Originally Posted by
Whenurhappy
The West will need to suck up to Erdoğan - as we need him as a bulwark against irregular migration, ISIS terrorism, you name it. Historically, these events are part of a regular pattern in Turkey over the last 200 years as it struggles between being Occidental or Oriental.
Respectfully disagree, though most of your post strikes a chord with my experience in dealing with the Turkish military.
All the West has to do is
put up with him. He's as much a feeder of ISIS as an opponent, see the last few years of petrol movement into Turkey from the ISIS areas. That doesn't happen by accident. In the past ten years they've had their issues with the Syrians, but the Turks have sufficient throw weight that they'll be able to handle Syria for the near future. Turkey's being in the middle between east and west is, as you say, part of being Turkey. IMO, the EU doesn't need Turkey in. Turkey as Turkey suffices. (As I am not in the EU, my opinion makes no difference).
Does NATO need Turkey? No. Absolutely not. The Cold War is over.
There was one time the US really
needed Turkey (or a compliant Turkey) which was in the spring 2003 when Rummy's cunning plan to hit Saddam from both ends came a cropper when the Turks simply chose not to support it. While I was disappointed I completely understood why they did that:
(1) they have to live in that neighborhood,
(2) the concern they still have with Kurds in the region).
Is it handy to have Incirlik there as a Joint use base? Sure.
Is it essential? No.
NATO doesn't
need Turkey. Turkey
needs NATO a lot more for funding, security, and access to high level defense tech. Would someone else provide military technology if there was a parting of ways? In time, perhaps, but their habitual relationship and connections with various NATO states is a current advantage.
I'll accept the position that Turkey in NATO prevent much crap between Turkey and Greece. Old joke from a Dutch colleague: NATO's greatest success has been to prevent a war between Turkey and Greece -- the Cold War was a mild annoyance compared to their never ending bickering.
Since there is no way under the Washington Treaty to toss someone out of NATO, and since the democratic nations would rather see the military support civilian leadership, and since there is no compelling reason to change the status quo, then the inertia of what
is will remain. It's too much trouble to change, and accrues to nobody any particular advantage.