This article draws on the discussions held at the 22nd edition of IstanPol Foreign Policy Talks, organized in partnership with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Türkiye under the title “Recalibrating the Alliance: NATO, Türkiye, and European Security Ahead of Ankara 2026.” The event brought together diplomats, parliamentarians, security experts, and think tank representatives from Türkiye and Europe to discuss how NATO is adapting and preparing ahead of the Ankara Summit on 7 and 8 July 2026. Across the panels, there was broad agreement that the Alliance is entering a period of recalibration. Russia’s war against Ukraine has returned territorial defense to the center of European security, instability across NATO’s wider neighborhood has reinforced the need for a 360-degree posture, and uncertainty over the long-term role of the United States has pushed European allies to assume greater responsibility for defense investment, capability generation, and industrial production.

The discussions also pointed to a deeper unresolved question behind the increasingly familiar formula of “a stronger Europe within a stronger NATO.” The formula is attractive because it appears to reconcile European strategic responsibility with transatlantic cohesion: Europe spends more, produces more, and assumes greater responsibility for conventional defense while reinforcing, rather than weakening, NATO. Yet its institutional logic remains incomplete. European defense is increasingly shaped through EU instruments at precisely the moment when Europe’s security also depends on the capabilities of non-EU NATO allies, above all Türkiye. Türkiye is not external to European security. It is already embedded in it through geography, military capacity, defense industry, Black Sea security, Mediterranean politics, migration, energy routes, and crisis management. The problem is that this role remains operationally indispensable but institutionally underconnected. Türkiye is central to many of the files that define European security, but is only partially connected to the frameworks through which Europe is now trying to organize its defense future. The question, therefore, is not simply whether Türkiye matters, but whether its role can be translated into a more durable architecture based on political alignment, institutional trust, and structured cooperation under conditions of democratic strain and mutual mistrust.

The concept that best describes what Türkiye and its NATO and European partners have built instead is managed pragmatism, a term we introduced in earlier work on Türkiye-Europe relations. This is not strategic indifference, nor is it a relationship in open crisis. It is a mode of cooperation that persists because mutual dependence makes disengagement too costly, but develops only episodically, driven by immediate needs rather than a shared architectural vision. It is sustained by strategic necessity, but constrained by political misalignment, institutional mistrust, and the erosion of the rule-based expectations that once gave Türkiye’s relationship with Europe a more transformative horizon. Files are managed, crises are navigated, and transactions are completed. When specific interests converge, cooperation advances. When structural questions arise, they are deferred. The relationship continues because it must, not because either side has decided what it should become.

Managed pragmatism is stable only until it is not. It generates fragility precisely where durability is most needed: in the defense-industrial base, in Black Sea security, in the governance of Türkiye’s role on NATO’s southern flank, and in the political alignment that makes Allied commitments credible beyond moments of immediate convergence. The Ankara Summit offers an opportunity to identify where managed pragmatism has reached its limits and what a more deliberate architecture might look like. This requires a different kind of analysis: one that names the blocking mechanisms rather than simply listing complementarities and calling for more cooperation.

The Defense-Industrial Ceiling

The Italy-Türkiye case is the clearest illustration of managed pragmatism at the industrial level, but also of its limits. The partnership between Leonardo and Baykar through LBA Systems is significant because it shows how a Turkish-designed platform can enter a European industrial ecosystem through production, certification, integration, and support. Italian interest in the Bayraktar TB3, including its possible operation from the Cavour, points to the integration of an operationally tested Turkish unmanned platform into the naval capabilities of a major NATO ally. The complementarities are clear: Italian firms bring certification, systems integration, and European market access, while Turkish firms bring tested platforms, competitive production costs, rapid development cycles, and openness to co-production.

Yet the same case also reveals the ceiling of a bilateral and company-driven model. A platform can enter a European defense ecosystem through corporate cooperation while remaining outside the political and regulatory framework that governs that ecosystem. Questions such as technology transfer, export controls, certification, data security, and end-use guarantees are still negotiated on a case-by-case basis, creating uncertainty and uneven standards. The result is a form of industrial integration without institutional integration: Türkiye’s capabilities are absorbed when useful, but the broader framework remains ambiguous and politically reversible.

