Erdogan's veto in NATO: A gift for Putin

One thing Putin could always count on was that the West would weaken itself at crucial moments.

Not even the attack on Ukraine, the biggest shock to the European security system in decades, changes anything.

Until last week, everyone in NATO seemed to believe that Finland and Sweden could be admitted in a fast-track process.

The advantages for both sides are obvious: more security for both countries, more strategic depth for the alliance.

The general concern was only for possible Russian reactions.

But now a NATO member is doing Putin's business.

Turkey has not even allowed accession negotiations to begin, and the alliance's northern expansion is becoming a stalemate.

As far as is known, Erdogan took the other allies by surprise.

This is not the style that should prevail in an alliance.

But the Turkish president has never been known for diplomatic manners.

The fact that some now accuse him of a “bazaar” mentality is no finer either.

Above all, this description underestimates the strategic differences that exist between Ankara and many other allies.

Erdogan does not have to make any compromises

Turkey looks much more towards the Middle East than Europeans.

In Syria in particular, Russia is a key player.

It is not without reason that Erdogan positioned himself in the center of the Ukraine crisis.

The Kurdish question, in turn, is Turkey's paramount security issue, even if the West wants to see it solved differently than in Ankara.

And someone like Erdogan will certainly not understand the Ukraine war as a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy; after all, he himself is anything but a liberal.

He maintains changeable relationships with Putin, but ones that are often intent on finding a balance.

That does not make it impossible to meet the demands that Erdogan is now raising in Washington, Stockholm and Helsinki.

But his geopolitical interests do not force him to compromise.

He has more to gain than lose here, so the 'correcting misunderstandings' promised by the Finnish Prime Minister are unlikely to be enough.

In NATO, one should be prepared for the fact that the accession of the two Nordic nations cannot be completed without substantial concessions to Turkey.

For the strategic situation in Northern Europe, this is less serious at the moment than the urgency of the two applications for accession would make it seem.

Large parts of the Russian armed forces are tied up in Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

Extending the war to Finland or the Baltic would further worsen Putin's already difficult prospects in his primary theater.

The deterrent effect that Finland and Sweden are hoping for from joining the alliance can, if necessary, also be achieved through bilateral declarations of assistance.

That's where the United States comes in.

President Biden's public statements are already moving in that direction.

The two countries do not want nuclear weapons and NATO bases on their territory anyway.

However, the longer NATO has to play Erdogan's game, the more difficult it could be to come to a good conclusion.

Public opinion in Sweden and Finland can change again.

And over time, some allies could become concerned that extending NATO's external border with Russia by 1,300 kilometers might be too confrontational after all.

In any case, the Kremlin will do everything in its power to stir up such doubts.

Erdogan is not the only one testing the West's unity with Putin.

Hungary is still opposed to the EU's planned oil embargo.

Other countries, including Germany, have continued to slow down the pace and scope of Western sanctions.

In a world of independent states whose interests are not identical, this is unavoidable.

What is special about Turkey's case is that not even a serious change in the threat situation could prevent it from abandoning the alliance consensus.

This is not about the difficult and often unsuccessful foreign missions of the past few years, which many Western governments no longer want to hear about.

It's about what NATO was founded for: collective protection, formerly against the Soviet Union, now against Russia.

That alone in 2022 will no longer be enough to make a decision that would strengthen the alliance politically and militarily will not only be followed with interest in Moscow.