If Turkey wasn't a NATO member, would/could the Soviets invade it and form the Turkish SSR?

 Believe me, I really tried hard to remember the name of the first mobster who standardized the infamous “protection scam”. It was on the tip of my tongue but I could not remember so let me call him Harry S. which is as good as any name.

You see, a protection scam works like this:

Imagine you are a restaurant owner in New York. City and these two shady characters approach you and say that there are bad people in the neighborhood who may one night put a torch to your place of business. But nothing to worry because those shady characters are more than willing and able to thwart the threat for a reasonable fee and of course now that everbody is friendly you will buy your supplies from their friends.

Of course you are being a street smart fellow get the drift immediately and pay the hoods because you are sure that if you do not, one night they will come and torch the place.

This is what is called a protection scam where the threat is either imaginary or controlled by the protector.

Because I cannot remember the name of the wise guy of the olden times I will name a protection scam Harry S. Doctrine if it applies to large chunks of land with millions of people instead of a few restaurants and businesses in NYC as described in various Mafia novels and films.

The Harry S. Doctrine created a system where you had to join a syndicate and start paying unbelievably inflated prices for weaponry under the pretense of a defence traty against a foe who would not dare attack you with or without a treaty because you are too valuable to give up but a bluff is a winner if the other guy is freakishly afraid of the threat you make him face.

Jokes aside this is a very good question and reaches to the bottom of our relations with the US.

As Ibni Haldun Ibn Khaldun - Wikipedia said in his book Mukaddeme (considered to be one of the first books on international relations) “Geography dictates the fate of nations” Turkey is located in one of the most strategic locations and Russia and later USSR needed to control the area. The result was an unending conflict between Turkey an Russia up until the Russian Revolution of 1917. Turkey was usually defeated in those wars but saved from destruction by the British because it was unacceptable fot them to have a Russian presence in Anatolia snd Istanbul.

After WW2 we were led to believe that the USSR demanded critical areas from Turkey and Turkey thwarted this threat by joining NATO. If you read between the lines of the memoirs of a Turkish diolomat of the era Feridun Cemal Erkin – Wikipedia who I believe was instrumental in staging the whole sharade you will see that the Russian threat was actually made just to scare Turkey and run for protection. Besides if Turkey had not joined NATO and the USSR invaded would the West just watch or retaliate with or without a traty?

As I was thought at a young age “if on a fixed poker table if you cannot spot the mark in the first ten minutes, you are it”. :)