Friday, July 12, 2019

Does Turkish Lira Decline Mean Turkey Leaves NATO?

Probably not, but Turkey is about to receive Russian S-400 missiles against US demands.  More signifigantly the US will kill high level US F-35 agreements, and will not fly US planes over Turkey if it uses the Russian systems.  This threatens Turkish membership in NATO.

The immediate result of this in financial markets has been a substantial decline of the Turkish lira over the last several weeks.  While pushing off the US has costs, there will be gains from favoring Russia, from Russian tourist business to other economic deals, as well as cooperation with Russia not only in Syria, but also with respect to Iran, where both Turkey and Russia disagree with US policy to pull out of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, which has led to a very bad state.

More deeply we see the limits of the weltenschaaung that Trump put forward last September at the UN GA to massive laughter by many other  national leaders, a moment not known to most Americans while unprecedented, the idea of super nationalism. Now he is facing the outcome of his folly on these matters: both Putin and Turkish leader Erdogan agree with him on this nationalist baloney, but now they are allying against him and the US. This shows that the end of this approach is not international cooperation through international organizations like the UN.  It is nationalist competition and rivalries leading to warfare.

Oh, and Erdogan seems to be imitating Trump also on economic policy, although he is playing a weaker hand, with the Turkish economy's problems one of the reasons the US Fed is looking at lowering interest rates, not only a supposed ally, but one of the G20 nations whose economic problems are serious enough to draw the attention of the US Fed.

Barkley Rosser

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look at a map and understand that there is no chance the US will try to exclude Turkey from NATO. Also, remember that in the attempted coup against Erdogan American aircraft were used. Erdogan would appear to be strengthening Turkey or the Erdogan government strategically.

Anonymous said...

Forcing Turkey from NATO would mean Turkey joining the SCO.

Anonymous said...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation#Membership

Turkey, a member of NATO, was granted dialogue partner status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at the group's 2012 summit in Beijing. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stated that he has discussed the possibility of abandoning Turkey's European Union membership candidacy in return for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.[29] This was reinforced again on 21 November 2016, after the European Parliament voted unanimously to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey. Two days later, on 23 November 2016, Turkey was granted the chairmanship of the energy club of SCO for the 2017 period. That made Turkey the first country to chair a club in the organisation without full membership status.

Anonymous said...

What strikes me from a strategic perspective is that it is perfectly sensible for Turkey to avoid having to depend on NATO membership or mutually beneficial relations with EU countries or the US. Better strategy is to show an ability to be independent when meeting Turkish objectives.