Turkey’s NATO Strategy in Syria Threatens Israel, Expert Warns

Turkish Military Doctrine and Strategic Penetration in Syria

Following the fall of the Assad regime, Turkey has anchored itself as a central strategic mediator and occupying force in northern Syria, aiming to capitalize on reconstruction profits through its robust construction sector. According to Dr. Eitan Hai Cohen, Ankara has taken on the training of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa while lobbying Washington to lift sanctions to facilitate rebuilding efforts. “Turkey began training Ahmed al-Sharaa. They also approached the US to remove the American sanctions on Syria. What is the reason? To rebuild Syria,” Cohen explained during the broadcast.

Cohen emphasized that Turkey’s military threat profile differs fundamentally from typical regional actors because “Turkey’s way of warfare is not that of some rickety Arab country, but rather NATO’s way of warfare.” This high operational standard forces the Israel Defense Forces to factor advanced capabilities into its strategic planning.

The Geopolitical Balancing Act in Washington

The deepening ties between Ankara and Washington create acute policy contradictions for the United States, which maintains close strategic partnerships with both Israel and Turkey. President Donald Trump has cultivated a warm working relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a dynamic Cohen attributed to transactional political alignment: Erdogan is ‘paying’ Trump in cash, and therefore Trump says every other day: He is a strong guy, a good guy and I like him.

Despite these ties, tensions have flared over military movements and diplomatic hostility. In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Trump to restrain Erdoğan’s rhetoric and block proposed U.S. weapons sales aimed at modernizing the Turkish air force. Meanwhile, Washington has largely downplayed the risk of direct physical clashes. As Cohen noted, The US thinks that the friction between Israel and Turkey is only verbal and that it will not lead to physical friction.

Israeli Red Lines and the Danger of NATO Article 5 Triggering

To deter a permanent Turkish military footprint near its borders, Israel executed targeted airstrikes, including an August 18 attack on the Abu al-Duhur air base in northwestern Syria after a Turkish delegation visited the facility. According to Cohen, these actions served as a deliberate warning: What we saw about a week ago with the Israeli bombing, and also last year in April, is essentially a red line, an Israeli declaration that Israel does not want to see any kind of Turkish presence in central Syria.

These kinetic encounters raise complex questions regarding NATO’s collective-defense framework. As explored in regional security analysis, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty dictates that an armed attack on one member is an attack on all, protecting Turkey since it joined the alliance in 1952. However, Article 6 restricts this geographic guarantee primarily to Turkish territory, territorial waters, and allied assets in the Mediterranean. Because Turkish ground forces operate inside sovereign Syrian territory—outside NATO’s defined geographic scope—an accidental Israeli strike killing Turkish personnel in Syria would spark an immense diplomatic crisis without automatically obligating the rest of the alliance to wage war against Israel.

The Escalation Over the Gaza Flotilla and Interpol Actions

While Turkish prosecutors maintain that the legal actions and the ongoing military disputes are distinct tracks, the convergence of arrest warrants, targeted airstrikes in Idlib, and U.S.-mediated de-escalation talks—such as the August 23 discussions between Syrian and Israeli delegations in Jordan—demonstrate a volatile security environment testing the limits of Western alliance management.