Turkey is asking to join BRICS while remaining firmly tied to NATO. Erdogan sends welcoming messages from Kiev but seeks to strengthen relations with Russia
Like in reversed binoculars, important international news sometimes escapes the wide-angle lens of political events that may prove extraordinary. Such is the case with Turkey’s recent decision to apply for membership in the BRICS alliance. An important step when you consider that Turkey is a NATO member, the second strongest army in the Alliance, the only one with a Muslim majority. In the BRICS club, Ankara is getting closer to countries – China, Russia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Iran – that are not exactly friends of the West. It must be said that diplomatic and trade relations are more complex and do not involve a clear division into opposing blocs. However, the BRICS model tends to be expansive and claims to represent a counterweight to Western alliances, and is a prototype for an alternative monetary system to the dollar. Geostrategic implications are still emerging, political ones may already be having an impact.
Ankara seeks to play a more decisive role in the Mediterranean and Middle East, positioning itself as a balancing factor in the US-Russia conflict that has erupted on the Ukrainian battlefield. It is no coincidence that in the same days that BRICS membership was being finalized, President Erdogan clearly stated that Russia must return Crimea to Ukraine, in accordance with international law. This is nearly a slap in the face to Moscow, even if Erdogan meets Putin at the next BRICS summit, scheduled for October 22 in Kazan, under the Russian chairmanship. That statement from the Turkish president was followed a few days later by another of the opposite sign when speaking at the UN General Assembly, in which he asked for an end to arms shipments to Ukraine and a resumption of dialog with Moscow.
Clearly contradictory steps that nevertheless reveal a strategy: Turkey, a middle power with imperial nostalgia, plays all sides, defends its regional interests both in Syria and in the Dardanelles, does not bow to Washington, and does not want to wait for eternal welcome signs from Europe. On the other hand, it has no intention of creating cracks in commercial relations with the EU (trade volume is $200 billion), nor of questioning NATO membership. Instead, rapprochement with BRICS confirms the frustration of decades of waiting in the EU lobby and a more explicit autonomy in relation to the Alliance. For example, with some trading ease for contracts to buy and sell drones, airplanes, and weapons. Erdogan defines strategic success as being present in various fields, even if this attitude may cause confusion and apprehension in a region where ideas and secrets about military strategies and current conflicts are exchanged.
The BRICS bloc has long been seen as nothing more than a group of sometimes dissenting and even antagonistic countries. But 15 years later, the group has nearly doubled in size and now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That said, Saudi Arabia is accession-oriented. In addition to Turkey, about twenty countries have already submitted applications. Meanwhile, membership in the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB), an alternative to the World Bank and IMF, is also growing. The fact of the matter is that most of these countries do not approve of the Russian operation in Ukraine, but neither do they support sanctions or proposals condemning Moscow at the UN, US policy in the Middle East, or Israeli retaliation in Gaza. And, indirectly, the BRICS expansion confirms that the conflict in Ukraine is increasingly divisive in the global balance. The accusations and sanctions against Russia have brought Moscow closer to Beijing and Tehran.
History will determine the new world balances. What is undeniable is that a generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall, things have changed. We’ve talked about the end of the Cold War, hopes for globalization, the American superpower, the clash of civilizations, and now alliance rivalries that bear little resemblance to the ideal of multilateralism. In the great geostrategic game – think trade routes and energy corridors first – the rules are changing. New and strong protagonists intend to play the game as equals. The dollar is also likely to suffer, even though among the new BRICS members in the Middle East and North Africa there are Washington’s traditional allies. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, together with Russia and Brazil, are the largest energy producers. Overall, the BRICS countries account for 29 percent of the world’s GDP and 46 percent of the world’s population, according to the IMF.
Within this framework, US-European cooperation should be strengthened, not weakened as expected in Washington after the presidential election. The USA has thirty allies in Europe versus six in the Indo-Pacific. European allies hold two of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council and a larger share of membership in the world’s most important organizations than any other region. The United States cannot afford to abandon Europe. But BRICS is breathing down its neck.