Gregory Bloom is a board director of the American Turkish Business Roundtable (ATBR), an initiative to strengthen bilateral cooperation in strategic business affairs between the US and Turkish private sectors. Bloom is a distinguished business and industry leader with an extensive record of thought leadership in print and broadcast media. He is also a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security the chief operating officer of Jones Group International, which is involved in the ATBR as an initiative to deepen bilateral US-Turkish strategic cooperation.
Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY (DJ): ATBR is a fairly new enterprise but one with potentially big impact on US-Turkish strategic cooperation. Can you tell us a little about its mission and purpose?
Bloom: The American Turkish Business Roundtable, or ATBR, is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(6) legal status in the United States with a singular purpose of promoting bilateral trade between the United States and Turkey. The organizers have deep experience with the US defense industrial base (DIB) and a related interest in energy infrastructure and energy security. Simply put, ATBR is an initiative to improve stability and advance the interests of the United States and its treaty allies through cooperation in defense and energy, where there are obvious synergies but also numerous roadblocks—thus the need for a forum to seek creative, mutually beneficial solutions to common challenges. The ATBR is a priority for the Jones Group, a business run under the guidance of former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and former US National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones. Gen. Jones’ time in NATO, and later as head of the American-Turkish Council, formed his understanding of Turkey as a defense and strategic partner for the United States—but also a potentially very important trade and economic partner. The Jones Group sees ATBR as a form of public-private partnership that enables cooperation in defense, energy, and trade.
DJ: If the focus is trade, how is this different from other commercial support groups, such as the US Chamber of Commerce and its Turkish counterpart?
Bloom: We focus on helping Turkish companies engage with potential US partners and seek areas of mutual benefit. This is a bit different from the mission of US trade promotion organizations, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, that promote the interests of US companies abroad. ATBR looks to collaborate and cooperate with other trade promotion organizations and strengthen the bilateral relationship. We are seeking synergies. The Turkish DIB benefited in many ways from partnerships with US companies, including F-16 production over several decades and early development of the F-35, the contentious end of Turkish production for the F-35 notwithstanding. This demonstrated that the US and Turkish DIBs have a synergistic capacity in a number of areas. Partnerships and collaboration can benefit both sides. As we like to say, defense cooperation begins not on the battlefield but on the factory floor.
DJ: Defense industrial collaboration went into a deep freeze between 2010 and 2024. The approval of the F-16 deal and announcement of artillery ammunition coproduction in early 2024 seem like the opening of a new stage. Is defense cooperation now increasing in scope?
Bloom: We are engaged with a great number of defense sector producers in both Turkey and the United States; we, and those we talk with, see the current fragility of the US DIB as an urgent call for partners. Turkey has the ability and resources to be a great partner in this regard. US defense manufacturers focus on high-end but frequently expensive solutions—what we might call the few and exquisite. Turkish defense industry produces items at a lower price point but an effective level of performance—what we might call the many and adequate. In terms of defense strategy, there is a need for both.
DJ: If the need is obvious, why is there a need for an organization to facilitate? Won’t the governmental or corporate organizations find opportunities for collaboration?
Bloom: This is not always a natural or easy strategic partnership, though it is one with great present and potential value. There are many differences in politics, strategic culture, and position that make this a thornier relationship on both sides than, say, the one between the United States and the United Kingdom. Given the number of complicating factors, private sector facilitation, especially from the US side, provides an important balancing and catalytic element to motivate both sides to overcome the known obstacles.
DJ: The hallmark of bilateral cooperation during the Cold War was defense, but ATBR focuses on energy as an important second pillar. Why?
Bloom: Energy policy is a central strand of statecraft. Strong partnership in geopolitical matters requires not just cooperation on defense but a common approach to stability—and energy matters as much as military or counterterrorism and counterintelligence for stability. Cooperation on energy makes the region more stable—in the case of the United States and Turkey, multiple regions. Washington and Ankara are both interested in energy flows from the Caucasus, through the Black Sea, Iraq, the Gulf, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean. Energy policy is a key tool to incentivize partnerships and reconciliation—if we get this right with Turkey, the profits will be geopolitical and strategic, as well as economic.
DJ: Is the ATBR interested in areas beyond defense and energy?
Bloom: Our project is about connecting Turkish companies and US partners for mutually beneficial and strategically important projects. We’ve talked to both sides about minerals, heavy industry, construction, and tourism. But defense and energy are the most tangible projects that generate momentum for the others, and so they have been an early focus.
DJ: Given the turbulence in bilateral relations over the past fifteen years, is the private sector gun-shy or risk-averse? Is there an appetite on both sides for new initiatives?
Bloom: For certain, there is appetite on defense and energy. People who understand the limitations of the US DIB get the need for it. The “few and exquisite” combined in a package with “the many and adequate” in terms of price and sophistication is the sine qua non of warfare in the early twenty-first century. Tons of Turkish and US defense and industry experts see this, so we see an increasing desire for corporate cooperation. With the recent deal between Turkish Repkon and General Dynamics as an example, we find that when the private sector finds complementary solutions, the policy process becomes easier. Sometimes, bottoms-up works better than top-down in defense-industrial cooperation.
DJ: Final thoughts on what the ATBR might achieve in the defense sector?
Bloom: ATBR is chaired by Gen. Jones. Gen. Tod Wolters, another former SACEUR, is a board member. This shows that the most authoritative voices on transatlantic security consider the US-Turkish bilateral relationship as a critical component of security for those two countries but also for the Alliance as a whole. There is a parallel to the thinking behind the Abraham Accords—that trade and mutual interest can overcome frictions and disinclinations. The overriding logic of mutual benefit, operationalized by US and Turkish companies, will benefit the strategic interests of both countries.
Gregory Bloom is a board director of the American-Turkish Business Roundtable (ATBR). He also serves as Chief Operating Officer for the Jones Group International, and as a senior advisor to the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
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The Atlantic Council in Turkey, which is in charge of the Turkey program, aims to promote and strengthen transatlantic engagement with the region by providing a high-level forum and pursuing programming to address the most important issues on energy, economics, security, and defense.
Image: NATO partners from Türkiye, the US, Poland and Spain stand together to celebrate NATO’s 75th founding anniversary, at Incirlik Air Base, Türkiye, March 28, 2024. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Essence Myricks
