NATO's Enlargement Policy and Turkiye's Position: A Key NATO Ally.

• Author: Bagbaslioglu, Arif
• Position: COMMENTARY

Introduction

According to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which established NATO, any European state capable of assisting the development of the principles of the Treaty and the security of the North Atlantic region may be invited to join. Accordingly, during the Cold War, Turkiye and Greece became NATO members on February 18, 1952, Germany on May 9, 1955, and Spain on May 30, 1982, bringing the total number of NATO members to 16. On July 1, 1966, after France withdrew from the Alliance's integrated military command, the headquarters of the Alliance moved from Paris to Brussels. At the NATO Summit held in Strasbourg and Kehl on April 3-4, 2009, France officially rejoined NA-TO's integrated military command structure. Similarly, Greece, which decided to withdraw from the Alliance's integrated military command structure on August 14, 1974, returned on October 20, 1980.

Within the framework of the Alliance's transformation, which can be considered a product of NATO's ability to adapt to changes in the international security environment after the Cold War, there has been a significant expansion to 31 members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined on March 12, 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia on March 29, 2004; Albania and Croatia on April 1, 2009; Montenegro on June 5, 2017; North Macedonia on March 27, 2020; and Finland on April 4, 2023. In the post-Cold War period, NATO's enlargement was officially initiated at the end of 1993. Although it is claimed that the assurances given to the Soviet Union during the reunification of Germany in 1990 played a role in the delay in the official agenda of enlargement, (1) the biggest factor was the divergent views on this issue within the Alliance. The enlargement of NATO in the post-Cold War era was considered a puzzle and a big mistake by international relations theories, especially from the Neorealist perspective. NATO enlargement has been strongly criticized by many academics and foreign policy experts, such as George Kennan, Paul Kennedy, Richard Haass, and Thomas Friedman. (2) The decision to expand NATO has been discussed from diverse perspectives within the international community. In NATO's official documents, the commitment to the enlargement first appeared in the Final Declaration of the Brussels Summit in 1994. The Declaration reaffirmed NATO's open door policy to other European states that could contribute to security in the North Atlantic Area and stated that NATO enlargement was an expected development. Prior to the first enlargement of NATO, serious differences emerged between the Allies on policy towards the Russian Federation. These disagreements were particularly intense between the U.S. and Germany. At a conference in Berlin in September 1994, German Defense Minister Volker Ruhe stated, "If Russia were to become a member of NATO it would blow NATO apart." At the same conference, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry stated that although he thought that the membership of the Russian Federation would not take place shortly, this country should not be left out. (3) In fact, after this date, the NATO-Russian Federation relationship has been exactly as William Perry described it. In both 1997 and 2002, prior to NATO's 1999 and 2004 enlargements, steps were taken to improve bilateral relations with Russia. In 1997, the Founding Act was signed with Russia while the NATO-Russia Council was established in 2002. Having identified Russia as a partner and established necessary channels of dialogue and cooperation, NATO then implemented its enlargement policy by accepting new members. The Russian Federation was linked to NATO's enlargement process through the Founding Act, institutional arrangements such as the NATO-Russia Council, and its membership in the Partnership for Peace (PfP), but Russia was not made a member of the Alliance. This was because the U.S. did not want to see the Russian Federation either in NATO or against it in the post-Cold War era.

Since its establishment, NATO has worked to implement policies that redefine and counter security threats and risks within the framework of changes in the international conjuncture. NATO's ability to adapt to these changes over 74 years has enabled it to transform itself from the original 12-member regional collective defense organization into a global security organization with 31 members and partnerships with another 40 countries. NATO has retained an important position on Turkiye's domestic and foreign policy agenda for 71 years. Within the literature, this has been described in various ways: on the one hand, as "an initiative that ended a century and a half-long search for belonging to the (Western) system;" (4) on the other hand, as "an initiative that narrowed the room for maneuver to produce multifaceted foreign policy." (5) In fact, Turkiye's position in NATO has been the subject of many debates in a manner that supports both of these opposing interpretations.

As the NATO member that has arguably suffered the most from terrorism, Turkiye places great significance on NATO's statement in the "NATO 2022 Strategic Concept" (6) that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations represents "the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of the citizens of NATO member countries and international peace and prosperity." It is also highly significant that Turkiye, Sweden, and Finland signed a trilateral memorandum at the Madrid Summit, held on June 28-30, 2022. In addition to addressing Turkiye's legitimate security concerns, this memorandum also envisaged that both countries would end the military embargoes imposed on Turkiye. In this respect, the memorandum is an important reference text that will help address Turkiye's fight against terrorism. In this context, both countries were expected to cease all forms of economic, military, and political support to structures that Turkiye defines as 'terrorist...