Turkey Between NATO and the Russia-China-Iran Axis: Anatomy of a Strategic Balancing Act

A NATO member since 1952 and host to the İncirlik air base — one of the Alliance’s most strategic installations in the Middle East —, Turkey has simultaneously established itself as the most active NATO partner of the Russia-China-Iran axis: the purchase of the Russian S-400 air-defense system, the Akkuyu nuclear plant built by Rosatom, the TurkStream gas corridor, participation alongside Moscow and Tehran in the Astana format on the Syrian file, the coupling of its Middle Corridor with China’s Belt and Road, and repeated bids for BRICS membership, for which it obtained “partner country” status in 2024. This article sets out to analyze this strategic balancing act and asks the following question: does Ankara’s ambivalent diplomacy stem from a sincere commitment to impartiality in the service of peace, or is it above all a structural survival strategy designed to prevent Turkey from becoming the target of either camp? Drawing on the literature on hedging and the strategic autonomy of middle powers, as well as on the most recent developments — the interception, in March 2026, of an Iranian ballistic missile by NATO air defenses over Turkish territory; the persistent freeze, since 2019, of the F-35 file despite Ankara’s repeated calls for an easing of CAATSA sanctions; the reaffirmation, in early 2026, of Turkish BRICS ambitions despite its NATO membership —, the article advances a twofold thesis. On one hand, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty functions as a shield that deters anyone from directly attacking Turkey, since doing so would amount to attacking the entire Atlantic Alliance; this shield grants Ankara room for maneuver that non-allied states do not enjoy. On the other hand, Turkey’s geographic position — control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles under the Montreux Convention, status as NATO’s second-largest army, lock on the Alliance’s southern flank, and energy hub between Europe, Russia, the Caucasus and the Middle East — makes its continued anchoring in the Western camp just as indispensable to NATO as access to its good offices is for Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. The result is neither disinterested neutrality nor opportunistic double-dealing in the pejorative sense of the term, but a rational strategic-autonomy policy, made possible by a geographic and institutional irreplaceability that neither camp can afford to sacrifice.