When Turkey decided to invade Syria this month, President Donald Trump got out of the way. “Let someone else fight over these bloodstained sands,” he explained. That proved a consequential decision — and not just for the Kurds who had fought alongside U.S. troops against Islamic State and now were left to face a much superior military force on their own. It also deeply unsettled the NATO alliance that has bound Turkey and the United States together for decades.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo framed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria as a decision “to avoid a kinetic conflict with a NATO ally.” How did we get to this point, where the administration believed it faced the stark choice of going to war with an ally or getting out of its way?
A big part of the answer lies with Turkey. Never an easy ally, Ankara has in recent years put a real strain on its alliance with the United States and other NATO countries.
At home, Turkey has taken steps that raised questions about its commitment to democracy and the rule of law, which are foundation stones of the trans-Atlantic alliance. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as a strongman leader, who, in the wake of an unsuccessful coup attempt in 2016, tightened his hold on power by suppressing dissent, jailing journalists and opposition leaders, purging the judiciary, and cracking down on the military — all of which has put Ankara at serious odds with its NATO partners.
Abroad, Turkey has also acted in ways that call into question its commitment to NATO. Erdogan has forged a strong, personal bond with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Turkish president signed agreements with Moscow to build four nuclear reactors and, over strong U.S. and NATO objections, he insisted on buying a sophisticated Russian air and missile defense system. Once operational, these S-400 interceptors could pose a threat to the newest generation of U.S. combat aircraft and weaken NATO’s integrated air defenses that help protect Turkey.
In befriending Putin, with whom he meets regularly, Erdogan appears unfazed by the fact that the Russian president hardly has Ankara’s best interests at heart. Moscow has long sought to divide NATO allies against each other, which Erdogan’s embrace of Putin only furthers. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea threaten the region’s stability, on which Turkey’s security ultimately depends. And Russia’s military support of Syria has strengthened President Bashar Assad’s hold on power even though Erdogan had long supported his ouster.
But none of this appears to matter to Erdogan, whose singular preoccupation (aside from consolidating power) has been what he views as the Kurdish existential threat to Turkey. Ankara maintains that the Kurdish forces in Syria are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a violent insurgent group inside Turkey that has been designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and Turkey. Removing this Kurdish threat from the border has been Ankara’s goal for years. Turkey’s invasion, followed by Tuesday’s agreement with Russia to create a 20-mile buffer zone along the border, has done just that.
Turkey’s military assault has been widely condemned by its NATO partners. Some have even called for its ouster or suspension from the alliance, although there are no mechanisms for bringing that about. European allies swiftly imposed an arms embargo, while outrage in the U.S. Congress led to the imposition of sanctions.
The broad condemnation of Turkey raises profound questions about the future of a military alliance that operates on the basis of consensus. Yet, what truly threatens the future of NATO is less Turkey’s latest provocation than the fact that it was enabled by Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw U.S. forces standing in the way of that action.
Washington has long sought to address Ankara’s security concerns, even acting as de facto peacekeepers and jointly patrolling the border with Turkish troops. Now, Trump suggested that the issue was for Turkey to resolve on its own, which it did by invading Syria. In so doing, it left the Kurds to fend for themselves.
It is in abandoning the Kurds that the real threat to NATO resides. For the message is clear: When it comes to the defense of its allies, the United States is now more likely to get out than stay for the fight. Erdogan could have been dissuaded from military action if U.S. forces had remained rather than been ordered to withdraw, as he had in previous instances. But Trump chose to step aside.
NATO rests on the core idea that an armed attack against one will be regarded as an armed attack against all. That idea has now been dealt a serious blow. Whether it’s fatal, only time will tell.
Ivo Daalder is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.
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