Turkey’s ‘balancing act’ with BRICS bid raises NATO concerns

On June 11, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was appealing for help at a conference in Berlin at the start of a week of intense diplomacy in western Europe, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was in the east, holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The Kremlin meeting went “fantastically well”, Fidan told Turkish state media. Putin also sounded pleased. “We welcome Turkey's interest in the work of BRICS,” Turkish media quoted the Russian leader as saying. “Undoubtedly, we will fully support this aspiration.”

The aspiration inched towards fruition this week when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) confirmed that Turkey had formally applied to join the BRICS bloc of emerging economies. 

"Our president has expressed multiple times that we wish to become a member of BRICS,” AKP spokesman Omer Celik told journalists in Ankara on Tuesday. “Our request in this matter is clear, and the process is proceeding within this framework.” Turkey’s BRICS candidacy marks the first time a NATO member and candidate for EU membership has applied to join a group dominated by Russia and China that views itself as a counterweight to the Western-led global order. The move, by a member of the world’s most powerful military alliance, highlights the geostrategic shifts straining the post-war order at a time of heightened international strains.

A banking jargon that ‘absolutely exploded’ 

The BRICS bloc has long been dismissed as a talking shop, a loose grouping of countries that are sometimes at odds and even engage in fierce border skirmishes, without a defining purpose. 

The origins of the grouping itself are unorthodox, contributing to the muddle over its mission. The acronym “BRIC” was coined by British economist Jim O’Neill in 2001 while he was research chief at Goldman Sachs to categorise Brazil, Russia, India and China – countries with large populations and economic growth potential.

Over the next few years, the investment banker’s concept “absolutely exploded”, explained O’Neill – nicknamed “Mr BRIC” – in a 2009 interview. It was the year the leaders of the four countries formed a political grouping at the first BRIC summit in Russia.  South Africa joined the grouping in 2010, expanding the acronym to BRICS.

Nearly 15 years later, the grouping has nearly doubled to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as official members.

The acronym no longer covers all its members. Neither does the “emerging economies” suffix employed to describe the bloc. While economists note that some BRICS economies have long “emerged”, they continue to use the explainer for lack of an alternative.

And yet, the number of nations queuing for BRICS membership keeps growing.

In addition to Turkey, nearly 20 other countries have applied for membership, forcing the bloc to institute expansion procedures. The line of aspirants has also sparked divisions within the original BRIC members, with Russia and China pushing for expansion while Brazil and India are more wary of adding members.

Meanwhile membership to the bloc’s New Development Bank (NDB), established in 2015 as an alternative to the World Bank and IMF, is also growing. Algeria was approved for NDB membership earlier this week, joining Bangladesh and Uruguay in addition to BRICS member states.

Hedging bets

Turkey’s latest bid to join the bloc has raised eyebrows in Western capitals. 

NATO’s only Muslim-majority member nation straddles Europe and Asia, with coastlines hugging the Mediterranean and Black Seas and straits connecting the two. It’s a geography of vital strategic interest as the Ukraine war rages across the Black Sea to Turkey’s north while the Gaza war threatens regional stability in the Middle East, to Turkey’s south.

“This is something to which the transatlantic community should definitely pay attention,” said Asli Aydintasbas from the Washington DC-based Brookings Institute. “Turkey is seeking alternatives. It does not want to leave its NATO membership. It does not want to shed its European aspirations. But it wants to diversify its set of alliances, hedge its bets, so to speak. It no longer sees its NATO membership to be the sole identity, its sole foreign policy orientation.”

A NATO member joining the queue for BRICS membership may be unprecedented but it does not contravene the military alliance’s rules, notes Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria and a special advisor to the Paris-based Institut Montaigne. 

“Legally, of course, there are no brakes. BRICS has no treaty obligations, there is no operational mechanism, it's a very loose organisation,” said Duclos. “At the same time, the spirit of NATO as an organisation is that when you sit at the same table, you exchange views in a very, you know, confidential way. There is an atmosphere of trust,” he noted, adding that Turkey’s bid to join the BRICS is “a bit of a contradiction with being an ally in NATO”. 

Pushing a geopolitical balancing act ‘too far’

Discrepancy and disagreement have long marked Erdogan’s dealings with the West, a truculence the Turkish president sometimes proudly displays on the international stage.

“President Erdogan defines a strategic success as one in which he can have a foot in different camps. He wants to have a foot in each camp and be able to play off the West against Russia, the West against China. I think that he has come to skillfully play this geopolitical act,” said Aydintasbas.

