Put Turkey on notice: The Eastern Mediterranean’s reliable alliance deserves US teeth

The ongoing war with Iran is driving countries in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean to invest in new security alliances. This is partly driven by the drubbing Gulf Arab states have taken from Iranian missile attacks and by regional powers’ estimation that the United States may be less interested in underwriting the region’s security needs. This partially helps explain why Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Mecca Pact in August. It is not, however, the driving factor behind why Greece, Israel and Cyprus are pushing to forge a closer security framework. Their main reason for investing in collective security is their growing fear of Turkish expansionism. Turkey has lost no time capitalizing on Iran’s weakening as a major regional actor, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan constantly framing Turkey’s desire to be respected as a “global actor.” While the news cycle remains fixated on who is winning the Iran war, Ankara has quietly established footholds in Syria and across Africa through military basing, training and weapons sales; deepened strategic investments in Russia spanning energy and trade; adopted an increasingly revisionist posture across the Mediterranean, exemplified by its maximalist interpretation of its maritime borders under the “Blue Homeland” doctrine; and built closer ties with major Arab powers intended to isolate and undermine Israel, mainly through agreements like the Mecca Pact, while championing terrorist entities like Hamas and potentially Hezbollah. Against this backdrop, Greece, Cyprus and Israel’s defense cooperation is an essential counterbalance, and an initiative the United States needs to strengthen. None of these states has an interest in threatening Ankara; they feel compelled to take defensive measures against its escalatory behavior. The most recent expression is a major defense export deal between Greece and Israel, the Achilles Shield, which gives Athens new tools in the event of escalation. The €3 billion agreement entails a multi-layered air defense system that would modernize Greece’s military with Israeli-manufactured anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-drone systems. It would also give Turkey reason to pause before violating the sovereign borders of the Greek islands and Cyprus. Cooperation between Greece, Cyprus and Israel is nothing new, and it precedes the emerging defense framework. Energy projects between the three countries have strengthened interconnectivity, regional peace and economic cooperation over the last decade. Greece, Cyprus, Israel and the United States formed the Eastern Mediterranean “3+1” Energy Dialogue in 2019 to address the need for greater energy security. The partnership has continued to develop. The 3+1 initiative was formalized further in June 2026 with the establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center (EMEC). In September 2026, the Trilateral Summit between Greece, Cyprus and Egypt continued talks about the GREGY electricity interconnection project, natural gas cooperation and commitments to maritime security. Ankara has answered this thickening web of cooperation with pressure rather than diplomacy. In March 2026, Turkey deployed F-16s to the occupied north of Cyprus, the first time it has based combat aircraft there. In June, Turkish fighters harassed aircraft carrying the Greek, French and Dutch defense ministers en route to an EU meeting in the Republic of Cyprus. Ankara is also preparing legislation to codify Blue Homeland claims into domestic law, overlapping Greece’s and Cyprus’s exclusive economic zones. Turkish aircraft and drones committed 25 violations of Greek airspace in a single August day, including a simulated dogfight, and Erdogan followed the Achilles Shield signing by warning Athens to “abandon the wrong path” of arming its islands. Ankara has now relocated its 2,000-strong 51st Commando Brigade to Soke, directly opposite Samos. The cumulative effect is a steady militarization of contested space. Turkey’s parallel track runs through the Arab and Muslim world, with the Mecca Pact as its centerpiece. The agreement commits Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to treat an armed attack on one as an attack on all, and Ankara’s ambition is to convert that language into a bloc that encircles Israel diplomatically. That ambition is unlikely to be realized, because the pact is not built on trust. Existing analysis has argued that the arrangement looks toothless without being harmless. Riyadh and Ankara have competed for Sunni leadership for a decade, split bitterly over the Muslim Brotherhood and the 2017 Qatar blockade, and Pakistan’s strategic preoccupation remains India, not the Levant. The three also diverge on Israel: Turkey keeps formal recognition, Saudi normalization remains plausible and Pakistani recognition is domestically unthinkable. The initial test was instructive: within 48 hours of signing, Houthi forces struck a Saudi Aramco refinery at Jazan and Riyadh did not call on its new partners. With no joint command, no trigger mechanism and no named adversary, the pact is exposed to chain-ganging and buck-passing. Shared grievance is not shared strategy and does not form the basis of common defense. These competing frameworks arguably form a textbook security dilemma, in which each bloc’s hedging reads to the other as preparation for attack and the risk is not hypothetical. In August, Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Syria to preempt a Turkish deployment, prompting Washington’s own envoy to call it an unnecessary escalation. But the dilemma is asymmetric, as Greece, Cyprus and Israel are seeking to preserve an existing order: treaty-based sovereignty, established maritime boundaries and freedom of navigation. Turkey, by contrast, seeks to revise it. Interceptors and radars do not take territory or redraw an exclusive economic zone; navtexes, marine park declarations, forward-based fighters and casus belli do. Deterrence that raises the cost of a fait accompli reduces escalation risk rather than manufacturing it. The partnership between Greece, Cyprus and Israel therefore offers a far more reliable security environment than the Mecca Pact. It stems from over a decade of energy-security engagement that established the basis for a stronger defense framework, now including a trilateral joint action plan covering joint operations and special forces training. Greece has undergone substantial defense modernization aligned with US targets and is still a key US ally. As one of only six NATO members spending at least 3 percent of GDP on defense, it focuses on the capabilities that an increasingly threatening environment demands. In 2024, Greece joined the F-35 Lightning II Global Alliance, strengthening both its defense autonomy and interoperability with allies. Greece’s location at the intersection of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans, along with its strength as a maritime power in the Eastern Mediterranean, makes it invaluable on NATO’s southeastern flank. Souda Bay on Crete hosts the NATO Missile Firing Installation and the region’s largest deep-water port. It has hosted the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford in recent months for maintenance during major combat operations against Iran. Washington should add teeth to this framework. First, the administration should expedite review of any Israeli transfer to Greece requiring US approval for American components and expand the Greek-hosted Iniochos exercise to deepen 3+1 interoperability. Second, Congress should pass the American-Hellenic-Israeli Eastern Mediterranean Counterterrorism and Maritime Security Partnership Act, which the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Action has endorsed, to give 3+1 a standing security architecture and upgrade US facilities in Greece and Cyprus, alongside the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act. Third, it should revive the 3+1 at ministerial level with security, not only energy, on the agenda and state plainly that US-origin equipment will not be tolerated as an instrument of coercion against allies. This would also serve Turkish interests. A clearly bounded, defensively postured bloc with visible American underwriting removes the ambiguity which invites miscalculation. Ankara’s worst outcome is not a Greek air defense network; it is an incident in the Aegean or over Cyprus that escalates into a crisis between two NATO allies. Predictability is cheaper than brinkmanship, for everyone. Sinan Ciddi is Turkey Program Director and Senior Fellow and Isabella Bournas an intern at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Washington DC.