Well Turkey was very valuable to NATO(truly the US) during the Cold War because it allowed us to fly all manner of ELINT and other types of near border penetration observation missions against the USSR .I know for sure of this my step father flew on many of these missions and other times he listened in on Soviet networks from bases in Turkey.
In modern times it is again a useful staging area to the US military.Also Turkey is part of ISAF so they are useful for that reason and also they share a border with Iran and Iraq.
They have their share of problems though like the PKK if I had a penny for every time all of Insurlick AB got locked down thanks to the PKK the many times I did TDYs there I'd rich.Also talking to Turkish soldiers and airmen that I knew on base they have lots of political problems and the officer corps seems weak the enlisted men seem pretty professional all things considered based on what I saw which was not a very large portion of the Turkish military.
Then there is the whole thing of they and Greece not seeing eye to eye well I guess they do see eye to eye but not very well.
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