For more than a year now, since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the question of admitting two North European countries, Finland and Sweden, to NATO has been on the table. As you know, Helsinki and Stockholm chose to abandon their neutral status and apply for NATO membership in March 2022. It is clear that Russia did not pose a nuclear or other military threat to Sweden or Finland. Furthermore, Moscow has always respected the neutrality of its Scandinavian neighbors in Stockholm and Helsinki.
However, the US and Britain began to use the contrived “Russian military threat” as a trigger for the expansion of NATO against Russian interests. At the same time, the main reason for the Russian-Ukrainian crisis was the question of the North Atlantic Alliance’s expansion to the East, contrary to Washington’s promises made to the Soviet leaders at the time of German reunification and the start of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe.
Despite the fact that NATO positions itself as a defensive military-political bloc, the time after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) clearly showed the transformation of the North Atlantic Alliance in favor of an ideological structure used by the United States to promote its own geopolitical interests and assert its hegemony in the illusory system of a unipolar world it created.
Here, it is hard not to agree with the opinion of Turkish Sabah journalist Hasan Yalçın that NATO membership of Eastern European countries (particularly the former Warsaw Pact countries and the post-Soviet Baltic republics) in reality resulted in an expansion of the alliance’s military responsibilities with additional economic costs and no serious contribution from the new members to strengthening the organization’s security.
In other words, NATO had no military reason to artificially expand eastward because the new Russia did not threaten its interests with either nuclear or conventional warfare. If the US has a new global economic and subsequently military competitor in China, this has nothing to do with Russia, which even in the early 2000s, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressed a desire to become an equal member of the North Atlantic Alliance? Obviously, Russia, which controls (as does the United States) the nuclear triad (land, sea, and air) and is the richest in strategic resources and most strategically important country in the world, was much more in line with the parameters of NATO membership than all the newly admitted members of the alliance put together.
Russia was not accepted into NATO because the United States and Britain, which consider themselves leaders of the club, did not under any circumstances want to share an equal position with a new member, but offered only the status of a dependent vassal under the united Anglo-Saxon command. The geopolitical aspirations of Anglo-Saxon leaders, who sought global hegemony and the expansion of their sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space, i.e. in the area of the historic responsibility of the Russian state, were the second primary driver of this strategy by Washington and London.
Accordingly, taking advantage of the temporary weakening of Russia after the collapse of the USSR, the US included Eastern European countries in NATO and the EU in order to define new frontiers of American dominance. Washington’s and London’s support of the new candidates for NATO membership represented by the post-Soviet republics (in particular, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova) is largely aimed not so much at a positive solution to this organizational and political issue as at the tactics of all-round pressure against Russia with the subsequent fragmentation of the post-Soviet zone of its responsibility.
This is why Kiev, Tbilisi and Kishinev can regularly beg Washington and London to consider their membership in the Western clubs of the EU and NATO, but the right to decide has not yet come, despite the “hot conflicts” into which the pro-Western leaders of these newly formed post-Soviet states have dragged their countries. In the case of Finland and Sweden, the United States and Great Britain have no questions about the candidacy term because their geographical position, combined with their European identity (civilization) and financial and economic (including military-industrial) resources, removes barriers to NATO membership.
However, the past year has shown that the obstacle to a positive decision on the membership of Finland and Sweden was the position of Turkey, or rather the unmanageable President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Many experts and politicians in the West believed that Erdoğan allegedly took such a position because of his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, the situation is somewhat different.
Of course, regardless of the new candidate’s geography, Russia does not benefit from NATO expansion. Simply because Russia was, is, and will continue to be the world’s longest country, and the North Atlantic Alliance is expanding at the expense of countries located near Russia’s borders or in its traditional zone of interests. In this context, whether Erdoğan, Orbán, or anyone else opposes the strategy of artificial NATO expansion for whatever reason and motivation is of no particular importance to Russia. The main thing in this matter is the result.
