NATO Enlists Turkey as Indispensable Hedge Against U.S. Uncertainty

As President Trump distances himself from NATO, European members are reassessing Turkey's value—not out of newfound affinity, but necessity. Ankara's standing military, indigenous drone programs, and control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits have become strategic assets any European-led alliance cannot replicate. European planners distrust Erdogan's alignment but recognize that forward defense without Turkish geography is strategically hollow. Turkey, long NATO's awkward outsider, now holds leverage.