The Strait, the Silence, and the Two NATO Allies: Where Turkey and Greece Stand on Trump's Hormuz Coalition Call
As President Donald Trump calls on friendly nations to dispatch warships to the Strait of Hormuz, two NATO allies with deep and distinct stakes in the outcome — Turkey and Greece — are nowhere to be found in his list of named partners. That silence, however, conceals two very different stories.
On Saturday, March 14, Trump took to Truth Social to announce that "many countries" would be sending warships "in conjunction with the United States" to keep the strait open, singling out China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom as nations he hoped would contribute. The call came on the fifteenth day of the US-Israel war on Iran, with commercial shipping through the waterway — which carries roughly one-fifth of global daily oil supply — effectively at a standstill and global energy markets rattled to their foundations.
Neither Turkey nor Greece was mentioned by name. Neither has publicly committed to the US-led effort. Yet the two countries' positions could not be more different — and in the weeks ahead, both could find themselves pulled far deeper into the crisis than they currently appear.
Greece: Already In — Through the European Backdoor
Contrary to the initial impression left by Trump's omission, Greece is not on the sidelines of the Hormuz crisis. It has already committed naval forces — just not under the American banner.
On March 9, French President Emmanuel Macron flew to Cyprus for a high-profile meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Standing alongside both leaders, Macron announced a European-led naval mission — described as "purely defensive, purely support" in character — to escort merchant ships through the strait once the most intense phase of the conflict subsides. France's total regional naval deployment will encompass eight frigates, two amphibious helicopter carriers, and the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, currently stationed near Cyprus. Greece, alongside Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, has pledged additional frigates to the coalition force. A British destroyer rounds out what Macron called an "unprecedented" naval mobilisation.
Greece's participation in this mission follows a coherent strategic logic. As one of the world's foremost international shipping nations, Athens has an acute structural interest in keeping global maritime trade corridors open. The disruption of Hormuz — and the resulting spike in energy costs, insurance premiums and charter rates — hits Greek shipping families, Greek-flagged vessels and the broader Greek economy with particular force. More than any abstract alliance loyalty, this is the hard commercial and economic calculus driving Athens toward participation.
The European framing, moreover, offers Athens political advantages that a bilateral alignment with Trump would not. By operating under the Macron-led coalition alongside fellow EU member states, Greece can present its naval contribution as multilateral, defensive and consistent with EU foreign policy — insulating its decision from domestic political controversy and keeping it within the framework of European solidarity that Macron himself dramatically invoked when he declared, on Cypriot soil: "When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked."
There is, however, an important caveat: no timeline has been set for when the Hormuz escort mission will begin active operations. Officials have signalled it will ramp up only after the most intense phase of the current fighting has passed — meaning Greece's commitment remains, for now, a pledge for a post-kinetic phase rather than an immediate deployment into the line of fire.
Turkey: The Most Exposed Ally — and the Most Reluctant
Turkey's position is at once more consequential and far more precarious. No NATO ally has more to lose from a prolonged Hormuz closure, and no NATO ally has gone to greater lengths to avoid being drawn into the conflict.
The economic exposure is staggering. Approximately 20% of Turkey's oil supply transits the Strait of Hormuz. Economists estimate that every ten-dollar rise in the global oil price adds some seven billion dollars to Turkey's current account deficit — a brutal multiplier for an economy where annual inflation had already reached 32% in February, before the war began to distort energy markets. For President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has spent the past two years fighting to stabilise the Turkish economy ahead of potential early elections in 2027, a protracted Hormuz closure is an existential economic threat.
Fifteen Turkish-owned ships are currently waiting at the entrance to the strait. Iran has let one through — the vessel with prior commercial ties to an Iranian port — while holding the remaining fourteen in a calculated limbo, using access as a pressure instrument and a reward for perceived neutrality.
Ankara's response has been to pursue a bilateral diplomatic channel with Tehran — one that no other NATO ally possesses. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has been simultaneously in contact with Washington and with Iranian counterparts, effectively positioning Turkey as an informal back-channel for ceasefire feelers. On March 13, Fidan stood at a podium in Ankara alongside his German counterpart and posed the question that has gone unanswered for nearly two weeks: "What chances are there for negotiation? To what extent is it possible?" Tehran, for its part, has refused to sit down.
The complexity of Ankara's position is compounded by a series of direct Iranian provocations. Since March 4, NATO air and missile defence systems have intercepted no fewer than three Iranian ballistic missiles that entered or were headed toward Turkish airspace — including one apparently targeting the Incirlik airbase, a hub of US regional military operations that sits on Turkish soil. After the second intercept, Foreign Minister Fidan conveyed a stern warning to his Iranian counterpart: "Next time, Turkey will respond in kind." After the third, Turkey's defence ministry issued a terse statement confirming that a ballistic munition had been neutralised. Ankara has yet to formally invoke Article 4 of the NATO treaty — a consultation mechanism short of the collective defence clause — and the alliance has reiterated that it "is not part of this war," even as it defends Turkish territory from Iranian fire.
