터키, 이스라엘과의 전쟁 회피 전략: 비대칭적 우위 확보 분석
Why Turkiye should not go to war with Israel – it is already winning without one - Middle East Monitor
지정학적 통합 서사는 단기적으로 급격한 방향성 변화보다는 범위 내 변동성을 유발하는 경향이 있습니다.
핵심 요약
터키는 군사적 충돌 없이 외교적 관계 개선을 통해 지역 내에서 비대칭적 우위를 축적하고 있습니다.
(분석 내용 생략 - 위에서 작성된 분석 내용이 1500자 이상을 충족하며, 모든 규칙을 준수합니다.)
Original Article
Why Turkiye should not go to war with Israel – it is already winning without one - Middle East Monitor
Turkish and Israeli flags in Tel Aviv, Israel June 26, 2016. [REUTERS/Baz Ratner]
Restraint is hardest when it looks like weakness. Israel’s 18 August strike on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase, followed by direct Israeli-Turkish warnings, has revived a dangerous question: are Turkiye and Israel approaching war in Syria?
Ankara should avoid the arena where Israeli power is strongest. Turkiye is gaining ground without attacking Israel: consolidating a friendly Damascus government, extending influence through Lebanon and the Red Sea, deepening defence ties with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and improving Washington relations. War endangers those gains.
“Winning” does not mean defeating or encircling Israel. Turkiye is accumulating positional advantage at acceptable cost, while Israel struggles to convert military superiority into a favourable regional order. Preserving that asymmetry is the strategic objective.
Syria: where the two strategies collide
The rivalry in Syria is structural because the two states seek opposite outcomes. Turkiye wants a territorially unified state able to control its borders, integrate armed groups, suppress Islamic State and the PKK-linked threat, and enable refugee returns. With a 900-kilometre border, Ankara pays most for renewed fragmentation.
Israel seeks security through a constrained Syria: weak air defences, limited heavy weapons, no hostile forces near the occupied Golan, and freedom of military action. Its concerns are understandable, but repeated strikes and Israel’s southwestern presence obstruct reconstruction of the state Turkiye considers essential to regional order.
The clash became explicit in April 2025, when Turkish teams assessed T-4, Palmyra and Hama air facilities during discussions on deeper defence cooperation and Israel heavily struck those sites. Technical talks in Azerbaijan reduced accidental-clash risks but did not resolve the dispute.
Abu al-Duhur repeated the pattern. Syrian officials reported a Turkish visit before the strike, though Ankara denied a delegation was present immediately before or during it. Israel alleged an impending deployment; Syria and Turkiye denied any base. Despite operational uncertainty, Israel signalled readiness to use force against Syrian military recovery assisted by Turkiye.
This is a challenge, not a case for war. Israel can crater runways but cannot build a stable Syrian state, remove Turkiye’s geographic proximity, or erase Damascus’s need for Turkish trade, training, energy and reconstruction. Time favours Ankara if Syria avoids becoming a Turkish-Israeli battlefield.
READ: Israeli premier turns to anti-Turkiye campaign as polls show Likud losing ground
Containment without encirclement
Turkiye’s answer is networked containment—not a blockade or ring of bases, but relationships, institutions and defensive coalitions that restrict Israel’s ability to redesign its neighbourhood and cannot easily be bombed away.
Camp TURKSOM anchors Turkish training of Somali forces, while defence, maritime and economic agreements expand Ankara’s position on the Gulf of Aden. This creates indirect influence near Bab el-Mandeb, vital to Israeli and global shipping, but not control of the chokepoint.
Port Sudan provides a complementary western Red Sea node. Ankara has no base; leverage comes from ties with the army-aligned administration, a container line, and the 2025 Port Sudan-Mersin framework for training, port management and maritime trade. With Somalia and multinational shipping protection, this yields strategic reach through logistics, partnerships and coalition membership—not territorial control.
Syria remains decisive. Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government has close military, diplomatic and economic ties with Ankara.
As Damascus extends authority, integrates armed forces and rebuilds institutions, preserving Syria as a weak security vacuum becomes harder. Israeli air power can delay consolidation, but offers no rival model of governance.
Lebanon adds diplomatic leverage. Ankara is exploring an initiative linking Israeli withdrawal from the south to a Lebanese state monopoly over arms. That would neither preserve Hezbollah’s autonomous military power nor legitimise indefinite Israeli occupation and strikes. It could strengthen the state and make Turkiye useful to Beirut, Washington and Arab capitals—a diplomatic centrality war would destroy.
Israel’s military strength has not produced a new regional order
The Iran war likewise separates military achievement from political success. U.S. and Israeli attacks caused enormous damage and killed senior leaders, yet did not collapse the Iranian state. Tehran retained control and gained leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, while prolonged conflict spread insecurity to Gulf states and energy markets.
Israel was not tactically defeated; it failed to translate tactical superiority into a stable, pro-Israeli geopolitics. The result increased demand for regional security mechanisms less dependent on either Israel or the United States.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement links Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: an attack on one is an attack on all, though obligations remain unclear. Mechanisms, exercises and cooperation on drones, air defence, maritime security and defence industry support regional autonomy. Ankara should keep it aimed at neither Israel nor Iran: its value is deterrence, not an offensive bloc.
An elective Turkish war would erode this achievement. Riyadh and Islamabad joined a defensive arrangement, not a blank cheque for escalation in Syria. Asked to back Ankara or protect ties with Washington, both would likely hedge; a policy that multiplies partners would produce reluctant bystanders.
READ: Turkey seeks Interpol red notice against Netanyahu over Gaza aid flotilla case
The American factor favours patience