But at times, “President Erdogan has pushed his geopolitical balancing act too far, testing the waters and going a bit overboard,” Aydintasbas added.

Turkey’s ties with its Western military allies have been particularly strained in recent years over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence system that was designed to down NATO planes. 

Amid concerns that Turkey’s deployment of the S-400 could expose classified features of NATO hardware to Russian intelligence, the US sanctioned Ankara by removing Turkey from an F-35 jet programme.

The US also withheld its sale of 40 F-16 fighter jets to Turkey following Erdogan’s S-400 fiasco. The F-16 sale was only approved in January, after Turkey ratified Sweden’s bid to join NATO.

The US response to Turkey’s BRICS membership bid has been muted so far, and is very likely to stay that way, Aydintasbas believes. “Washington is keeping quiet. It does not want a public, high-profile spat with Turkey, and it knows that President Erdogan is unpredictable,” she explained.

“There is also the assumption [in Washington DC] that this may not amount to much. BRICS is not really a hugely functional entity. It is an entity of the non-Western world and it is trying to develop economic muscle,” said Aydintasbas.  “But BRICS does not have a military force, special forces, a rapid reaction force, etc. It doesn't have the same set of interests and values that you see within the transatlantic community.” 

Gaza war triggers ‘double-standards’ complaints

The value that binds BRICS aspirants is a commitment to multipolarity amid mounting frustration with the US-led unipolarity that has dominated the international stage.

Duclos, whose latest book, “Diplomatie française”, hit the shelves in France earlier this year, notes that there is a tendency among observers in some Western countries such as France to dismiss BRICS as a “talking shop with no teeth”.

“I differ with these views because, for me, the simple fact that these countries feel the need to meet together is a very strong signal that the West is not as dominant and as attractive as it used to be. And the very fact that there are so many countries which are BRICS candidates is a clear indication of the vanishing prestige of the Western world,” he noted.

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the neutral position of many Global South countries drew criticisms from Kyiv’s allies and supporters. 

But two years later, as the Ukraine war drags on, the view is more nuanced. “A lot of these countries [in the Global South] do not approve the Russian aggression against Ukraine. They also feel comfortable to sit with Russia in the same club. This is a strong message for us I think,” said Duclos.

The message, for Duclos, is clear. Many Global South countries may not be anti-Western, “but they hate the policy of sanctions. The Brazilians, the Saudis and many others are not against Washington, but they are against sanctions. That’s very clear”, he noted.

The Gaza war and Washington’s unwavering support for Israel as the death toll in the besieged Palestinian enclave exceeds 40,000 has also reignited criticisms of Western hypocrisy and double standards – which are echoed in Moscow and Beijing.

“All my friends in the Global South share this opinion, they consider that the Gaza war is the last nail in the coffin of Western prestige,” said Duclos. “It's clear that it’s perceived as Western double standards. The partiality of the West towards Israel is not understood in the Global South.”

Erdogan has long sought to style himself as a leader of the Muslim world. But apart from the Turkish leader’s incendiary bluster, his failure to effect any change or pause in Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has weakened his standing in Turkey. 

In the April local elections, Erdogan’s AKP lost mayoral races in the country’s five largest cities and saw a significant decline in its votes nationwide. The surprise winner was a tiny, hardline Islamist party, the YRP, which ran on a platform criticising Turkey’s growing bilateral trade ties with Israel.

In addition to the Islamist right, the Gaza war is also stoking anti-NATO sentiments among Turkey’s hard-left secularists.

On Wednesday, two US Marines in the western Turkish city of Izmir were attacked by members of the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), a youth branch of the nationalist opposition Vatan Party, according to local officials.

The Marines were on a port visit as the USS Wasp warship patrols the eastern Mediterranean in a show of support for Israel. 

Two U.S. Marines from the USS Wasp were attacked Monday during a port visit in Izmir, Turkey, according to a Navy spokesperson. Video of the apparent incident shows a group of Turkish nationalist forcing a bag over the head of one of the Marines as they restrain him, chanting… pic.twitter.com/w9RyufFhuf

— @jiyargol (@jiyargol) September 3, 2024

Turkish police arrested 15 suspects in the attack and the White House said it appreciated the actions of Turkish law enforcement officials. But the assault underscored the geopolitical strains triggered by the Gaza war.

“Erdogan’s hand is much weaker today than it used to be a few years ago. The Gaza war has demonstrated how little leverage Ankara has on an issue that deeply affects most Turks,” said Duclos. “In a way, Turkey’s BRICS bid is a way to distract the attention of the current weakness and to try to find something else because Erdogan has not been very successful in recent months.”