As Russian power declines, Turkish military cooperation grows – OpEd – Eurasia Review

In October 2009, the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States was founded in Azerbaijan's Nakichevan province, three years after Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed the concept. At its eighth summit in 2021, it was renamed the Organization of Turkish States (OTS). Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey are members of the OTS while Turkmenistan and Hungary are observers.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev considers that the OTS is not limited to unifying the independent Turkish states. This is because its geographical boundaries are wider.

While initially Azerbaijan and Turkey were the drivers of deeper integration of the OTS, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have recently emerged as active members of the OTS. Kazakhstan considers itself the cradle of Turkish nations and has defined a Turkish worldview until 2040. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Toqaev believes that the OTS follows the will of our ancestors and strengthens the unity of brother nations. A unity based on mutual trust and brotherhood, Toqaev added.

The OTS differs from most other international organizations in that it is an equal union of countries, unlike organizations traditionally dominated by world powers. Even though Turkey dwarfs other countries in terms of population size, other members do not perceive Ankara to be hegemonic. The OTS secretariat has always been based in the Turkish city of Istanbul, but there are OTS structures in other member states, for example Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

A more egalitarian structure contrasts with the organizations used by Russia to impose its hegemony in Eurasia. The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) replaced the USSR in December 1991, but has always been considered by Moscow as a structure with overtones of Soviet nostalgia. Only two of the OTS members, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, are also members of the Russia-led CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and the Eurasian Economic Union.

The OTS brings together countries on very different bases from the Russian world, the British Commonwealth or the Francophonie. The latter three are led by the former colonial powers Russia, the United Kingdom and France, which dominate their political, diplomatic, economic and security relations. Moscow considers itself the older brother, or leading country, of the Russian world that unites Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. As with the CIS, the Russian world looks with nostalgia to the past rather than the future.

The OTS is united, according to its former general secretary Baghdad Amreyev, by a common ethnic identity, history, language, culture, spiritual values ​​and traditions. The same cannot be said of the Russian world, of which the Ukrainians do not want to be a part and which Russia seeks to violently impose on them.

Two issues that dominate OTS security and energy are closely related. OTS members pursue a balanced foreign policy that diversifies their relationships and export routes while maintaining good relations with their two major neighbors, Russia and China. This is difficult to achieve because the OTS is a strong supporter of the territorial integrity of states and the inviolability of internationally recognized borders. Azerbaijan has completed the liberation of its occupied territory in three stages over the past four years. President Aliyev said in November 2023: “Throughout history, the Turkish world has always fought for its independence and territorial integrity.

In September 2022, the OTS Working Group on Energy Cooperation was established. Its first step was the launch of an OTS energy cooperation program and action plan, to be implemented by 2027. OTS members would seek to diversify their energy routes. export beyond Russia through the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Project (TANAP), the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Project (TAP) and the Southern Gas Corridor. In addition to gas and oil, OTS members would strengthen cooperation in the areas of renewable and alternative energy, nuclear energy and new energy technologies.

OTS members support a multipolar world and are skeptical of the old unipolar system that reinforces American and Western hegemony. Russia, Iran and China also aspire to a multipolar world, although this is unlikely to be defined in the same way. It is not clear what a just multipolar world means or whether it would be better than the current unipolar world.

OTS members understand the multipolar world differently than Russia, Iran and China. OTS members are neither anti-West nor anti-American. The OTS seeks to cooperate with Europe and the United States to help it diversify its energy export routes and manage a declining, but increasingly nationalist, Russia and a rising China .

OTS members develop common positions on the fight against international terrorism, separatism and extremism. Turkey has some experience in this area in its fight against ISIS and the Kurdish terrorist groups PKK and YPG. The OTS will expand its cooperation in the areas of internal security, defense, training and its military-industrial complexes.

OTS members have different approaches to security. Turkey is a member of NATO and hosts US military bases. None of the other OTS members are seeking to join NATO. Azerbaijan is a long-standing military partner of Israel and Turkey, uses Western military equipment and its officers are trained at NATO academies. While in the past Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan continued to rely, as evidenced by their poor results in Ukraine, on poor quality Russian military equipment and inadequate military training, they are now turning now more and more towards Turkey.

After the liberation of the occupied territory, Azerbaijan led the way in the OTS calling for greater cooperation on security and defense. Azerbaijan's military victory marked the beginning of a new stage in strengthening Turkish unity.

In December 2023, President Aliyev said that the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West means that we are facing an absolutely new and unpredictable situation in the world. For this reason and taking into account the situation in our region, security issues must be given top priority. President Aliyev said that cooperation between member states on defense issues, military-industrial complexes, military training and border protection should be further strengthened.

The OTS summit held in November 2023 initiated closer cooperation in the field of defense industry and military collaboration. Bilateral military cooperation, such as that between Azerbaijan and Turkey, must be expanded to a multilateral format.

Turkish drones were made internationally famous by Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia and by Ukraine in its war against Russia. They are produced in Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The OTS has emerged as a new geopolitical actor that succeeds in uniting countries with a common Turkish identity and which seek a multipolar world that cooperates with the West and not in confrontation with the West. Successful military cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan provides a model for the expansion of OTS cooperation in the fields of defense and security.