The Outrageous – Let’s Talk About Turkey and Other NATO Rogues – The United States of America
Askold Lozynskyj
During America’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent trip to Israel, the Prime Minister of Israel, in essence a thug under criminal prosecution in his own country, Benjamin Netanyahu heaped praise upon American President Donald J. Trump especially for his “moral clarity.” Lightning did not strike Netanyahu surprisingly. Considering the source, I suppose that is not much of a complement either but Trump will take it. Yet, he still needs the Nobel Peace Prize which Netanyahu has initiated as well. Trump as I have often noted is a convicted felon. Netanyahu is also under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes- peas in a pod. But Netanyahu is clever. He knows that the way to Trump’s heart is through his ego.
There is at least one other notable leader of a relatively respected country that makes both Trump and Netanyahu seem respectable and even benign. That is Turkish strongman and President Recep Erdogan.
Turkey has a history of bad behavior, culminating in 1915 with a genocide perpetrated by the Turks against its neighbors the Armenians. The numbers vary from five hundred thousand victims to three times that amount depending on the source. However, the fact that it was a genocide is beyond dispute and recognized by much of the world including the United Nations.
Turkey’s aggression both in the past and today was and is largely induced by religion, militant and sectarian Islam. There was a fifteen-year period of time, a hiatus if you will, between 1923 and 1938 when the Republic of Turkey was founded and ruled by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when the Republic was normal and largely secular. That relative normality lasted during Ataturk’s successors’ reigns. And then came Recep Erdogan.
Erdogan’s Turkey is somewhere between clerical and secular. Today’s Turkey still exercises its aggression in particular against its ethnic Kurdish population and includes Turks opposed to Erdogan. Its democracy is sketchy at best although elections are held.
One of the ironies of Turkish politics is that Turkey is a long standing member of NATO and probably its strongest but most unreliable member in Europe. NATO was founded by ten members in 1949. Turkey joined in 1952 as the twelfth member, and probably a necessary mistake.
Turkey currently allegedly strives to become a member of the European Union but its behavior and global alliances serve as very significant obstacles. In the last year alone Erdogan participated both in the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia and the SCO in Shanghai, China, neither of which can be considered friendly to NATO. But Erdogan is a brazen rogue because of the size of Turkey’s military. He is a member of NATO but very friendly with Vladimir Putin, much like Donald J. Trump.
Further, while EU countries have decreased substantially their oil imports from Russia since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Turkey has actually picked up the slack. Some 20% of Turkey’s energy imports come from Russia. Turkey has a refinery strictly for Russian oil.
On the other hand, Turkey has also sold Ukraine many of its very effective Bayraktar drones which were very important to Ukraine at the beginning of the war. Now Ukraine produces 60% of the weaponry it uses.
Suffice it to say, it is difficult to determine whose favor Erdogan cuddles. Unfortunately, some may say that the same ambiguity surrounds Donald Trump. At least Trump did not travel to Kazan or Shanghai. But Erdogan did open the Black Sea to Ukrainian grain for export. The balance sheet remains too close to call. That’s politics devoid of humanity or morality and a perfect example of Darwinian survival of the fittest.
And now the intimidation came. Russia recently sent 19 drones into Poland. All were shot down except that the debris caused some damage on the ground. A few days later Russia sent drones into Romania, which were shot down. Yesterday Russia and Belarus staged military exercises in Belarus (Zapad-West). Reuters reported: “U.S. military officers observed joint war games between Russia and Belarus on Monday for the first time since Moscow used Belarus as a launch pad to enter Ukraine, as U.S. President Donald Trump deepens ties with Moscow’s closest ally.”
Orban’s Hungary and Erdogan’s Turkey (both NATO members) participated.
September 16, 2025
