“He understands the importance of NATO expansion to these countries [Sweden and Finland], for the United States, for Europe, so he wanted to get as much as he could from these countries,” said Gönül Tol, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria.
And Erdoğan’s efforts to foil the best-laid plans of Washington and other Western powers in NATO may also resonate domestically. As experts said, this fits with how Erdoğan sees himself — and Turkey — as a player and a power in a multipolar world. “He sees an opportunity to demonstrate that this is a Turkey that is willing and able to engage in brinkmanship to get what it wants,” said Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey expert at St. Lawrence University and nonresident fellow at the Middle East Institute. “This is a Turkey that can say ‘no.’ This is a Turkey that expects its interest to be taken seriously — and not to have its allies assume that it will simply get into line because they said.”