Former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt understood the Soviet Union was an ally unworthy of the United States, but he also understood Nazism was the more pressing threat to civilization. “To cross this bridge, I would hold hands with the devil,” he once said to an advisor. Once the United States crossed the bridge and Nazism was destroyed, the two unlikely allies parted ways.
Today, long after the Soviet Union’s demise, Washington’s hands remain locked with other unsavory allies. One of them is Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Although the Cold War made a strategic partnership with Turkey sensible and the country remains part of NATO today, Turkey is not a natural ally of the United States. Of the three consistent Middle Eastern powers in the past millennium—the Turks, Persians, and Arabs—it is Turkey that has historically posed the greatest threat to the West. This is due, in part, to its geographic position but also to its long history of imperial expansion into Southeastern and Central Europe, which lasted well into the modern era. The post-Cold War era—and especially Erdogan’s long tenure—has witnessed a reversion to the historical norm.
