As established alliances crack under pressure, states across the globe are scrambling to forge new partnerships — and Turkey finds itself at the center of a rapidly shifting strategic map.
Writing in the Turkish news outlet YetkinReport, analyst Hasan Göğüş argues that U.S. President Donald Trump's norm-breaking foreign policy — including threats to withdraw from NATO and his administration's support for Israeli military operations — has set off a chain reaction of realignment stretching from the Middle East to South Asia. Gulf states, long accustomed to sheltering under a U.S. security umbrella, are now nursing deep disillusionment. New groupings are forming fast.
The 'Islamic NATO' That Never Was
The most dramatic illustration of institutional failure, Göğüş writes, is the paralysis of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Since the outbreak of war between the U.S./Israel axis and Iran on February 28, 2026 — a day when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Jerusalem — the 57-member body has not convened once to issue a joint statement. The Arab League held only a brief online session on March 4, focused narrowly on Iranian missile strikes against Gulf states. "As though Iran — the country under attack — is not itself an Islamic nation," Göğüş notes pointedly.
Filling the vacuum, a cluster of Muslim-majority states have begun building their own security architecture. In September 2025, Pakistan — the Islamic world's sole nuclear power — and Saudi Arabia signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, committing each to come to the other's aid in the event of an attack. Turkey has since been in contact about joining the pact, and a new four-way summit format has emerged, bringing together Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Their third meeting took place on the sidelines of the most recent Antalya Diplomacy Forum. Göğüş does not rule out this process eventually crystallizing into a formal alliance.
An Anti-Turkey 'Hexagonal Alliance'?
On the other side of the ledger, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly floated a "hexagonal alliance" linking countries that share common adversaries — a grouping Göğüş identifies as almost certainly including Israel, Greece, the Greek Cypriot administration, India, and Armenia, all of which share varying degrees of strategic friction with Ankara. In late 2025, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus already signed a joint declaration creating a 2,500-strong rapid-reaction military force, even as the signatories insisted it did not constitute a formal military alliance.
Within NATO, Göğüş observes that Trump's disruptive posture — once described by French President Emmanuel Macron as an organization suffering "brain death" — has now produced an existential crisis. The upcoming NATO summit in Ankara on July 7–8 takes on heightened significance in this context. France and Germany have opened nuclear deterrence talks; Britain, France, Italy, and Germany are meeting separately over freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz; and the once-tight U.S.–UK special relationship has visibly frayed, with London no longer reflexively following Washington's lead.
Where Does Turkey Stand?
Göğüş's central question for Turkey is blunt: in a reordering European security architecture, where does Ankara place itself? At first glance, NATO's pro-Turkey voices have been strengthened — the old "out-of-area" doctrine that once limited allied obligations toward Turkey's threats is gone. Yet the author warns against complacency. If the United States withdraws its European forces, can a continent of militarily modest states — Estonia, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Albania — defend itself without Turkey? Or will European leaders, he asks acidly, tell Ankara: "We won't let you into the EU, but we need your soldiers — let your Mehmets come die so our Hanses and Georges stay safe"?
Göğüş concludes that the EU's thinking remains muddled, but that the second scenario — using Turkey as a security provider while denying it political membership — looks increasingly likely. "Turkey must not fall for this game," he writes.