War is violent, chaotic, uncertain and yet calculated. It’s never an easy decision for a country to go to war as it brings many unsavory results including death, physical destruction, depletion of resources, social fatigue and political weariness among friends and foes. As Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz explained in "On War," the fog caused by armed conflict hides opportunities for those who seek them out.
"War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth," said von Clausewitz.
Threats of nuclear war, which Russia says Western powers are encouraging, and Western nations struggling to respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest battle cry against what he calls "imperialist" powers, beckons parties interested in finding a path through the fog of war to take the advice seriously.
The Turkish drones
The silent but deadly airborne advantage is perhaps the most significant game-changer for Ukraine so far. Ukrainian officials have been bragging in public about their ability to target Russian assets with great results using TB2 Bayraktar drones. Videos of abandoned and bombed-out Russian military vehicles are racing across the internet causing confusion and dismay among Russian troops. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also announced that its operations are transitioning from defensive to offensive.
But are thanks to Turkey needed and how can the country maintain its positive relations with two of its most important Black Sea neighbors under such conditions?
Turkish officials have remained consistent in maintaining a nonbelligerent stance in what the country’s foreign minister called a war. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made initiatives early on as tensions rose, offering to mediate between Ukraine and Russia. Those meetings never came to fruition but Turkey has continued to call for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict. Turkish political posturing under these conditions is especially nuanced for a multitude of reasons.
Putin knew that the drones were in Ukraine before the military operation began. The issue has been a sore spot in Turkish-Russian relations even while most of the world believed Putin would never launch a full-scale military operation on Ukraine. As Russian military forces were being deployed to the border area, both Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear to their counterparts in Turkey that the drone sales to Ukraine were making Russia uncomfortable. Those sales were initiated in 2019 after Baykar, a privately owned Turkish company, won a bid for a $69 million contract with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense armament agency, Ukrspetsproekt. Baykar sells its drones to at least 16 countries including Ukraine. However, the drones are quite often misrepresented as a product of the Turkish government when, in fact, they are purchased by the government from Baykar just like other countries. Even though the sale of advanced military technologies doesn’t happen without considering the strategic interests of the country of origin, the theoretical possibility of selling to Russia or any other country willing to purchase drones is a reality.
Even if Putin isn’t happy about the effectiveness of Bayraktar TB2 drones in Ukraine, which he already knew about from Libya, Azerbaijan and Syria, the Turkish government isn’t giving them out as military aid. They are being bought by countries looking for superior military technology, which happens to be produced by a Turkish defense company that is emerging as a leader in advanced military technologies alongside dozens of other Turkish companies making significant gains in the international market share of defense sales. If Turkish officials maintain their current peace-seeking policy, they will not only bolster the independence of the burgeoning domestic defense industry but also drown out Russian objections about the sales in the buzzing sound of Bayraktar TB2s overhead.
Now comes the more difficult exercise of considering more aggressive direct intervention as a potential member of the European Union and the strongest NATO military in the region.
If Turkey was to take on the risk of facing off with Russia as part of a NATO-triggered alliance, major policy shifts would need to be made in Brussels and Washington.
Turkey is on the frontline with Russia, and has been for many years, with little to no support from Western allies on a tactical level. NATO members pulled out their Patriot missile systems leaving Turkey exposed in 2015, forcing it to take necessary steps to protect its airspace by purchasing the Russian-made S400 missile defense system. For years American pundits and politicians have scrambled to develop a coherent explanation about why the U.S. turned its back on its most strategic ally in eastern Europe. All attempts have resulted in disaster.
U.S.' obstacles
To make things worse, the U.S. has reneged on the F35 jets that were already paid for, even after American pastor Andrew Brunson was released and returned to the U.S. despite Turkish concerns about the evangelical pastor’s questionable relations with terror-linked individuals during his long stay in Turkey – including suspected links to members of the Fetullah Gülen led terror organization that carried out the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey killing 251 Turkish citizens. The fact that repeated requests for the extradition of Gülen, currently residing in Pennsylvania thanks to the facilitation of his escape by American politicians in 1999, have been ignored; Turkey’s confidence in America’s fiduciary commitment to Turkey is rightfully dwindling.
There was a lot of hope among the Turkish public that these issues would be resolved during former U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, and possibly a second term, but instead, the Jan. 6 protests brought Turkish-American diplomatic relations to a deep freeze. It took U.S. President Joe Biden six months to gather his thoughts before meeting his Turkish counterpart at the NATO Summit last summer. At the time the Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border was quietly, yet visibly, underway. But the U.S. and Europe still hadn’t woken from their slumber.
The Biden administration remains reluctant to heed Turkish security concerns about U.S. military and political support or the PKK terror group’s branch in northeast Syria, the YPG. The U.S. military continues, under the misguidance of Brett McGurk, to provide them with supplies, including a recent shipment of American-made Abrams battle tanks. The U.S. has given over $2 billion in aid to the PKK’s Syrian wing despite it being listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. The security threat is being dealt with by Turkish security forces via surgical drone strikes on high-value targets, but the fact that those targets are in areas where American resources are being spent to empower the terrorist group continues to sour Turkey’s confidence in their NATO partner. That could change if the U.S. was willing to change its policy and work with Turkey as the partner that it is. The results would be profound if Russia’s military capabilities were limited, Iranian expansion was depleted, Assad normalization was reversed and Syrians were given an opportunity to engage in a transparent, holistic political transition.
EU accession process
The issue of EU accession also holds significant weight in Ankara. Following the Russian attack on Ukraine, many countries submitted fast-track applications to become members of the EU, but Turkey’s application has been in the process since 1987, when it first joined the European Community and then became eligible to apply for EU membership in 1999. European countries continue deferring a decision based on uncanny arguments about the state of human rights and freedoms in the country, which is understood as Islamophobia by Turkey’s president. Despite the EU’s reluctance to accept Turkey as a member of the union, they co-opted Turkey’s cooperation to manage the flow of migrants and refugees fleeing their home countries toward Europe. All the while, Greece, a NATO and EU member, hosts PKK terrorist group members giving them a free pass to train and transport fighters to front lines in Iraq and Syria.
Serious efforts by the U.S. and European countries to address these issues would benefit them and Turkey, whether the neutral Turkish policy regarding Ukraine remains or is changed. Such efforts to appease Turkey on these issues will give it more incentive to reach out to Russia in search of peace. To say the least, the current state of affairs is clouded by the fog of the ongoing war but Turkey’s opportunities to come out of the fog stronger than before are plenty.