As tensions continue to rise across the Middle East, Turkish security circles are calling for a major overhaul of the country’s defense strategy while stepping up efforts to strengthen air defenses, expand military readiness, and protect Ankara’s growing regional ambitions amid rising competition with Israel.

The US–Israeli military campaign against Iran and the ensuing regional war have significantly reshaped regional security dynamics, driving a shift in Turkish threat perceptions and defense priorities, according to a new assessment by Turkey’s National Intelligence Academy (MIA), a state-run research and higher education institution under the country’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

MIA’s new report calls on the Turkish government to bolster air and missile defenses, strengthen the protection of critical infrastructure, enhance security for senior officials, and maintain dialogue with Israel despite rising tensions — all intended to address shifting geopolitical dynamics.

As evidence from current conflicts shows, modern warfare is shaped not only by military capabilities, but also by industrial output, artificial intelligence, communications networks, infrastructure resilience, and a state’s capacity to maintain sustained operations under severe pressure.

With such dynamics rapidly transforming the battlefield, MIA’s latest assessment points to the growing vulnerability of centralized military structures, calling for greater use of distributed command-and-control systems, backup networks, and more flexible operational models capable of functioning even under sustained attacks or system disruptions.

Besides conventional battlefield operations, modern conflicts are increasingly focused on the infrastructure that underpins military capability, with energy facilities, communications networks, logistics hubs, radar systems and data centers emerging as primary targets.

According to the report, this means the Turkish government can no longer base defense planning solely on conventional military assets but must instead adopt a comprehensive security doctrine integrating military, cyber, electronic, intelligence, and psychological dimensions.

Among the assessment’s main recommendations are expanding Turkey’s air and missile defense systems, boosting sustainable defense-industrial capacity, strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure, improving resilience to information warfare, and overall readiness for crisis scenarios.

More importantly, the report also emphasizes the need to keep state functions running without interruption during crises, arguing that distributed systems, backup capabilities, and alternative operating models are essential to sustaining operational effectiveness if command structures or critical facilities are attacked.

Addressing mounting geopolitical tensions across the region, MIA’s assessment warns that Israel’s military and strategic approach could create new points of friction with Turkey — particularly in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean — while suggesting that the Jewish state may seek to expand its operational footprint in Syria and Lebanon.

In this shifting regional context, the report argues that Turkey, a NATO ally, is increasingly perceived within Israeli political and military circles as a strategic challenge, raising the prospect of a relationship marked by sustained competition and recurring tensions.

Turkey’s extensive ties with Hamas and other terrorist groups and Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have long concerned officials not only in Israel but also across the Western world.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodgan has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics on the global stage, comparing the country to Nazi Germany and even threatening to invade.

Yet MIA warns Ankara against severing communication channels with Israel, instead urging a more balanced strategy that combines diplomacy with deterrence — preserving a workable basis for dialogue while sustaining Turkey’s military readiness and regional coordination capabilities.

While preserving diplomatic engagement, the report points to the need for Ankara to simultaneously strengthen military preparedness and deepen strategic coordination with regional partners.

According to MIA’s assessment, Turkey’s military capabilities, defense-industrial capacity, diplomatic flexibility, and broad regional reach position Ankara to play a potentially stabilizing role in an increasingly volatile security environment while also expanding its regional influence and strategic ambitions.

However, the report comes at a time of domestic unrest for Turkey.

Last month, Turkish riot police forced their way into the main opposition party’s headquarters to evict its ousted leadership.

Police stormed the Republican People’s Party (CHP) building in Ankara, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse supporters and officials who had barricaded themselves inside and were shouting and throwing objects at the entrance.

Days earlier, a Turkish court ousted CHP leader Ozgur Ozel, annulling the results of the 2023 party congress where he was elected chairman, citing irregularities in a ruling that dealt a major blow to Erdogan’s challengers and posed a test for democracy in Turkey.

Ozel then led supporters on a march to the Turkish parliament. The ousted CHP leadership condemned the court ruling as a “judicial coup,” arguing Erdogan’s government has been targeting his political opponents through the judiciary. Turkish authorities countered that the judiciary is independent and that it is not using the courts to undermine the opposition.