Dr Kostas A. Lavdas
Accusing the Euro-Atlantic partnership of “washing off its hands” in the Greek-Turkish dispute, as the proverbial Pontius Pilatos, is a thing of the past. There is little doubt that developments on the ground have been positive. The confirmation of Sweden’s application to join in exchange for granting F-16 jetfighters weighs on US perceptions of stability in the region and the balance among member states within the Alliance. In sum, Washington as a whole – rather than merely the Congress – is signalling that opening the door to Sweden will not suffice. The question remains whether this line will hold and where, if at all, Turkey will move on the agenda of the perceived negotiation agenda with Greece.
NATO will ultimately set the agenda in the region with a bigger agenda in mind. Stating the obvious, NATO remains absolutely necessary to the security of its member states in Europe. The EU still finds it challenging to consolidate a geopolitical identity, which is dangerous in a fluid international environment.
It is also clear that NATO stands at a crossroad. The Russian invasion of Ukraine rescuscitated and revitalised the Euro-Atlantic Alliance. As I explained in June, NATO’s rapprochement with Japan and Asia aims at greater regional presence in the region and that will be a debate in Vilnius open to controversy. To underscore this emerging partnership with NATO, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will be present in the Vilnius Summit as he was in Madrid.
Japan is planning a parallel summit of the Asia-Pacific Four – Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand – who will also be present in Vilnius (AP4). China’s next move and overall influence in the Asia Pacific region, the East and South China Seas will be on the agenda.
I am convinced that the discussion for the ability of the Euro-Atlantic partnership to project power globally lies at the heart of the future of the emerging polarity of the international system. As Paris never tires reminding us, NATO is a Euro-Atlantic not a global Alliance. In reality, the scope of upcoming developments remains unclear until certain factors have been more concretely defined. Despite an overall international fluidity, these appear to be clearer.
Prior to Putin’s invasion, a new international system was emerging, multipolar and multicentred as I often noted. That is a system that will have more than two poles, of which one may be Turkey. Because the emerging system will be underpinned by fluidity, the emerging system will allow for interest-driven shifts of aligning or colliding interests rather than longstanding historic Alliances. In this scheme, what is the future of NATO?
Vilnius will provide some indications but the system will continue to evolve over the next two crucial years (2024-2025), signposted by the US elections, the Russian aggression, and Sino-American trade and economic negotiations. The recent visit by the US Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, in Beijing aimed at instilling the message that “the two countries face important global challenges” and that “the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive.”
As ever, the results of Vilnius will be a compromise. The question is where the balance of this compromise will lean and how that will affect our region. Beyond speculation and exaggerations, France remains a powerful player in the Euro-Atlantic forum. Neither implosion nor an all-out standoff is characteristic of how Paris operates. Berlin shares the fundamental elements of this rational conservatism.
While consent and dissent is to be expected during the Vilnius Summit, the Alliance will attempt to formulate some form of future security guarantees for Ukraine. The prospect of entry for a country at war with Russia makes the prospect of immediate accession unlikely. A package of guarantees will be presented, there will be friction, as France and Germany have distinct perspectives. Washington’s position will be evolving as we near the 2024 electoral year and the domestic political landscape changes. London’s position will to some extent be a dependent variable to the American position, which is unclear as we near 2024.
In the scheme of these critical developments of global consequence, yesterday’s letter by the House of Representatives to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Blinken is a useful articulation of the preconditions set for Turkey’s access to F-16 {jetfighters}. The letter outlines mechanisms for the freezing, delay, or cancellation of defence system transfers to Turkey if the member state is seen to undermine US national security interests or the unity of the Alliance. With Turkish foreign policy now led by the former head of Turkish Secret Services, Hakan Fidan, signals at once a demand for political alignment with President Erdogan, an awareness of how Euro-Atlantic networks operate, and a complete disregard for international norms and values. The jury is out as to whether this justifies an emerging confidence expressed for the role of international organisations in the Greek-Turkish partnership.
Could our newfound focus on commercial, economic, and tourist factors allow us to create an opening or turn a page? Considering current regional and international developments, this naïve liberal approach that assumes that the economy, commerce, and low politics can play a decisive role is unlikely to yield results. Similar hopes have previously proved elusive. For years, I have insisted that we must focus on the factors contributing to “sustainable peace.” This insistence that some have found exhausting aims at delimiting what constitutes substantial changes without yielding to Turkish demands under the threat of persistent harassment. Sustainable peace requires from Turkey a change of direction. To the contrary, after the elections, Erdogan is engages in hard ball, demanding economic and military support while he continues to steer Turkey towards strategic autonomy vis-à-vis the West. His tactical endorsement of Ukraine’s NATO membership is little more than an attempt to influence public opinion in the EU and the US.
Conclusion
The environment shaped by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has set in motion a hurried bipolarisation, a much-advertised rapprochement between Ankara and the West, which should lead to a measurable shift in its strategy in our region. That development is not apparent now. As we have previously noted, therefore, Turkey should not be credited with good behaviour as it promotes its interests worldwide, committed to a structural rather than merely temporal review of the status quo as its often argued, with the Blue Homeland paradigm being indicative.
In this context, it is important to define the main parameters of change. Greece, as NATO’s reliable partner, a full member of the EU, has the domestic institutional maturity to act as a factor of stability in the region. At the same time, the country is motivated to support the emergence of a multilateral world that balances hard and soft power, allowing commercial, scientific, cultural, and symbolic interaction, maritime and land based, reaping every possible opportunity. The violent and expedient systemic bipolarisation we are undergoing certainly increases risks and limits opportunities.
Greece must do its utmost to affect the institutional framework to which it is consciously committed, retaining its credibility. What Greece is not obliged to do is facilitate Turkey’s expansionary and polarising role. The constructive resistance outlined is not an easy proposition. There will be many Sirens seeking to take Ulysses off our course. The challenges posed by Turkey’s structural revisionism that I defined last June – rather than “aggression” as its mistakenly referred to – remains relevant, framing and limiting any attempt for a Greek-