The question ahead of Ankara is therefore not whether Türkiye-Europe defense cooperation can happen. It already does. The question is whether it can move beyond ad hoc pragmatism toward a more structured approach. A Türkiye-EU defense-industrial dialogue, clearer rules on technology transfer and certification, end-use guarantees, and stronger NATO involvement in interoperability could all help reduce fragmentation without requiring the resolution of every political dispute. What is needed is a decision to treat Türkiye’s defense-industrial role as a structural feature of European security, rather than as a useful resource to be drawn upon when convenient.

The Black Sea: Selective Posture, Specific Value

Türkiye’s role in the Black Sea illustrates another dimension of managed pragmatism: one in which Ankara’s selective posture is not simply tolerated but remains indispensable to NATO’s regional position. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Türkiye has closed the Straits to warships of the belligerents, provided military support to Ukraine, and joined mine countermeasure efforts with Bulgaria and Romania. At the same time, it has preserved channels with Moscow, avoided Western sanctions, and continued to present itself as a possible mediator. This is neither neutrality nor strategic drift. It is a calibrated posture shaped by Türkiye’s direct exposure to Russia, its economic vulnerabilities, and its need to manage escalation in a sea it shares with Moscow.

The key question is not whether this posture fully aligns with NATO preferences. It does not. The more relevant question is whether it has become more compatible with Alliance interests over time. Here, the evidence suggests a cautious but meaningful shift. Ankara has diversified energy supplies, adjusted trade with Russia to reduce secondary sanctions risks, explored alternatives to Russian nuclear cooperation, and moved to repair its Western anchorage in several bilateral tracks. These changes should not be overstated, since Russia remains an important economic and energy actor for Türkiye. But they indicate that Ankara is no longer simply maximizing the benefits of equidistance. It is also managing the vulnerabilities created by excessive dependence on Moscow.

For NATO, Türkiye’s value in the Black Sea is therefore political and operational, not only geographic. Ankara can support Ukraine’s resilience, maintain communication with Russia, manage escalation through the Straits, and shape the maritime balance without pushing the region toward direct confrontation. The Alliance should not expect Türkiye to adopt the same threat perception as Poland or the Baltic states. It should instead integrate Türkiye’s specific role into a regional strategy that combines deterrence, maritime security, and escalation management, treating the Straits regime as a strategic asset rather than a complication to work around.

The Southern Flank: Influence Without Control

Türkiye’s position on NATO’s southern flank has become both more consequential and more complicated. The post-Assad transition in Syria has increased Ankara’s relevance: Türkiye is one of the main external actors shaping the new Syrian security environment, reportedly through training, intelligence, military advice, and border security support. Yet this is not a relationship of client control. Syria’s new leadership is broadening its partnerships with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, and other regional actors, while preserving its own room for maneuver. Ankara’s priority remains containing the PKK-linked SDF and preventing a security vacuum along its border; Damascus’ priority is consolidating central authority and diversifying external support. These objectives overlap, but they are not identical.

This matters because Syria is no longer only a humanitarian crisis or a counterterrorism file. It is becoming part of the wider debate on NATO’s southern neighborhood, regional order, refugee return, and Western engagement in the Middle East. Türkiye’s role is unavoidable, but its interests do not always map neatly onto Alliance preferences. Its normalization with Egypt, strained relations with Israel, engagement with Gulf actors, and presence in Syria all reflect a regional strategy that can both reinforce and complicate NATO’s southern posture.

The appropriate response is not to treat this divergence as disqualifying. It is to identify where interests overlap and build cooperation there, without pretending disagreements do not exist. Instability in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Gulf now directly affects energy routes, migration flows, maritime security, and escalation dynamics. Türkiye operates across these theatres at a level few NATO allies can match. This does not make Turkish and European interests identical. Still, it does mean that any serious discussion of NATO’s 360-degree security environment must treat Türkiye’s regional position as part of the architecture, not as an external complication.

What Managed Pragmatism Cannot Deliver

Taken together, the defense-industrial relationship, the Black Sea posture, and southern flank engagement reveal the systemic limit of managed pragmatism. It produces cooperation where interests clearly converge, but it does not create the durable frameworks needed when interests diverge or crises impose new demands. A bilateral defense partnership may work well under normal conditions, but it becomes fragile when technology transfer, re-export, or end-use questions become politically contested. A Black Sea arrangement built around Türkiye’s selective posture may remain useful under current conditions, but face greater strain if Russian pressure intensifies. A southern flank policy that engages Türkiye mainly transactionally may find that the costs of cooperation rise precisely when coordination becomes most necessary.

