic encirclement of Russia intensified through successive enlargements, culminating in the crises surrounding Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine is therefore not an isolated event but the outcome of a long-term structural process. It represents the breaking point of a post-Cold War order that was never fully stabilized.

The Israeli Effect After 9/11

The attacks of September 11, 2001, marked a turning point in U.S. global strategy. Under the framework of counterterrorism, Washington initiated a series of interventions that reshaped the political geography of West Asia and North Africa.

NATO, for the first time in its history, operated far beyond its original geographic scope, becoming an instrument for regime change. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria became theaters of prolonged instability.

These interventions were closely aligned with broader strategic visions, including efforts to secure Israel’s regional environment. The cumulative effect was the fragmentation of state structures across the region.

Turkiye, at various stages, became entangled in these processes—sometimes as an active participant, sometimes as a passive facilitator. In many cases, these involvements came at the expense of its own strategic depth, contributing to a gradual erosion of its geopolitical autonomy.

Ukraine, NATO, and Turkiye’s Position

Since the Russia-Ukraine war on February 24, 2022, Turkiye-NATO relations have entered a new pressure phase. NATO’s de facto involvement in the war without a NAC decision creates a situation that risks undermining Turkiye’s active neutrality under Article 19 of the Montreux Convention.

On the one hand, Turkiye restricts warship passage in the Black Sea; on the other, it contributes to NATO’s air defense posture in Romania. Meanwhile, NATO members—especially the U.S., France, and the UK—provide intelligence, weapons, and logistical support to Ukraine’s strikes against Russia.

Despite attacks targeting critical energy infrastructure such as Blue Stream and Turkish Stream near the İstanbul Strait approaches, Turkiye has refrained from strong condemnation. This contradiction reflects the growing tension between formal neutrality and practical alignment.

Turkiye’s participation in the “Ukrainian Volunteers Coalition” on March 2, 2025, further deepens this contradiction. Although presented as a diplomatic initiative, it conflicts with the spirit of the Montreux Convention. Montreux is not merely a transit regime; it is a strategic security framework that allows Turkiye to remain neutral and prevents great power rivalry in the Black Sea.

Even if this coalition is formally outside NATO, it functions as its operational extension. Turkiye’s involvement risks eroding its neutrality politically, even if not legally. More importantly, the maritime dimension of this structure could create a permanent NATO-linked military presence in the Black Sea, even within formal limits such as the 21-day rule.

Russia will not accept such a structure. The essence of Montreux is Turkiye’s role as a balancing, non-conflict actor. These developments shift Turkiye toward an anti-Russian security architecture and undermine that balance.

NATO’s Structural Transformation and Today

In this period of global transformation, NATO’s evolving force structures are becoming visible in Turkiye. The establishment of the Multinational Corps Headquarters (MNC-TUR) in Adana is not a sudden development but a continuation of NATO’s post-Cold War transformation.

Concepts such as Combined Task Forces, the NATO Response Force, and the post-2014 Russia-centered threat perception prepared this process. The 2022 Strategic Concept and the 2023 Vilnius Summit accelerated the creation of integrated force structures on NATO’s eastern flank.

However, these decisions were shaped before the geopolitical rupture triggered by October 7, 2023. In today’s environment—where Israel openly discusses scenarios involving Turkiye—the presence of such structures raises serious questions.

Although presented as a response to Iranian threats, the positioning of a multinational headquarters in Adana indirectly aligns Turkiye with Israeli strategic interests.

NATO Naval Component Command in the Istanbul Strait

The planned NATO Maritime Component Command in Anadolu Kavağı/Beykoz has created an even more sensitive debate. The process began with the drifting mine threat in the Black Sea following the Russia-Ukraine war.

In response, Turkiye, Romania, and Bulgaria established a regional solution. On January 11, 2024, a memorandum of understanding was signed, and on July 1, 2024, the Black Sea Mine Countermeasures Task Group became operational in Istanbul. This structure was deliberately designed as a regional initiative outside NATO.

However, NATO’s evolving defense planning after 2023 has gradually transformed this framework. The creation of Combined Task Forces, including a Black Sea formation, effectively introduces a permanent NATO operational identity into the region.

This is a historic shift. For the first time, NATO gains institutional and operational continuity in the Black Sea maritime environment. This risks undermining the balance maintained under the Montreux Convention for nearly a century.

Turkiye had previously prevented NATO’s maritime expansion (such as Operation Active Endeavour) into the Black Sea—even after Romania and Bulgaria joined the alliance—by using its veto power. Today’s developments represent a departure from that policy.

The presence of a NATO command structure at the entrance of the İstanbul Strait evokes the memory of the Lausanne Straits Commission. Even symbolically, this risks undermining the sovereignty restored by Montreux.

Montreux, History, and Strategic Reality

It is unacceptable that a limited, technical mine countermeasure initiative among littoral states evolves into a NATO-affiliated naval command. A temporary security measure should not become the basis for permanent military presence.

History offers a clear lesson. During the Second World War, Germany could not send warships through the Straits due to Montreux restrictions. Instead, it transported submarines in parts via the Danube to Romania and assembled them there.

Even under immense pressure, Turkiye strictly implemented Montreux and maintained neutrality. The regime was never breached.

Today, arguments suggesting that NATO-controlled unmanned naval systems would remain under Turkish control are weak. Montreux already regulates the passage of military platforms. Unmanned systems cannot be considered outside this framework. The issue is not control—but whether passage is permitted at all.

Conclusion: A Strategic Crossroads

The establishment of a NATO-affiliated naval command in the Black Sea transforms Turkiye into a forward position of a military structure confronting Russia. This is not only a legal deviation but a geopolitical rupture.

It damages the balance created by Montreux and risks direct confrontation with Russia. It also opens the door to future scenarios—including false flag operations—that could drag Turkiye into conflict.

Turkiye can only act in this geography based on its own power. NATO should not be allowed to erode Turkiye’s unique status in the Black Sea, which serves as its strategic hinterland and defense depth.

The issue is not only today—but tomorrow. If Russia imposes favorable terms in Ukraine, Turkiye’s maneuver space will narrow significantly. The balance established today may not be sustainable under new conditions.

Security in the Black Sea must be ensured by littoral states—not by NATO. Maintaining this balance through the authority provided by Montreux is a strategic necessity. Otherwise, Turkiye risks being drawn directly into confrontation with Russia by its own decisions.

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This article was originally published on Mavi Vatan.

Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Writer, Geopolitical Expert, Theorist and creator of the Turkish Bluehomeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. He served as the Chief of Strategy Department and then the head of Plans and Policy Division in Turkish Naval Forces Headquarters. As his combat duties, he has served as the commander of Amphibious Ships Group and Mine Fleet between 2007 and 2009. He retired in 2012. He established Hamit Naci Blue Homeland Foundation in 2021. He has published numerous books on geopolitics, maritime strategy, maritime history and maritime culture. He is also a honorary member of ATASAM. 

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).