Intra-Alliance Security Dilemma and NATO’s Deconfliction Mechanism

• In Event: Alliance Dynamics and Foreign Policy

Abstract

While the Balkans have been historically referred to as the “Powder Keg of Europe” in its role leading to World War I, I argue that this title rightfully belongs to the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2020s. Especially since the Summer 2020, there have been alarmingly frequent iterations of the diplomatic term casus belli (cause for war) on both sides of the Aegean (in Turkey and Greece), representing a serious Security Dilemma between two North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, indicating a significant potential for intra-alliance conflict. Added to this volatile situation are the tensions between Turkey and France as well as between Turkey and the United States in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This new powder keg is markedly more dangerous than the Balkans powder keg in that the tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean directly involve four North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries – the US, France, Turkey, and Greece, significantly undermining the cohesion of the transatlantic alliance at a time when the Alliance must deal with a rising China, increasingly tense relations with Russia, and the destabilizing developments in Libya and Syria. Since the discovery of hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey has intermittently engaged in hydrocarbon explorations in the region, causing heavy criticism for its gunboat diplomacy and display of military power at sea. The paper makes a case for the transition from intra-alliance opposition (Dursun-Ozkanca 2019) to intra-alliance conflict, represented by a transition from soft balancing to hard balancing in Turkey’s relations with the US, France, and Greece.

Security Dilemmas are not supposed to occur in alliances. Scholarly works exploring this topic via a conceptual framework are lacking in the literature. Most of what has been written comes in the form of newspaper articles and op-eds. Furthermore, none of the existing works examine the emerging regional alliances or address the implications of increased strategic competition in the region for transatlantic relations. This paper analyzes the causes of the intra-alliance conflict by delving into comparative foreign policy analysis of four NATO Allies in the Eastern Mediterranean and whether the NATO Deconfliction Mechanism erected in 2020 is working to resolve conflict and avoid any serious cracks in the transatlantic alliance.

Author

• Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, Elizabethtown College