Waves, Ways and Historical Turns: Turkey’s Strategic Quest

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Summary: The quest for

autonomy is not a new phenom-

enon in the conduct of Turkish

foreign policy. The question is

not whether or not Turkey, or its

current rulers, will continue to

seek autonomy in foreign policy

even in an environment that

brings them, once more, closer to their Western partners. The real

question is whether or not Turkey

will be able to consistently have

the capacity to pursue an autono-

mous foreign policy and simply

instrumentalize its alliance rela-

tions. Turkey faced three waves of

environmental challenges since

the end of the Cold War. Not

coincidentally, these periods also

corresponded to the discovery

and then twice to the “resurrec-

tion” of a “Turkish model” thatcould be put to use to safeguard

mainly Western interests.

Analysis

Waves, Ways and Historical Turns:

Turkey’s Strategic Quest

by Soli Özel

January 30, 2012

Washington, DC• Berlin • Paris • Brussels

BelgraDe • ankara • BuCharest • WarsaW

O f f i c e s

Analysis

In his critique o Ian Lesser’s analysiso the successive waves in urkishoreign policymaking,1 ŞabanKardaş2 warns against determinismand rightly emphasizes the role o agency. For Kardaş, a merely geopo-litical or structuralist understandingo urkish oreign policy would doinjustice to the architects o that policy.Understanding the shis in urkey’soreign policy solely as a unction o a changing strategic environment, heargues, would blind observers to the

great quest or “Strategic Autonomy”that underpins it.

In light o urkey’s growing security needs in an increasingly uncertain andunstable environment, Lesser arguesthat “()he scale o the security prob-lems acing urkey suggests that only urkey’s traditional Western partnerscan ll this need over the longer term.”Kardaş agrees that urkey’s relationswith its Western partners, and mostimportantly with the United States,will get closer because o the changingsecurity environment in urkey’s nearabroad. However, he insists that rela-tions with the West will mainly havean instrumental value.1 “Turkey’s Third Wave – And the Coming Quest for Stra-

tegic Reassurance,” Dr. Ian O. Lesser, On Turkey Series,

October 25, 20112 “Quest for Strategic Autonomy Continues, or How to

Make Sense of Turkey’s ‘New Wave’,” Dr. Şaban Kardaş,

On Turkey Series, November 28, 2012

In Kardaş’ view, “Partnership withthe West, at this current juncture, isa valuable instrument as long as itenhances Ankara’s ability to meet newchallenges and expands the room tomaneuver, not because o its inherent

value. Te quest or strategic autonomystill instructs urkish leaders’ thinkingon international aairs, and is unlikely to disappear.”

Yet this quest or autonomy is not anew phenomenon in the conduct o urkish oreign policy either. It has

been there as a powerul vein evenduring the Cold War, evidenced by urkey’s intervention in Cyprus andthe enormous political costs thatsuccessive governments were willingto bear by reusing to assent to a lessthan satisactory settlement or any settlement at all. In act, this questor autonomy can be generalized oralmost all states that have the capacity to act so in varying degrees.

Te tension between structuraldeterminism and agency is an age-oldproblem in social sciences and histor-ical analyses as well as internationalrelations theory. In a requently quotedpassage in the introduction to his “18th

Brumaire o Louis Bonaparte” KarlMarx presents an eloquent i some-what imprecise ormula on the matter:



Analysis

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Analysis

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as

they please; they do not make it under sel-selected circum-stances, but under circumstances existing already, given andtransmitted rom the past.”

Tis passage can be used to reconcile Lesser’s more struc-turalist and perhaps more deterministic view o the impera-tives o urkish oreign policy and Kardaş’s emphasis on the

voluntarism o the policymakers. Undoubtedly, the actors doshape their environment, but not at will. Tey are circum-scribed by their capacities, by other actors’ relative power, andthe conditions created by major shis in that environment.

Te responses to these shis will be determined by existing

modes o interaction, alliance commitments, and structuralrealities on the ground. Whether or not it will be structureor agency that will override the other depends on the caseand circumstances that shaped it.

Te question thereore is not whether or not urkey, or itscurrent rulers, will continue to seek autonomy in oreignpolicy even in an environment that brings them, oncemore, closer to their Western partners. Te real questionis whether or not urkey will be able to consistently havethe capacity to pursue an autonomous oreign policy andsimply instrumentalize its alliance relations.

For urkey to succeed in this endeavor it would have tohave the means not just to respond to its environmentbut to transorm it as well. Te developments in regionssurrounding urkey, particularly the Middle East since theArab uprisings began and pointedly since the U.S. with-drawal rom Iraq, indicate that urkey’s inuence over thebehavior o its neighbors or countries like Syria in whichit invested heavily in the past is either negligible or notsubstantive.

