The argument for Turkey

Expelling Turkey from NATO

Washington’s foreign policy elites are so fixated on recent Kurdish contributions to defeating the Islamic State (ISIS) that they seem to have forgotten Turkey’s much longer record as an ally of the U.S. and NATO: 

• Turkey fought alongside the U.S. during the Korean War (1950-1953).

• During the early Cold War, Turkey agreed to basing U.S. nuclear bombers and IRBMs on its territory, making Turkey a nuclear target for the USSR. (President Kennedy was able to avoid nuclear war with the Soviet Union and resolve the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis by secretly promising Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to remove the U.S. IRBMs.)

• Turkey joined the U.S. and NATO in bombing Bosnia during Operation Deliberate Force (1995). 

• Turkey joined the U.S. and NATO in bombing Serbia during Operation Allied Force (1999).

• Turkey participated in Baltic Sea air patrols demonstrating support for the NATO Baltic states (2006).

• For years and continuing today, Turkish forces have participated in NATO peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo.

• Turkey provided military and intelligence support to U.S. operations that destroyed the ISIS terrorist “caliphate.”

And they buy  lot of weapons from us.  They are about half the size of Russia.  Turkey has no reason to be in a defense pact with Europe.