For two and a half decades, whenever the Turkish government had a falling out with the United States and Europe, analysts frantically began worrying that the West had “lost” Turkey. It happened first in 2003, after the Turkish parliament voted against granting U.S. forces access to Turkish territory for the invasion of Iraq. It happened again in 2010, when Turkey voted against increased UN sanctions on Iran. The warnings grew even more urgent in 2017, when Ankara purchased the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system, raising fears that NATO’s second-largest military power was cozying up to the alliance’s chief adversary.

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, secularist leaders had firmly anchored Turkey in the Western camp. Ankara had joined the Council of Europe in 1949, entered NATO in 1952, and signed an association agreement with the European Economic Community in 1963. But Western observers feared that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, with its historical links to Islamist parties, would pull the country away from the Western bloc after it came to power in 2002. In many ways, Erdogan did attempt such a pivot. Starting in the mid-2010s, under the banner of “strategic autonomy,” Ankara cultivated closer economic, energy, and security ties with Moscow and at times pursued policies that drew the ire of its allies in NATO.

Now, however, Turkey is coming back around to its Western partners. Ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit, which Ankara will host in July, Turkish officials are consistently delivering pro-alliance messaging. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, for example, described transatlantic ties as a strategic necessity for Turkey and called the summit a “historic opportunity” to reaffirm NATO unity. And Turkey’s realignment is not just talk. Over the past few years, Ankara has been distancing itself from Moscow by reducing its dependence on Russian energy and pruning the two countries’ economic and defense ties. That shift has opened the door to deeper cooperation with NATO allies—and it reveals a recognition among Turkish policymakers that, after years of insisting on their country’s strategic autonomy, Turkey is better off aligned with the West.

A PARTNER IN THE KREMLIN

Ankara’s rapprochement with Moscow had its roots, paradoxically, in one of the most dangerous crises in modern Russian-Turkish relations. In November 2015, a few months after Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war to save its ally Bashar al-Assad from a rebellion backed by Ankara, Turkey shot down a Russian jet near the Syrian-Turkish border. Moscow soon imposed sweeping economic sanctions, and Ankara feared that military retaliation would follow. It urged its NATO allies to cancel a planned withdrawal of Patriot missile batteries deployed to Turkey, but the United States and Germany proceeded anyway. At the time, U.S.-Turkish relations were already strained over Washington’s decision to arm a Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a terrorist organization. The Patriot withdrawal thus reinforced Ankara’s perception that NATO would not stand by it in moments of acute vulnerability.

Disillusioned with NATO allies and anxious about potential Russian retaliation, Erdogan sought to repair ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2016, expressing regret over the downing of the jet. Then, after a failed coup attempt against Erdogan in July 2016, Putin was the first foreign leader to call and offer support. The comparatively slow response of Turkey’s NATO allies rankled Erdogan, who interpreted the incident as further proof that NATO was unreliable in a crisis whereas Russia was a partner that Turkey could work with. Just a month later, Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria with Russia’s tacit approval. The next year, Turkey purchased the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system. Not only is the S-400 incompatible with NATO systems, but allies also worried that its........

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