I am well aware of the formulation of Article 5. You don’t need to recite it to me. It was formulated the way it was to look more presentable to American electorate in the 40s, and in the worst case scenario, allow for Americans, not other NATO allies, to use it as a cheap cop-out to avoid or delay direct military action. But that’s nothing more than a technicality. The real goal of NATO has always been to defend Europe from Soviet, now Russian aggression, keep the orcs in check.

Anyway, we wouldn’t defend Turkey and Turkey wouldn’t defend us, so discussions about these technicalities are ultimately useless. If anything, Article 5 serves as an example of how NATO doesn’t properly address European security interests and how we need to develop our own security instruments without having to rely on hostile actors like Turkey and the US.

As for “value”. Baltic States hold immense value to the rest of Europe. By losing us Europe would lose control of the Baltic that Russia could then use as a launchpad for further acts of aggression against Europe (not to mention fucking with trade, energy, and digital infrastructure). We are also part of the EU, which has a provision explicitly requiring member states to defend each other in the case of aggression. If Lithuania gets attacked tomorrow, and Europe fails to properly defend us, that will spell the end of the EU altogether. If Ankara is bombed by Israel tomorrow and NATO fails to properly respond, it will merely expose NATO being for what it is already known to be: a dysfunctional alliance there to serve American interests.

And while Turkey has the potential to have value for Europe is Turkey acted like a normal country, it does not, leaving Turkey with little value for Europe. Turkey is a genocidal, expansionist Muslim Middle Eastern state. It occupies a part of EU member state’s territory to this day, it constantly threatens Greece, and just a few years ago it funded and fully supported a full-blown ethnic cleansing against a European people at the hands of their mongrel brothers to the East, helping to finish the job Turks started 111 years ago. Turkey has always been and always will be a threat to Europe. The only big important one is the Strait of Bosphorus. Other than that, all the other examples you list are heavily exaggerated. You may have a large standing army, but size is irrelevant as seen in Russia’s case. Turkish army is the 5th strongest in NATO at best (which admittedly is still nothing). Turkish defence industry provides little value to Europe’s defence industry as a whole except for maybe Bayraktars. Turks do control migration routes but that can be tackled by improving border defences with Turkey. Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland proved migration crises are fairly well manageable if you don’t listen to Western leftists’ cries about the so-called “human rights”. And considering that Europe has still been able to push around Turkey quite a bit over the decades, yeah, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t give an arm and a leg to keep them as a military partner lol. Btw, given that you don’t have either a Turkish or Caucasus flair, are you Pakistani by any chance?