NATO is developing a strategy of eastward expansion via new structural tactics, i.e. forming two continental military alliances in Europe and Asia allied with the organisation.
Take my word – pay dearly for it
As is known, along with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact Organisation and the USSR at the turn of the 1980s, in negotiations with the Soviet and Russian leadership (in 1990, 1991 and 1993) the US and NATO gave oral assurances that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, formed in 1949, would not expand eastward.
Such an approach would have been fair, as the two military blocs (NATO, Warsaw Pact) were the result of the Cold War and the bipolar world order in the second half of the 20th twentieth century. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reason for the military-political confrontation between the two great powers (US, USSR/Russia) disappeared.
However, these agreements were violated by the Collective West, led by the United States because Washington chose a strategy of forming a unipolar world and establishing its own global hegemony to the detriment of the interests of the international community. The US and Europe – its subordinates – claim that they did not make such promises to Russia because there were no written agreements. NATO adhered to the principle of ‘open doors’ for new members of the alliance from among the former countries of the socialist camp and the allied Soviet republics.
NATO’s expansion strategy
In 1999 and 2004, via signing a number of treaties, NATO expanded its membership to include Eastern Europe and Baltic States. At the turn of the 20th century, NATO initiated the Partnership for Peace programme to involve an increasing number of post-Soviet states in the process of military cooperation, and also created amorphous organisations like as GUUAM to counter the CSTO.
Subsequently, NATO set its sights on new candidates from among the post-Soviet, i.e. Ukraine and Georgia, expanding forms of military cooperation (training, joint exercises, military-technical and information cooperation). Another post-Soviet republic, Azerbaijan, which is of interest to the UK and US from the standpoint of geography and resources, has become an object of increased interest to NATO by using the special ethno-cultural ties of alliance member Turkey.
In the 1990s that Azerbaijan found itself at the epicentre of geo-economic projects of the UK, US and Turkey to implement ambitious transport and energy programmes for entering the Caspian basin, forming alternative (bypassing) routes for transit of strategic raw materials (oil and gas) to the European market through Turkish territory. At the same time, the unresolved Karabakh issue in Azeri-Armenian relations was used by Ankara to boost military and military-technical cooperation with Baku.
Meanwhile, Washington was delaying the issue of admitting new members from among the post-Soviet republics if the candidate countries had local territorial conflicts. Simply put, the US and NATO were unwilling to accept new problematic members, because of which local wars can escalate into regional and global conflicts with the nuclear power Russia. That is why the aspirations of the pro-Western political regimes of Georgia and Ukraine have not been met with a positive decision from NATO so far.
In addition, within NATO there was a lack of a strong political alliance and the formation of conditional club structures (the elite club – US and UK, the key club – the countries of Western Europe led by France and Germany, the club of recruits – the countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States led by Poland and a special member – Turkey).
The European and Asian branches of NATO – the continental principle of the organisation’s expansion
The Trump era (2016-2020) was marked by a crisis vis-à-vis NATO. The US leader outlined the issue of increasing the financial and disciplinary responsibility of all the members of the alliance, saying that Washington may otherwise reconsider its role in ensuring their security.
Such a position of the US, which was coordinated with the UK, first of all drew the attention of the countries of continental Europe to issues of their own military security. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of the 21st century, along with the political and economic process of European integration with the subsequent withdrawal of the UK from the EU, the issue of the formation of a European defensive union was considered by the political elites of continental Europe (primarily France and Germany).
With the growth of radical right-wing political forces, the topic of Euro-NATO began to acquire an increasingly substantive character. The events related to the Russian-Ukrainian military-political crisis and the US policy of using the military potential of EU member states to provide permanent military, technical and financial assistance to the Kiev regime to the detriment of the objective interests of European states have made the issue of the formation of a European defence union increasingly relevant.
It was not at random that in July of this year, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in her programme until 2029 announced the idea of creating a European defence fund and a European air defence shield. She stated: “We will create a European Defence Fund and invest in high defence capabilities in such important areas as maritime, land and air forces, space and cybersecurity”.
Thus, von der Leyen is suggesting that EU countries increase their military budget, develop the defence industry in close coordination with NATO and taking into account pan-European interests. This opinion is supported by the leaders of France and Germany (especially considering the upcoming US presidential elections in November 2024, and the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House). Therefore, a European NATO branch may be formed within the framework of NATO.
However, the US and UK are not limited only to the European continent in their NATO reforms, but are also trying to apply the expansion of the alliance to Asia with the (key) participation of Turkey and the ambitions of President R. Erdoğan to implement the Turan geopolitical project in relation to the Turkic post-Soviet countries.
Since the early 1990s, Turkey, assessing the international situation following the collapse of the USSR as being favourable for itself, began to initiate a strategy of neo-pan-Turanism and neo-Ottomanism. Ankara put forward the slogan ‘The 21st century will become the ‘golden age’ of the Turks’, the idea of ‘Turkish Eurasianism’ and the ‘Turkish axis’. Thanks to Anglo-Saxon support, by the 2000s Turkey had become a key transit point for strategic raw materials from Azerbaijan to Europe, and could through geo-economic and transport and communication projects move to the Turkic East.
The military solution of the Karabakh issue in 2020-2023 with the key Turkish-Azeri military-political alliance allowed Turkey to establish itself in the Southern Caucasus, sign the Shusha Declaration on Strategic Alliance with Azerbaijan on July 15, 2021, and create the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) on November 12 of the same year.
Through close military cooperation, Ankara and Baku are forming a common army according to NATO standards, the Turkish Bayraktar and Akinci UAVs have become the locomotives of military-technical penetration into OTS member states (including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, i.e. members of the CSTO). Together with its Turkic allies in the OTS (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), Ankara regularly conducts joint military exercises, provides assistance in personnel training and military construction according to NATO standards and creates joint defence enterprises on the Turkic territory.
Thus, Ankara is promoting the project of creating an ‘Army of Turan’ in Turkic Asia, which will eventually become the second continental (Asian) branch of NATO. The Turan Army is a project of military integration of the Turkic world from Istanbul to Tashkent, and NATO plans to enter Transcaucasia and Central Asia via it.
This is why Ankara is now actively promoting the OTS and Turan projects, advocating for the implementation of multimodal international transport (Middle and Zangezur) corridors to access the vast expanses and resources of incredibly rich Central Asia (West Turkestan) to the detriment of the strategic interests of Russia, Iran and China.
Turan skeptics believe that Turkey does not have sufficient financial and military resources to implement this project, however, thanks to its flexible diplomacy (‘three-chair games’), Turkey has already achieved considerable success due to finances, resources and cooperation with Russia and partially China. In the 1990s, Azerbaijan also did not have sufficient funds to implement transit energy projects (oil and gas pipelines) bypassing Russia. However, the West came up with the necessarily funds and today Azerbaijan has become an important supplier of gas to the European market through Turkey.
Such a transformation of NATO’s structural reform to move eastward will lead to an even greater aggravation of geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic contradictions with other world actors (particularly with Russia, China and Iran).
Alexander Svarants – Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