The balancing act has deeper structural roots. Turkey shares a 332-kilometre land border with Iran, from which it imports around 13% of its natural gas. The two countries are historical rivals but also major trading partners. Erdoğan's government has explicitly rejected calls to sever indirect ties with Israel or to close US and NATO bases on Turkish soil — but it has equally refused to endorse the American military campaign or align itself with Trump's coalition-building. The Erdoğan government's initial public framing was precisely symmetrical: condemning the US-Israel strikes as a violation of Iranian sovereignty, while simultaneously declaring Iran's missile attacks on Gulf neighbours "unacceptable."
There is also the Kurdish dimension, which cuts directly into Ankara's threat calculus. Turkish officials are acutely concerned that Washington may use the chaos of the Iran war to resume or expand arms flows to Kurdish forces inside Iran — groups linked to the PKK, which Ankara designates a terrorist organisation and has spent decades fighting. Any such development would represent a red line for Erdoğan regardless of alliance obligations.
Four Triggers That Could Force Ankara's Hand
Analysts at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw have identified four scenarios that could compel Turkey to abandon its studied neutrality before the summer. The first is further Iranian strikes on Incirlik or the Kurecik radar base — facilities so central to NATO's regional and missile defence architecture that their targeting would be difficult for Ankara to absorb without a formal response. The second is sustained US pressure on Turkey to shift its posture, particularly if Trump abandons ceasefire diplomacy entirely. The third is the resumption or expansion of US arms flows to Kurdish forces inside Iran. The fourth — arguably already in motion — is the progressive economic haemorrhage caused by the Hormuz closure itself: a month of disrupted energy flows at elevated prices may do more to move Ankara than any diplomatic pressure.
One of those triggers, the economic one, is already tightening its grip. The longer the strait stays closed, the more untenable Turkey's posture of pragmatic neutrality becomes — not because of alliance pressure, but because of the domestic political arithmetic of an economy that cannot afford a prolonged energy shock.
NATO's Institutional Paralysis
Behind both countries' equivocation lies a broader institutional vacuum: NATO as a collective body has issued no response to Trump's coalition call, and has explicitly declined to frame the Hormuz crisis as an alliance concern. The Secretary General has been categorical — "NATO is not part of this war" — even as the alliance's most powerful member is waging it, and even as Iranian missiles are landing on the territory of a NATO member state.
The Greek-Italian-French-Dutch-Spanish naval coalition forming around Macron's initiative is not a NATO operation. It is a European coalition of the willing, coordinating outside the alliance's formal command structure. That distinction matters enormously for Athens, which gains the cover of multilateralism without the liability of direct NATO involvement in a war that much of European public opinion views with unease.
For Turkey, the institutional gap is even sharper. Ankara finds itself in the remarkable position of having absorbed three Iranian missile incidents on its own territory, while the alliance it is a full member of declines to treat the conflict as a collective concern. What Turkey can extract from this situation — in terms of security guarantees, economic relief, or leverage over the Kurdish question — will define Erdoğan's calculus in the weeks ahead far more than any appeal to NATO solidarity.
The Coalition That Isn't — Yet
Trump's Truth Social announcement of a "team effort" to reopen Hormuz was met with scepticism from analysts almost immediately. Andreas Krieg of King's College London's School of Security Studies described it as an "information campaign" designed to calm markets rather than a reflection of an actual coordinated plan. As of the time of writing, none of the countries named by Trump — including the UK, which is reportedly exploring options — has formally committed to deployments.
The reality on the water remains grim: tanker traffic through the strait is near zero. Iran's IRGC Navy commander hit back against Trump's claims within hours, pointing out that the US had successively announced Iran's naval destruction, the start of tanker escorts, and was now asking allies for backup — none of it translating into open shipping lanes. Iran's Supreme Leader has ordered the strait kept closed for the duration of the conflict.
In this environment, Greece's quiet commitment to the European escort coalition is significant but deferred. Turkey's studied neutrality is economically and strategically rational — but fragile. Both countries are threading needles in a crisis that punishes hesitation and rewards neither decisive alignment nor clean abstention.
The Strait of Hormuz is not just a shipping lane. It is, at this moment, the fulcrum on which the entire geopolitical balance of the war is resting. And two of the nations with the most at stake — one a great maritime power, the other the alliance's most exposed frontline state — are still deciding, in their different ways, just how close to the edge they are prepared to stand.
Artwork: Perplexity