Furthermore all o urkey’s major neighbors — Russia, Iran,

and Saudi Arabia — are scrambling or inuence in thesame neighborhood. Tey mobilize all the tools availableto them, including the sharpening o sectarian divisions, toshape and control the strategic environment o the MiddleEast region in the wake o the U.S. withdrawal rom Iraq.Alliances are shiing and recourse to ties with kindredcommunities is becoming dominant. Such a dynamic,particularly in the absence o a balancing EU accessionprocess that is robust, risks sucking urkey into its debili-tating rationale.

Under these circumstances, it becomes more difcult as well

as more critical to maintain the consistency o a “secular”oreign policy on the part o urkish policymakers. Tis isespecially true at a time when the European Union, paralyzedby its economic troubles and the political ragility o many member states, continues to generate a political-strategic

vacuum. Tis vacuum, combined with some Union membersunair, irresponsible, and outright hostile treatment o urkeyand its candidacy, damage urkey’s quest or equilibriumbetween its alliance interests and values on the one hand andits “Greater Middle Eastern” vocation on the other.

Three Waves Since the End of the Cold War

urkey aced three waves o environmental challenges sincethe end o the Cold War. Not coincidentally, these periodsalso corresponded to the discovery and then twice to the“resurrection” o a “urkish model” that could be put to useto saeguard mainly Western interests.

1989-1999When the Berlin Wall ell in 1989 and the Cold War practi-cally came to an end, urkey was le or dead strategically,at least as a member in good standing o the Western Alli-ance. Not only did an important gure such as then U.S.

Undersecretary o State Lawrence Eagleburger tell a urkishinterviewer that “perhaps urkey should concentrate moreon the Middle East because aer all it was not really a Euro-pean country,” but within urkey there was concern thatwith the security axis disappearing, there was not much thattied urkey to Europe.

Te Iraqi invasion o Kuwait in 1990 put urkey back on thestrategic map but not without a serious crisis o intra-alli-ance condence. Some NAO members, notably Germany,reused to assume their responsibilities under Article 5 i urkey were attacked by Iraq and were unwilling to send

Patriot missiles or urkey’s deense. Ten with the disso-lution o the Soviet Union in 1991, a whole new strategicand cultural geography opened up as Central Asian urkicrepublics and the countries o the Caucasus gained theirindependence.

Tis led to the rst allusion to the “urkish model,” wherebythe Central Asian republics would be expected to emulatethe secular, democratic urkish political system and urkeywould in turn play a role in the integration o these new



Analysis

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Analysis

states into the Western political order. Tat period was

short-lived, since it soon became clear that these countriesresented the advent o a new “big brother” and urkey’scapacities to shape their developments were limited.

Still, during this decade, a number o developments suchas the Yugoslav wars, urkish military’s increasingly useulparticipations in various peacekeeping operations, and thestrategic alignment with Israel helped re-establish urkey’simportance in U.S. strategic thinking. Tis happened

just when the United States was reconrmed as both aneeded and an unreliable, i not dangerous, ally or many urks ollowing developments in Iraq, notably the de facto

creation o an autonomous Kurdish political entity in theNorth.

Te challenge or urkey in this period was to ameliorateits democratic credentials, reorm its administrative struc-ture, and liberalize its legal system. Yet upon the death o the reormist President urgut Özal, the custodians o asemi-democratic urkey, notably the military, used theKurdish insurrection and the alleged Islamist threat toturn the country inwards and increase the tone o authori-tarianism. Tis trend would only come to an end aer theUnited States delivered the PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan tourkish authorities in Kenya in February o 1999.

2001-2011Apprehending Öcalan was just the beginning o a numbero important developments in urkish oreign policy aswell. Relations with Syria and Iran, thoroughly poisonedduring the 1990s, took a decisive turn or the better. U.S.President Bill Clinton visited urkey, and urkish-U.S.relations were dened as a “strategic partnership.” Te EU,with the help o a lot o pressure and lobbying by the UnitedStates, reversed its ill-advised decision o 1997 and extendedcandidate status to urkey.

