The disputes between the two countries of Greece and Turkey are many, but lately Ankara has focused on the "militarization" of the Greek islands, near the Turkish coast of the Aegean. With extreme threats by Erdogan to invade our country and a NATO partner.
Greece's response is that Turkey has repeatedly violated its historic obligations of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne through continuous military air violations and consistent naval presence in the region. Greece has said that this threatens not only the territorial sovereignty of the islands but also the economic sovereignty of its continental shelf.
A reputable US media outlet points out that, "while this source of friction brought the neighbors close to war in the 1970s, the two countries have largely agreed to try to develop a framework for drilling rights and natural resource extraction in the eastern Aegean ».
Over the past year, Turkey has put increasing pressure on Greece and adopted aggressive rhetoric. Erdogan has threatened to hit Athens with ballistic missiles if it persists in "arming" islands in the Aegean. Recall that, at the 2023 World Economic Forum, Erdogan warned Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that Turkey "may come suddenly one night if they continue to act."
As Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute has made clear, it is difficult to gauge whether Turkey will actually do so amid what is sure to be a harsh backlash within NATO and elsewhere in the international community.
But Erdogan's government could find it irresistible to use the recent escalation of the dispute over the islands as a pretext for an invasion. The upcoming elections potentially provide Erdogan with ample material to raise nationalist sentiment," he says.
Consequences for NATO
A conflict between Turkey and Greece would bring NATO to difficult decisions.
On the one hand, there is the geopolitical importance of Turkey. "In addition to controlling the Black Sea, Bosphorus and Dardanelles, it has been a platform from which to block Russian penetration into the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and from which America can project its own influence," he says. the media.
But it cannot be overlooked that in the last twenty years, Turkey has simultaneously adopted a more populist and, given the pathologies of a large part of the Turkish public, anti-American approach.
Likewise, Erdogan's embrace of neo-Ottomanism and the Mavi Vatan strategy at sea are at odds with American policy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
"Neo-Ottomanism attempts to build an alliance of nationalists and Islamists in Turkey, through the prism of Ottoman greatness. In this way, a neo-Ottoman perspective offers both domestic groups something to agree on," he says.
On the other hand, in contrast to the deteriorating relations between Washington and Ankara, the United States has significantly improved its relationship with Greece, the other half of NATO's vital southern wing.
This apparent shift in alliance relations multiplies the incentives for the United States to lean in Greece's direction should hostilities arise, especially if Turkey is determined to be the aggressor.
"This seems to have shaped the perception of Erdogan, with his blunt criticism of a new NATO base in Alexandroupolis, a Greek port that sits astride the Turkish border. This dynamic is further shaped by the diametrically opposed trajectories of each ally's domestic institutions, with Greece steadily liberalizing and Turkey moving in a more authoritarian direction," the US media reports.
Geopolitical impact
The immediate consequences of a Turkish invasion of the Greek islands are unclear. There are no provisions in the North Atlantic Treaty to sanction, expel or otherwise punish a NATO member state.
Furthermore, NATO is limited by process as it operates on the principle of unanimity, and unity among its twenty-nine member states requires compromise. For NATO to take any punitive action against one of its own members would require the alliance to improvise its response to a Turkish invasion of the Greek islands.
There is no real precedent. The closest analogy is the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. In this case, NATO was commanded by leaders with clear priorities and strategic concepts guiding their actions, namely, containing NATO's southern flank and preventing Soviet penetration into the Eastern Mediterranean.
With few good options, Turkey could possibly even leave the NATO alliance of its own accord, especially if Ankara finds the US and European sanctions intolerable. However, such an eventuality is unlikely, as there is no clear incentive for Turkey to demonstrate its withdrawal from NATO unless domestic politics demand it.
Turkey's relationship with NATO is therefore more likely to face a slow erosion than an outright rupture.
The most worrying implication of any diplomatic standoff between NATO and Turkey is the threat of a deepening of bilateral relations between Ankara and Moscow, effectively driving a wedge on NATO's southern flank, effectively altering the purpose of Turkey's presence in the alliance.
