When instability spreads across multiple regions at once, the country sitting between them becomes a gatekeeper.
Europe learned that lesson once already. In 2015 and 2016, as the Syrian war drove millions of people toward the European Union, governments from Berlin to Athens found themselves politically overwhelmed by sudden migration. Anti-immigrant parties surged across the continent and domestic politics convulsed. Brussels ultimately struck an agreement with Ankara in which Turkey limited refugee flows toward Greece in exchange for billions of euros in financial support and political concessions.¹
The deal revealed a blunt reality that European leaders rarely say aloud: Turkey controls one of the principal valves through which Middle Eastern instability reaches Europe.
The Iran war threatens to reopen that valve. If violence spreads beyond Iran’s borders, displacement could ripple outward through Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria before reaching Turkish territory. From there, the path north into Europe is short. Even the possibility of renewed migration is enough to reshape European diplomacy.
The war is therefore doing something subtle but important: it is raising the price Europe is willing to pay for Turkish cooperation.
Migration is only one part of that equation. The conflict is also reviving attention to Turkey’s military capabilities at a moment when Europe is reassessing its own security architecture.
Turkey possesses NATO’s second-largest military after the United States, a fact that often fades into the background during periods of relative stability. In a region suddenly ringed by war, that statistic matters again. Turkish territory anchors NATO’s southeastern flank, controlling airspace and maritime corridors across the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
At the same time Ankara has spent the past decade building a defense industry that produces drones, armored vehicles, missile systems, and naval equipment for export. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Turkey has become one of the fastest-growing arms exporters in the world, driven largely by the rapid international adoption of its drone platforms.²
European governments that once framed relations with Ankara primarily in terms of democratic standards now increasingly discuss defense coordination, migration management, and energy security. The shift has been gradual but unmistakable. When governments face immediate security concerns, geopolitical necessity tends to outrank political discomfort.
Turkey also occupies a rare diplomatic position in the current conflict map. Unlike many Western governments, Ankara maintains working relationships with actors on nearly every side of the region’s overlapping crises. Turkish officials speak regularly with Iran, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, European governments, and the United States.
That network allows Ankara to attempt a role it has cultivated repeatedly over the past decade: mediator.
During the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey hosted negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials and helped broker a temporary arrangement allowing Ukrainian grain exports to move through the Black Sea. The agreement did not end the war, but it reinforced Turkey’s reputation as one of the few countries capable of maintaining communication across geopolitical fault lines.