Perspective: Deterrence Without Entrapment

Iran, Israel, and the narrowing space for Turkish neutrality

Reports tonight indicate red alarms near Incirlik, with claims that another Iranian ballistic missile was fired toward Turkey — bringing the current total to three, as part of Tehran’s continued attempts to threaten or probe the area around Incirlik Air Base, the sprawling NATO facility in southern Turkey long associated with U.S. and allied operations.

Operated by the Turkish Air Force’s 10th Main Jet Base Command, the base hosts the U.S. Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing, supports NATO operations in the Middle East, and includes aerial refueling, logistics, intelligence, and surveillance functions. It is also widely reported to be a nuclear weapons storage site and hosts diverse coalition personnel. In total, roughly 1,830 personnel are stationed there.

Turkish officials have already said NATO-integrated air defenses intercepted a second incoming Iranian missile this week, and Reuters reports that Ankara has warned Tehran that further violations of Turkish airspace are “unacceptable.” So far, no damage or casualties have been reported.

But Incirlik is not just another airfield. It is one of NATO’s most symbolically and strategically important bases in the region, and repeated Iranian missile activity near Turkish airspace raises the risk of miscalculation between Iran and a NATO member state. Even if Tehran is not openly declaring Turkey a target, continued missile incidents near Incirlik increase pressure on the alliance, deepen Turkey’s security exposure, and make the war harder to contain geographically.

That is the core of the problem for Ankara: Turkey’s role is being shaped less by what it wants in the abstract and more by what Iran and Israel force it to become. Turkey does not want to be a principal belligerent in this war. Ankara has condemned strikes that violate its airspace and has reinforced defenses, but it still has not triggered NATO Article 4 or 5 after the missile incidents, suggesting it is deliberately trying to avoid formal escalation even while hardening militarily.

The likeliest path, at least for now, is that Turkey will keep trying to play the role of armed buffer, not combatant. There is no rush to openly join an anti-Iran coalition unless Turkish territory or Turkish personnel are hit in a way Ankara cannot politically absorb. In other words, Erdoğan wants deterrence without entrapment.

Ankara also has clear reasons to downplay what is happening. Erdoğan has long tried to balance between rivals, preserve room to maneuver with Tehran, and avoid domestic panic or market shock. A destabilized Iran is bad news for Turkey on multiple fronts: refugee pressure, Kurdish militancy spillover, border insecurity, energy disruption, and the collapse of a neighboring state that Ankara would still have to live beside. Iran’s weakening may serve some narrow strategic interests, but Iranian disorder is much worse for Erdoğan than Iranian survival under strain. In practical terms, Ankara likely prefers a bruised, contained Islamic Republic to a shattered Iran or a wider regional war that drags NATO infrastructure into direct confrontation.

So Turkey is likely to remain publicly defensive, privately anxious, and operationally more involved than it admits. But the deeper question is whether that posture can hold. If Iran keeps probing near Incirlik, and if Israel and the United States continue widening the conflict’s geographic footprint, Turkey’s role may cease to be something Ankara manages and become something the war imposes.

Erdoğan may still be trying to manage the threshold. The problem is that thresholds have a way of disappearing in war.

— Asli Omur for GP