On July 7-8, 2026, world leaders, including President Donald Trump, will assemble in Ankara, Turkey, for the annual NATO summit. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan views the summit as a symbolic endorsement of his policies. Trump, for his part, remains committed to publicly rewarding Erdoǧan and said he would bring a “big gift” for his favorite strongman.
Those visiting Ankara will be taking a huge risk. Turkey’s claims to its indispensability rest on its proximity to Russia. During the Cold War, Turkey was one of only two NATO members to border the Soviet Union. With the second most men under arms after the United States, Turkey argues that it is indispensable to the alliance. NATO leaders often agree. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, for example, said on July 1, 2026, “Türkiye is extremely important to NATO,” Rutte said. “It has one of the strongest armies in the alliance. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are very well-equipped and well-trained, and Türkiye has the advantage of a massive defense industry.”
President Donald Trump poses for a photo with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the Billy Mitchell Room at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, August 15, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
That claim is untrue, especially given Turkey’s transactionalism and its flirtation with Russia. Even when Turkey provides some assistance to Ukraine, there is hardly a conflict in the world in which it does not seek to profit from both sides.
NATO leaders are prone to whitewash Erdogan, his human rights abuses, and his support for terrorist groups ranging from Al Qaeda affiliates to Hamas. German security officials say privately that they fear less the threat of Turkey opening its borders to allow migrant flows to Europe and more the violence and chaos Turkish sleeper cells among Turkish immigrants and residents in Germany could cause. Rutte’s predecessor, Jens Soltenberg, regularly praised Erdoǧan in an almost sycophantic fashion.
Sometimes, however, ignoring Erdoǧan’s terror ties can have fatal results.
Consider, for example, the 2016 assassination of Andrei Karlov, Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, by an off-duty police officer. While Erdoǧan dismissed the assassin—Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş—as a member of the Fethullah Gülen movement, in reality Altıntaş’s motive appears to have been to avenge Russian actions in Syria. Erdogan treats acolytes of his one-time ally Gülen as a useful scapegoat to avoid deeper investigation and accountability. In this case, Altıntaş simply turned the steady stream of incitement passed down through Turkish security ranks into action.
Donald Trump In New York City White House Photo
There is no shortage of potential Islamist terrorists roaming Turkey today. The question is who might hire them.
President Vladimir Putin stands humiliated more than four years after he launched an invasion to conquer Ukraine, a mission he believed would take just a few days. Instead, he is losing tens of thousands of troops each month. Nor can he deny the war to those who are content to live in a Kremlin propaganda bubble: Moscow and St. Petersburg are increasingly targeted. As Putin blames NATO, both for precipitating Russian military action and then for helping Ukraine, a gathering of NATO leaders may be too tempting a target to ignore.
It is unlike Russia would launch one of its ballistic missiles, glide bombs, or drone swarms, however. Ankara is not Kyiv, and Putin would fear the implementation of NATO Article V mutual defense clauses should he overtly attack the NATO summit. But should Russia hire the many Chechens who call Turkey home or Islamist militants who infiltrate Turkey’s elite special forces and protective details, the result could be revenge with plausible deniability.
Erdogan seeks to make the NATO summit a showpiece; Putin may use the opportunity, however, to change the narrative and humiliate NATO, sending home at least some world leaders in body bags.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a distinguished fellow at India’s Usanas Foundation. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for more than two decades. He has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. The above opinion article represents the author’s own personal views.
