text:  You know, not that the Soviet Union was going to invade them the next day, but that if they didn't have a strong Western ally, they were going to face increasing Soviet pressure, increasing Soviet threats that they'd have no effective way to resist. Turkey quickly participated in NATO's military exploits, sending 15,000 troops to fight in the Korean War. In the 1980s, the U.S. supported the Turkish government as it fought Kurdish insurgents.