During 1997 and 1998, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy organized a series of seminars in Washington, D.C., to examine changing dynamics and trends in Turkish foreign policy. The decision to organize the seminars was prompted by the realization that Turkish foreign policy in the post-Cold War era was passing through one of its most crucial and volatile periods since the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
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Two decades hence, no new international legal and political system has been formally created to meet the challenges of the new world order that emerged. Instead, a number of temporary, tactical, and conflict-specific agreements have been implemented. From the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Cyprus, and even the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a series of cease-fire arrangements have succeeded in ending bloodshed but have failed to establish comprehensive peace agreements. Overall, the current situation has quantitatively increased the diversification of international actors and qualitatively complicated the foreign-policy making process.
In this new world, Turkey is playing an increasingly central role in promoting international security and prosperity. The new dynamics of Turkish foreign policy ensure that Turkey can act with the vision, determination, and confidence that the historical moment demands.
Such dramatic, some would say exaggerated, reactions by the Turkish government to charges of genocide almost a century ago amid the collapse of the last empire to control the region illustrates why this old geopolitical arena remains relevant today. Much of the current dynamic in Turkish foreign policy is due to a shift in domestic political power within Turkey to central and eastern regions of the country, which once were considered part of the Levant, alongside a Turkish economic and diplomatic opening toward all the other countries of this ancient region, which includes northern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Cyprus.
Indeed, new geopolitical spaces are coming to life across the new Levant that render foreign policy prescriptions of the Cold War era useless. In the 21st century political diplomacy in this region will be by necessity much more improvisational. Turkey finds itself at the center of this newly developing political constellation in the eastern Mediterranean even as Turkish society grapples with the new roles their nation should or should not play in this new geopolitical dynamic.
In the pages that follow, this paper will explore these trends within Turkey and across its borders throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Understanding how Turkey is changing itself and its region is critical to U.S. foreign policy. Knowing how to respond is even more important. This paper begins to build a map to achieve both goals.
Addressing a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman asked for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Greece and Turkey and established a policy, aptly characterized as the Truman Doctrine. This doctrine and the related "domino theory" would guide U.S. foreign policy around the world for the next 40 years. President Truman declared, "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The sanction of aid to Greece and Turkey by a Republican Congress indicated the beginning of a long and enduring bipartisan Cold War foreign policy. Future presidential administrations would use similar reasoning to justify actions in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, among others.
The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.
One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other nations.
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In short, in the first decade of this century, the Turkish leadership was able successfully to combine the continuity in the main tenets of its foreign policy with elements of change and innovation in its diplomatic practice. The end result was the transformation of Turkey into a more visible and potent actor on the world stage.
The first radical departure from the traditional tenets of Turkish foreign policy was Syria. After having unsuccessfully striven to convince the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad of the need for political reform, Turkey changed tack and embraced an agenda of regime change. The case of Syria represents the first time in history that Ankara used its power to attempt to oust a regime in a neighboring state.
The third point of departure relates to the nexus between domestic politics and foreign policy. For a long time, foreign policy in Turkey was viewed as being almost hermetically sealed from domestic political considerations. Foreign policy decisionmaking had been under the prevailing influence of the Foreign Ministry, which was staffed almost exclusively by professional career diplomats. The military was also an influential actor in areas of strategic relevance. The political leadership had the final say, sure, but it was essentially swayed by the calculations, assessments, and recommendations of these two powerful, professional institutions.
The first is the decoupling of foreign policy from domestic political considerations. A new balance will have to be found between the need for a democratic government that is accountable to its electorate and the need for a more mature and predictable foreign policy. This new understanding should be instrumental in containing the proclivities of the ruling elites to instrumentalize foreign policy for domestic goals.
More fundamentally, a real settlement will be conditional on strategic shifts in the foreign policy outlooks of both Washington and Ankara. The United States has to weigh whether its ongoing relationship with the SDF is really worth the damage it causes in its bilateral ties with Turkey. Much as with the S-400 issue from the American perspective, from the Turkish perspective, the real and most major stumbling block in efforts to improve mutual ties is the U.S. relationship with the SDF. If indeed the objective is to regain mutual trust, Washington will need to determine how these ties with the SDF can be severed gradually. 2ff7e9595c
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