Türkiye's Relations With/Within Nato: the Ontological Security Dilemmas of Türkiye's Transatlantic Identity

Abstract

Since 1952, T & uuml;rkiye's Transatlantic identity has been largely shaped by its NATO membership and interactions with the Allies. During the Cold War, T & uuml;rkiye aligned its national interests and security concerns with NATO, making its membership a central element of its identity. However, starting in the 2000s, T & uuml;rkiye shifted toward a more independent foreign policy, influenced by its new activism and regional ambitions, particularly in the Middle East. This shift has caused tensions with NATO, especially considering T & uuml;rkiye's military interventions in Syria, its purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, and its reactions to the latest enlargement of NATO. This paper examines T & uuml;rkiye's evolving Transatlantic identity through the lens of ontological security, according to which states act in order to provide continuity in their identities (T & uuml;rkiye's Transatlantic identity) and to prevent any instabilities to feel ontologically secure, which then might create security dilemmas between the protective security cocoons (T & uuml;rkiye's NATO membership) and the crises with other actors (T & uuml;rkiye's clashes with/within NATO). In other words, this paper aims to understand how T & uuml;rkiye's Transatlantic identity is still valued, desired, and reconstructed, despite the security dilemmas of T & uuml;rkiye's contentions with/within the NATO Alliance, from the ontological security perspective.