The Expansion of the Turkish Navy in the Context of Russo-Turkish Relations

By Julian Fischer-Lhamon

Historically, tensions between Turkey and Russia have remained tense over the centuries. Their shared interest in the Black Sea, the Crimea, and Russia’s desire for unrestricted access to the Mediterranean have led to them facing off against each other in the Crimean War, the First World War, and very nearly again in the Second (tempered only by British pressure). After World War Two, Turkey, feeling threatened by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, and repeated Soviet demands for Lazistan and access through the Bosporus and Dardanelles, joined NATO, and allowed the basing of American nuclear missiles. 

Despite the end of the Cold War, an international relations realist would have predicted that the Russo-Turkish rivalry would continue. In the “short-term”, this would prove to be wrong. Relations between the two countries improved considerably. By forging close economic ties and a commitment to collaborate within their shared region’s geopolitics, Turkey and Russia established an “asymmetric interdependence”. This new dynamic has been far from stable, though, with an underlying, constant, grinding friction between them in places like Syria, Georgia, and Karabakh being punctuated by ebbs and flows such as the downing of a Russian Su-24 jet over Syria in 2015, immediate Russian sanctions on Turkey, and the normalization of relations the year after. 

With the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, geopolitical realities appear to have set in which threaten the current order of “managed regional rivalry”. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has recently reiterated his demand for Russia to vacate Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. This arises from his preference for partnership with the EU, Nato, and Ukraine and the historic Turkish paternalism over the Crimean Tatars who are also a muslim, Turkic people. Turkey is also significantly expanding its fleet; commissioning new submarines, and building a dozen new naval vessels, including a helicopter carrier, and several frigates. In the light of the ongoing war, and the mauling of the Black Sea Fleet (Ukraine has destroyed approximately 26 Russian vessels so far, including the flagship Moskva), Russia will likely view this as a threat, reducing the chances of Turkey joining BRICS, investments, and collaboration between the two countries. This runs the risk of their interdependence being weaponized against each other and a breakdown of their “managed” rivalry into something much fiercer, which could lead to further, more destructive conflicts in the Caucuses and wider Middle East.