The European country that could draw Nato into a conflict with Israel

Turkish security specialists suggest much of this urgent development is happening with Israel in mind, following a series of devastating wars in the region and veiled threats from Israeli officials.

Ali Burak Daricili, a veteran of the Turkish intelligence services and former advisor to prime ministers, and now a professor of international relations at Bursa Technical University, suggests the sudden revelation of the Yildirimhan is a “message to Israel” and a “strong deterrence” against potential Israeli aggression.

Ali Bakir, a specialist on the Turkish military and professor of international affairs at Qatar University, said the country had broader security concerns but “Israel has imposed itself on this agenda”.

Relations between the two regional powers have declined rapidly in recent years after a period of close partnerships ended in the 2000s. That partnership extended to intelligence sharing, arms sales and joint military exercises.

Tensions have erupted over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has compared Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, while the Israeli leader has accused the Turkish autocrat of massacring ethnic Kurds.

Turkey has also fostered relations with Hamas while Israel has forged ties with Greece and Cyprus. Regional ambitions, meanwhile, have collided in Syria, where Israeli forces targeted sites Turkey had designated for military bases.

Prominent public figures in Israel, including Naftali Bennett, a strong contender to be the next prime minister, have described Turkey as the “new Iran” – Israel’s current major threat in the region.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, responded that Israel “cannot live without an enemy” and that it was “seeking to declare Turkey the new enemy”.

A senior Israeli official, who did not wish to be identified, stopped short of echoing Bennett’s statement, but said Turkey’s military build-up was a “huge concern” and claimed that the country was taking a “dangerous” turn due to the influence of radical Islamist elements. They compared this to the influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran.

The Turkish military overhaul goes beyond missile and drones. A first aircraft carrier is said to be ahead of schedule and could be completed by next year, and the Turkish air force is assembling a fleet of home-made Kaan fighter jets to supplement purchases of foreign aircraft such as Typhoons from the UK.

Yaakov Amidror, an Israeli former military intelligence chief and now a military analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (Jinsa), said that Turkey’s moves are a concern for Israel.

“When we see what the Turks are doing, we don’t understand them,” he told The i Paper. “We don’t understand why they need long-range missiles, why they build such a huge navy…. It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Amidror said that recent defence assessments called for increased intelligence gathering on Turkey, and that its military build-up could compel Israel to take steps to preserve its “qualitative military edge” – a policy of maintaining superior technology to its regional rivals.

Israel has a “more sensitive” security doctrine after the 7 October, 2023, Hamas attacks, Amidror said, which requires action to pre-empt potential threats across the region, such as in Syria, where both Israel and Turkey have a military presence and competing agendas.

While Israel has sought to maintain a “buffer zone” around the occupied Golan Heights in southern Syria, and conducted regular interventions in surrounding areas, Turkey has called for the country’s territorial integrity to be respected under the new government, while also keeping soldiers in the north of Syria to combat Kurdish militants.

Amidror said the risk of a clash with Turkish forces would depend on their actions. He added: “I hope we would not be so stupid not to have (contingency) plans.”

At the same time, Turkey’s Nato membership is a notable deterrent to a clash, said Alper Coskun, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But Coskun added that there was also a need for Turkish self-reliance at a time of upheaval and uncertainty.

“Turkey knows its overall deterrence and defense is boosted through Nato membership,” he said. But, “Ankara also knows that if and when push comes to shove, its safest bet is to also complement the benefits of alliance membership with strong indigenous capabilities and operational autonomy”.

According to Coskun, Erdogan’s government is combining defence development with political positioning, including maintaining friendly relations with US President Donald Trump, who has urged Netanyahu to “be reasonable” with Turkey.

However, hawkish elements in Washington DC think the US could ultimately back an Israeli attack on Turkey, if tensions continue to escalate.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Turkey analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that US and Israeli intelligence agencies are already tracking Turkish leaders for potential decapitation strikes, as with Iran.

And the threshold for conflict could be crossed if Turkey’s military development is perceived as an intolerable threat to Israel, he said.

“Turkey’s build-up represents a growing threat,” Rubin told The i Paper. “If any state wants to counter that threat, they have an incentive to act with surprise. Given Erdogan’s rhetoric and his increasing hostility to Israel, at some point Israeli officials are going to conclude war is inevitable and the best possible outcome would be an attempt at decapitation.”

Nato membership is likely to be of limited value in that scenario, he added, suggesting that other members might be reluctant to come to Turkey’s aid on the basis of Nato’s Article Five mutual defence pact.

“Article Five is less a barrier to conflict than Turkey and its partisans may believe,” he said. “Article Five does not automatically kick in; Nato members have to agree to it. And because Nato is consensus-driven, whether Nato would invoke mutual defence is really an open question.”