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After the USA, Turkey with its 775,000 strong armed forces is militarily the most important member of NATO.   It is also the NATO member most strategically located, sharing extended land

borders with Syria, with hostile Kurdish militias, notably the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and with Iran, all the way from Azerbaijan to Iraq, as well as having sea borders in common

with Russia and Ukraine. Sales of natural gas, oil, grain and arms mean Russia has a moderate but significant dependency on export revenue from Turkey.  Not surprisingly Putin has been

wooing Erdogan for many years. Following its annexation of Crimea in early 2014, Russia’s military intervention in Syria from September 2015 added to the complexity of Turkey’s foreign

relations.  On the one hand, the USA was supporting Kurdish anti-Assad militias, seen by Obama as the most effective force against ISIS in the region, but by Erdogan as a major threat while

PKK was conducting separatist attacks in south-east Turkey, with heavy casualties on both sides.  On the other hand, for Turks Crimea evoked the glory days of the Ottoman Empire. The local

remnant of its indigenous Turkic ethnic group, the Tatars, already persecuted and deported by Stalin, opposed the annexation and were suffering as a result.  Erdogan felt obliged to speak

out against Russia’s annexation, but avoided denouncing Putin. He refused to join sanctions being imposed by most of NATO’s members and supported Turkish government officials, whose shady

deals with Iran had been breaking existing US sanctions against the Islamic Republic. But if Russia and Turkey are in a marriage of convenience today, the failed 16 July 2016 military coup —

which caught Erdogan on holiday in the resort of Marmaris — should count as the moment when Putin slipped on the engagement ring.  Erdogan narrowly missed being seized and overthrown, but

emerged from the crisis stronger than ever.  He took advantage of enhanced public support to brand _Hizmet_, the Gülen movement — an extraordinarily successful and relatively moderate Muslim

organisation — as coup planners and terrorists. This was the perfect opportunity to destroy a powerful internal Islamic competitor with whom Erdogan had once been allied. _Hizmet _is

generally seen as pro-American and anti-Iranian.  Fetullah Gülen, founder and inspiration of the movement, still lives, in exile in the Pocono Mountains near Saylorburg in Pennsylvania.  The

US refused Turkish requests to extradite him and the Obama administration was also a little slow to condemn the coup. Russia wasn’t.  Erdogan’s first foreign visit after the coup failed was

to Moscow. Putin proceeded with his courtship in October 2016 by returning Erdogan’s visit, coming away with an agreement to provide Turkey with natural gas courtesy of Gazprom, the Russian

majority state-owned giant gas corporation. A new pipeline, costing some $11.4 billion dollars, would cross the Black Sea from Russia’s Krasnador region to Kiyiköy north of Istanbul.  

_TurkStream_ was subsequently extended into the Balkans to sell Bulgaria and North Macedonia gas bypassing Ukraine and Romania.  Erdogan and Putin inaugurated flows in January 2020, in good

time for anticipated US sanctions after Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Weapons play no small part in cementing Russia’s relationship with Turkey.  American Patriot

missiles deployed at Turkey’s Gaziantep 5th Armoured Brigade Command to protect the Turkish-Syrian border were withdrawn in October 2015, amid rising US-Turkish tensions over the American

training and arming of Kurdish guerrilla forces.  In 2017, a year after the failed putsch against Erdogan, and after protracted and failed negotiations with Washington to supply the Raytheon

Patriot missile system, Erdogan stunned NATO by signing an agreement with Russia to buy its S-400 air-defence system. According to Maximilian Hess in _Economic War: Ukraine and the Global

Conflict between Russia and the West, _(Hurst), by way of response the US dropped Turkey from “participation in its programme to develop the F-35 fifth generation fighter jet”. The grounds

were that Russian missile technicians would get access to the technology in the US Air Force’s most advanced fighter aircraft. President Trump initially blocked additional retaliatory

sanctions against Turkey, under the US 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), but then implemented them in December 2020, during his last chaotic days.  A

better offer of Patriot missiles was made. The game continued with Turkey seeking more S-400 batteries from Russia. As Hess writes in _Economic War_: “Russia had successfully developed its

partnership with Turkey to increase its energy leverage over Europe through the _TurkStream_ pipeline, and the West’s sanctions had failed to halt closer Russian-Turkish cooperation.” During

April this year the foundations were laid on the Turkish coast north of Cyprus for the Akkuyu nuclear power station, costing some $20 billion and comprising four units of a Russian designed

nuclear reactor.  A joint enterprise between a subsidiary of the Russian State corporation _Rosatom_ and a Turkish company, when finally constructed the reactors will provide 10% of

Turkey’s energy needs. Talks on the building of another nuclear power station are taking place between Turkey, Russia and South Korea. These snapshots of the relationship between Russia and

Turkey, taken partly from Hess’ scholarly book (almost 40% of it made up of footnotes, bibliography and index), give some idea of the intense economic war that accompanies the fighting in

Ukraine.  As a new multi-polar global configuration of states comes to birth with the formation of new trading blocs, the hegemony of the US-led “West” wanes.  And as it does, the limited

effectiveness of sanctions becomes more apparent.  The US Treasury hasn’t even been able to grab _Graceful _in Germany_, _a yacht in which “Putin had an interest”.  It was spirited back to

Russia two weeks before the invasion of Ukraine and appropriately renamed _Killer Whale_. The dollar retains its global power (see my “Erdogan’s Victory: Turkish Democracy and Islam”,

_TheArticle_ 29/05/2023), but few surpass Erdogan’s ability to manoeuvre between shifting alliances playing one side against the other.  Visitors to Turkey, lured by promises that include

accessible dental treatment – a remarkable advertisement on London Overground trains – cheap holidays and expensive Catholic pilgrimages to Ephesus, might ponder Erdogan’s choice of

strategic partner on the world stage.  At the very least, the Turkish President is giving pragmatism a bad name. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to

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