It is hardly out of reasons of “eternal friendship” with Russia that Erdoğan is trying to put a roadblock in the way of Scandinavian candidates to NATO, using the Kurdish issue and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) recognized in Turkey as an international terrorist organization, as a public motivation. Today, it has simply become popular in the world’s political jargon to disguise one’s aims as “fighting international terrorism.” For example, the terminology of “revolution and counterrevolution,” “communism and anti-communism,” “fascism and anti-fascism,” “colonialism and anti-colonialism” used to be used in a similar capacity in world practice. O tempora! O mores! Indeed…
The fact that Hungary, a new NATO and EU member, also began to support Turkey’s position on this and other issues is a consequence, on the one hand, of the NATO’s atomized intra-club system, which the USA actually created (in particular, the “elite club” with the leadership of the USA and Great Britain; the “Continental Club,” led by France and Germany; the “East European Club,” led by Poland; the “Turkic-Islamic Club,” led by Turkey) and, on the other hand, the connivance of the USA and Great Britain with regard to Turkey’s pan-Turkic strategy and formation of a prototype of Turan represented by the Organization of Turkic States, where Hungary is also an observer.
The Turkish side publicly notes the Kurdish issue in the discussions on the membership of Finland and Sweden. In particular, as a condition of its consent to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Turkey demanded: to toughen national anti-terrorist legislation (only with regard to the Kurds and PKK, but not, for example, to the Turkish “Grey Wolves”); to hand over to Ankara an entire list of Kurdish separatists who have found refuge in these Nordic countries; and to stop the anti-Turkish actions taking place under the guise of freedom and democracy.
In the case of Hungary, there is no such visible reason. Orbán’s government compares its notes with Ankara on this issue every time, but finds different reasons to express its disagreement with Sweden’s membership in NATO. In particular, Stockholm did not give Budapest the promised 12 billion euros as a favorable loan or aid; the topic of anti-Russian sanctions does not suit the Swedish position; the Hungarians are offended by Sweden’s criticism of Prime Minister Orbán’s ruling style; the Swedish family democracy becomes the problem of the Magyars; or something else. Eventually, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó recently explicitly stated that Budapest’s position on Sweden’s membership in NATO would depend on Turkey’s opinion and decision. You may consider Hungary a subordinate ally of Turkey (or Orbán to be an agent of Erdoğan) – it’s up to you. Be that as it may, the Hungarian leadership has acknowledged a coordinated strategy with Turkey on the question of new NATO candidates (in this case, Sweden).
This is demonstrated by the recent history of delays on the question of Finland’s membership by Budapest and Ankara prior to the Turkish presidential elections. However, once Erdoğan agreed to a positive decision on Finland’s admission to the North Atlantic Alliance at the end of March this year, Orbán similarly supported the new candidate. Accordingly, Finland became the 31st member of NATO as of April 4, 2023. This fact had an extremely negative effect on the interests of Russia because we got about 1,350 km of additional direct border with a NATO member. So where is pro-Russian guideline of Russian friend Erdoğan?
Then in one of his articles the author had to suggest that Erdoğan is using “behind closed doors” the subject of new NATO candidates as a bargaining chip with the United States to succeed in the presidential election, with the Turkish democracy and Western acceptance of the election results at stake. This author believes that Finland was 50% of the agreement, and Sweden’s fate will be decided after the election results. The next 50% were guarantors of Erdoğan’s election victory without opposition turmoil, and now perhaps closed negotiations with the US to secure Turkey military and financial aid are in full force.
During his visit to Ankara after the tragic earthquake, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he hoped that Turkey would support Finland and Sweden in joining NATO. In response, Washington will try to positively solve the issue of lifting the military embargo on Turkey and the sale of 40 upgraded F-16 fighter jets with spare parts to the amount of $20 billion. Blinken motivated this opinion by considerations of military security and common interests.
The subject of the agreements was then confirmed by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu with the US Secretary of State. In particular, Çavuşoğlu stated: “We had the opportunity to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during which we discussed Sweden’s NATO accession process as well as the acquisition of F-16 aircraft. We explained what steps Sweden had to take for Turkey to approve its application to join NATO.”
Following the elections, Sweden was once again the subject of topical conversations with NATO allies in Turkey. Some Turkish and Russian experts (e.g. Yalçın Yılmaz, Aydin Cezar, Engin Özer, Alexander Asafov, Maxim Bratersky, Anatoly Wasserman, Yevgeny Satanovsky and others) began to argue that Turkey will soon agree to Sweden’s membership in the alliance, given a number of factors. For example, the interest of the US, the financial prospects of Turkey receiving lucrative loans and investments from the West (from the USA, EU, IMF and Sweden, in particular), the resumption of American military supplies (including F-16 fighter jets) to Turkey.