At the same time, under the stewardship o ForeignMinister İsmail Cem the rst theoretical and practicalunderpinnings o a multidimensional oreign policy started to take shape, later to be expanded and theorizedby current Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and consis-tently pursued under the AKP governments. Within thetraditionally Atlanticist urkish security establishment, earo the EU-related process o democratization, which mightundermine the authoritarian system led to the growth o

a wing with a Eurasianist outlook. Many o those associ-

ated with this oreign policy preerence were later chargedwith conspiracy against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

Te attacks against the United States on September 11,2001, resurrected the talk o a urkish model. Against theJihadist dystopia o al-Qaeda, “market-oriented, secular,democratic, Muslim” urkey, a member o the AtlanticAlliance, with warts and all, looked much more attrac-tive. When the AKP came to power, it gave more pizzazzto the model since the party, rooted in urkey’s Islamistmovement, undertook a relentless program o reormation,

demilitarization/civilianization, and democratization o theurkish polity. Tis was done with the help o the EU acces-sion process, which was supported by the overwhelmingmajority o the urkish public. Tere was at last, with adecade’s delay, harmony between urkish oreign policy, the

values o its security community, and the country’s domesticpolitical arrangements.

Te multiple ailures o the U.S. misadventure in Iraq,which urkey objected to rom the beginning and ulti-mately reused to be a part o, shook the regional balance opower. Te Arab state system remained paralyzed and Iran

gained enormous strategic advantages. As the U.S. inva-sion empowered Iraqi Shi’a and the Kurds, it also broke thecenturies old strategic balance between Shi’a Iran and theSunni world.

In this environment, urkey ormulated a policy o engage-ment with all its neighbors by accepting the existing statusquo as given. Lesser identied these conditions as a “benignenvironment” whereby none o the major actors would beable to counter urkey’s designs and policy moves. In act,Ankara pursued policies towards Iran and Syria that wereobjected to by Washington.

As the military’s inuence over the making o oreignpolicy waned, Ankara gradually dropped its perennial earsconcerning the assertion o Iraqi Kurdish political iden-tity. Te government’s policies channeled the explodingeconomic energy o the nascent provincial entrepreneurialclasses towards trade and market creation all around,thereby transorming urkey rom a national security stateto what Proessor Kemal Kirişci would call a trading state. 3

3 “Turkey’s‘“Demonstrative Effect’ and the Transformation of the Middle East,” InsightTurkey , Volume 13, Number 2, 2011



Analysis

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Analysis

About the Author

Soli Özel teaches at Istanbul Kadir Has University. He is a columnist

or the national daily Haberturk and is senior advisor to the chairman

o the urkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association.

About GMF

Te German Marshall Fund o the United States (GMF) is a non-

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gmus.org/reaction.

Both at the economic and political levels, as Kardaş argued,

the government pursued its own goals with great intensity,trying to transorm the environment within which it oper-ated. It presented itsel as a side in all the unresolved prob-lems o the surrounding regions and made strenuous eortsto mediate between Iran and Ankara’s alliance partners tond a way out o Iran’s nuclear program impasse.

It was a pity that the resourceul Brazil-urkey-Iran swapagreement was immediately undercut by the U.S. admin-istration. Tat, and the ill-advised “no” vote at the UNSecurity Council on new sanctions against Iran, strainedrelations between Washington and Ankara. Since then,

urkey’s Iran policy took a sharp turn on the nuclear issueas Ankara signed on to NAO’s missile shield project andaccepted one o the radar systems to be on urkish soil.

While maintaining close relations with Israel, the govern-ment pursued policies on the Palestinian issue that gener-ated riction in the relations between Ankara and el Aviv.Tese culminated in the tragedy o Mavi Marmara when theIsraeli Deense Forces killed eight urkish citizens and oneurkish-American and the Israeli government’s ultimatereusal to apologize.

Tat urkey could be so active and autonomous was

partially a unction o its ability to simultaneously pursueEU accession, strengthen its economy, and engage in acareul policy o creating a zone o interest in the vicinity.Te precondition or the success o the policy was theexisting status quo, particularly in the Middle East, thatcame to an end with the Arab uprisings and the U.S. with-drawal rom Iraq.

2011-PresentTe Arab uprisings o 2011 brought a second resurrec-tion to the urkish model. urkey’s credentials as a secular,

democratic, and economically successul country wereinvoked as a sensible model to emulate by those Arabcountries that successully overthrew their regimes. As inearlier cases, the debate that ensued was more reective o a Western desire not to ace Islamists in power than being ahistorically appropriate expectation.

Events in 2011 also changed the environment within whichurkey operated once more. Te conditions in this newenvironment would be less conducive to autonomous action

than beore. It may well be that even Kardaş’s suggestion

that urkey would cooperate with the West but maintainan anti-Western discourse domestically would no longer betenable. So ar, what is clear is that in the absence o a stra-tegically acting EU, urkey builds closer relations with theUnited States, is in sti competition with Iran both in Iraqand Syria, and will have to deal with a more assertive Russiaeager to prove its great power credentials in the Middle Eastand Eastern Mediterranean.

Documents

Waves, Ways and Historical Turns: Turkey’s Strategic Quest