For Türkiye, the limits are different but no less important. Strategic indispensability is not the same as strategic influence. Being necessary does not automatically generate trust or guarantee a place at the table when architecture is being designed. Türkiye has become a necessary actor in the Black Sea, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean, and defense-industrial supply chains. Yet it has not fully translated this necessity into a structural role in the frameworks that shape European security. Doing so would require showing, in concrete and verifiable ways, that Turkish autonomy can coexist with Allied cohesion, particularly on technology governance, information sharing, and escalation management.

This reliability is not only a matter of external commitments. It is also affected by domestic institutional credibility. The erosion of judicial independence and the rule of law matters for security cooperation because durable frameworks require predictability. A partner whose institutional behavior is harder to anticipate is harder to integrate into long-term arrangements; however valuable its capabilities may be.

For European partners, the adjustment is equally demanding. Excluding Türkiye from structural discussions may be politically convenient, especially given the Cyprus dispute, Greek-Turkish tensions, and domestic European constraints. But convenience is not a strategy. Nor can the rule-of-law question and Türkiye’s democratic backsliding be addressed by either ignoring it or using it as a reason for permanent exclusion. Both responses reproduce managed pragmatism: one by pretending the problem does not exist, the other by avoiding the harder task of conditional engagement.

A stronger Europe within a stronger NATO will require more than spending and production. It will require a clearer understanding of who contributes to European security and under what terms. Türkiye’s contribution is already substantial. The question Ankara 2026 should force onto the agenda is whether the institutional framework can make that contribution durable.

The Test of the Formula

The Ankara Summit will not resolve the structural problems of the Türkiye-EU relationship, erase the Cyprus dispute, reconcile diverging positions on Russia, or produce a comprehensive framework for Turkish participation in European defense. It will not be judged by what it solves. It will be judged by whether it advances a more realistic understanding of what needs to be built.

The formula "a stronger Europe within a stronger NATO" has political appeal because it appears to reconcile competing logics. Its weakness is that it can be invoked without specifying the institutional design that would give it content. A stronger European pillar built primarily through EU instruments, with Türkiye's capabilities absorbed when useful and its institutional role left ambiguous, is not stronger in any strategically meaningful sense. It is a pillar with a load-bearing member that has not been properly connected to the structure.

Türkiye is not the missing link in Europe's NATO moment in the sense of a single element whose addition would complete the architecture. It is the missing link, in the sense that the architecture cannot be honestly assessed without confronting the costs of its exclusion. That confrontation is uncomfortable because it requires European actors to acknowledge that managed pragmatism has been a choice, not an inevitability, and that its costs are accumulating. A different choice would have to be symmetrical: Türkiye making its autonomy legible through predictable, verifiable commitments, and European partners declining to use the rule-of-law question as either an alibi for exclusion or a detail to be waved away. Ankara 2026 is the moment to begin making it.

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Dr. Seren Selvin Korkmaz is a co-founder and co-director of the IstanPol Institute. She previously served with the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul and has held fellowships at the German Marshall Fund, Yale University, and the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C. Korkmaz has taught Middle Eastern and Turkish politics at Stockholm University.

Dr. Edgar Şar is a co-founder and co-director of the IstanPol Institute. He was previously a CATS Fellow at SWP Berlin, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and is currently a Research Affiliate at CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest.

Riccardo Gasco is the Foreign Policy Program Coordinator at IstanPol Institute. He is also a political analyst and PhD Researcher in International Relations at the University of Bologna. Based in Istanbul since 2019, he previously held research fellowships at the Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) and Sabancı University, where he worked on Turkish foreign policy.

IstanPol thanks the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Türkiye Office for its valuable contribution to the organization of the event “Recalibrating the Alliance: NATO, Türkiye, and European Security Ahead of Ankara 2026,” as well as to the publication of this analysis as a conference reflection. The views expressed in this analysis belong solely to the authors and do not necessarily reflect, in whole or in part, the institutional views of IstanPol or the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.