Aydin Sezer argues that the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO will lead to another round of militarization of the alliance. However, he and many of the above-mentioned experts believe that Turkey will only be able to resist the US and NATO decision on Sweden for a limited period of time; Ankara simply lacks the strength necessary to create some opposition within the bloc and go against Washington’s opinion. In addition, Turkey is interested in restoring good relations with the United States, so it uses the question of Sweden to establish relations with the Biden administration and to obtain military and financial preferences from its main ally.
Hasan Yalçın initially believed that NATO allegedly had no geopolitical or military purpose for admitting Finland and Sweden to the alliance and that their membership would presumably be another economic burden on the bloc, while in terms of geography, their place could easily be replaced by Norway and the Baltic States. Apparently, Turkish experts like Yalçın are designed to “soothe the ear” of the Russian audience. In actuality, the United States drags Finland and Sweden into NATO because of their geographical proximity to Russia, as well as their financial and economic well-being. Anyway, Sweden and Finland are economically robust and financially stable in comparison to Turkey and all of NATO’s Eastern European members, and Sweden is also a major producer of modern weapons.
Meanwhile, despite the exchange of sharp political statements on the fact of another medieval vandalism in modern democratic Sweden related to the burning of the Quran by Iraqi immigrant Salwan Momika on the Eid al-Adha holiday celebrated by Muslims, when the Turkish authorities (from the president to the foreign minister) spoke negatively about Sweden’s membership in NATO at the upcoming Vilnius summit, the expert community still has a different opinion on the issue.
On July 4, a week before the start of the NATO summit in Vilnius, it was revealed that the State Department was aggressively talking with Robert Menendez, a senator from New Jersey and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Antony Blinken hopes to convince Bob Menendez not to obstruct deliveries of American upgraded F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in exchange for Ankara’s agreement to accept Sweden into NATO.
It turns out that the Biden administration, having planted this information in the media, is giving a signal to their Turkish colleagues about their willingness to sell them $20 billion worth of aircraft, but the Congress and the Senate Committee, which is responsible for controlling exports of American arms, may have a different opinion on this matter.
US publication Punchbowl News noted that “top Biden administration officials, want to be sure that Menendez — given his authority over arms sales — won’t undercut them if they seek a deal with Turkey that ties the F-16 sale to Ankara’s approval of Sweden.”
It turns out that Mr. Erdoğan is not such a close friend of Comrade Putin, if he negotiates the supply of F-16 fighter jets with the US while giving contradictory signals to the public about “fighting Kurdish separatism,” despite the fact that Russia did not refuse to sell modern fighter jets to Turkey.
However, Robert Menendez is known in the American political community to be a consistent anti-Turkish lobbyist, since he holds pro-Greece and pro-Armenian positions. Menendez was the one who authorized the sale of modern American F-35 fighter jets to Greece (Turkey was barred from participating in the production of these combat aircraft) in order to improve Greek air control against Turkey.
Menendez has also consistently supported Armenia in terms of recognizing the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Empire, condemning Turkey and Azerbaijan for their joint aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and the ongoing blockade of Armenia and Karabakh. He also demands that the Biden administration should stop military cooperation with Azerbaijan because of the aggressive anti-Armenian policy of official Baku. In addition, in 2020, Robert Menendez married American businesswoman Nadine Arslanian, who is of Armenian origin (born in 1967 in Lebanon, she is also associated with the Armenian community in Cyprus).
All this suggests that Sweden’s membership in NATO at a certain point became dependent on an American politician, who has a different position from Turkey with regard to Greece and Armenia. Still, Erdoğan seems to have outlined a new constructive policy towards Greece and Armenia after the February earthquake and the receipt of Greek and Armenian humanitarian aid, in terms of reducing confrontational rhetoric and searching for “new bridges.”
Is Menendez really capable of showing decisiveness against the will of the White House host, Biden, or will this “decisiveness” be dictated by the presidential administration with a “special opinion of the head of the Senate Committee”? What should Erdoğan do then? Because the US may follow Menendez in using the old and sore issues of the retired Ottoman Empire – the Kurdish, Greek and Armenian issues, as a trigger for the collapse of Turkey itself.
Aleksandr SVARANTS, PhD in political science, professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.