AS A YOUNG man Recep Tayyip Erdogan played semi-professional football. As Turkey’s president, he has no qualms about committing professional fouls to get his way in international politics. His move last month to trip up Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, at a time of grave threat from Russia, was as startling as it was effective. On June 28th, as NATO’s leaders gathered in Madrid for a summit, Mr Erdogan collected his prize for agreeing to let them in, cheered by fellow leaders. “Fantastic news as we kick off the NATO summit,” tweeted Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister.
In a joint memorandum with Turkey, the two Nordic countries pledged their “unwavering solidarity and co-operation in the fight against terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations”. They also promised to abjure the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a radical Kurdish group that has fought decades of insurgency against Turkey, and the closely related Kurdish militia in Syria, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). This seems to be more than words. They agreed to lift their arms embargo against Turkey, clamp down on the financing of the PKK, “address” Turkey’s requests for the extradition and deportation of Kurdish activists, and amend laws to facilitate the extradition of terrorism suspects. In return, Turkey would support their application to join the alliance.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, has been assiduously working for weeks to overcome the dispute, which threatened to sour the summit. “No ally has suffered more brutal terrorist attacks than Türkiye,” he acknowledged, making an effort to master the new pronunciation of the country’s name favoured by Mr Erdogan. Other allies worked the diplomatic channels, too. Mr Stoltenberg was helped in no small measure by behind-the-scenes pressure from America, which stayed out of the limelight but appears to have firmly warned Turkey that it risked having its request for new F-16 jets blocked in Congress.
“Failure to get this done would have led to ‘NATO is divided’ stories and seen as a victory for Putin (even if only short-term). Everyone knew that. They all played it down, in case agreement wasn’t reached. Which is smart. But getting this agreement was [a] high priority,” tweeted Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO. “Biden and others cared. Ultimately, so does Erdogan.”
At the summit, leaders will issue a formal invitation to Finland and Sweden. But the months required for NATO’s 30 allies to ratify their accession leaves plenty of scope for disagreements about the memorandum and further brinkmanship. Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s president, cast doubt on the notion that the country would amend its legislation. It would stick to existing practices regarding extraditions, he told journalists. Given Mr Erdogan’s drift towards autocracy, and his tendency to describe all opponents as terrorists, many will worry that the Nordic states risk weakening their commitment to human rights and asylum for political dissidents.
Even so, NATO’s leaders can now concentrate on the pressing business of how to strengthen the alliance in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Mr Stoltenberg calls “the biggest security crisis in decades”. For one thing, the entry of Finland and Sweden will help secure the Baltic Sea and fortify NATO’s ability to defend the Baltic states. Mr Putin went to war in the name of pushing NATO back, noted Mr Stoltenberg; instead he is getting “more NATO”.
Until they join, however, they will not be protected by NATO’s Article 5, the mutual-defence clause that says an attack on one ally is an attack on all. Instead, America, Britain and other countries have offered less binding bilateral pledges to help and defend the two Nordic states, and allies maintain a more visible presence in the Baltic.
More immediately, NATO leaders will adopt a new “strategic concept”, or vision statement, that confirms the obvious: that Russia is the biggest threat to NATO, rather than a potential “strategic partner”, as it was once regarded. Leaders will also agree to strengthen the alliance by hastening to spend 2% of GDP on defence (the minimum target set by NATO). They will reinforce their units on the eastern flank, with some of the eight multinational battlegroups, notably those in Poland and the Baltic states, expanding to something closer to full brigades (or about three times larger)—though Baltic officials doubt this will be enough to deter Russia. Equipment will be pre-positioned, and the number of forces ready to deploy at short notice will increase from the current 40,000 to some 300,000.
For all the focus on Russia, NATO will also acknowledge the rise of China. President Xi Jinping has given Russia propaganda backing but not much material support for its war. The leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea—which have all imposed sanctions on Russia—will be on hand in Madrid to signal that they expect European support to deal with China.
All these moves are “historic”, notes Mr Stoltenberg. But the revival of NATO as the world’s most successful alliance risks being overshadowed by Mr Erdogan’s obstructionism. As Sinan Ulgen of EDAM, a think-tank in Istanbul, put it in a tweet: “Ultimately the cost in terms of Turkey’s external relations particularly with the US would start to become palpable if a deal had not been reached in Madrid. And it is not a bad deal. Easily sellable in Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki at the same time. Quite an achievement.”