- Karol Wasilewski
Neo-Ottomanism: Turkey’s Dream of Power.
Conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh. "Flexing its muscles" in the eastern Mediterranean. Military bases in several countries around the world, including Iraq, Somalia, and Qatar. "Drone" diplomacy. Assertiveness towards Western allies. And finally, an unwavering self-confidence worthy of global power. This is how Turkey's foreign policy in the early 20s of the XXI century can be described in a nutshell. The country is on the media’s front pages and headlines time and again, stirring up controversy with its behavior, its attempts to change the regional status quo, and its ideas for solving the world's problems in a way that best suits Turkish interests. And yet this has not always been the case.
The Republic of Turkey
The Republic of Turkey was established on the 29th of October , 1923. It was intended by its founders to be a modern state and, in many respects, a negation of its once great predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. This postulate concerned both domestic politics, where socio-political life was organized according to the new systemic forms and ideology of Kemalism, and to Turkey's foreign policy, which was to be stripped of its imperial character. According to the directives of Founding Father and first President Kemal Atatürk, the Republic of Turkey was to be a state with limited international aspirations - focused especially on ensuring security - and aimed at the development to join the ranks of "the most civilized states in the world" in the near future. This tendency was further reinforced by the fact that the new decision-makers who were eyewitnesses to the long process of decay and collapse of the Ottoman Empire, to the "betrayal" of the Arabs during World War I, and who were convinced of the harm of pursuing an imperial and overly active policy thus uninterested in the region they viewed as the source of their greatest disappointments - the Middle East.
Ataturk died in 1938, but the events of that period, and especially their reception by later Turkish politicians, ultimately led to the formation of the so-called Republican tradition in foreign policy. It provided the framework through which the early decision-makers of the Republic of Turkey viewed the world. What assumptions was this framework based on? First and foremost, Turkish republicans were obsessed with the unity of the state which, among other things, stemmed from the tragic Treaty of Sèvres, which ended World War I for the Ottoman Empire and was the de facto partition of the country. From this also came the new Turkish elite's growing distrust of the outside world and the belief that Turkey's enemies posed a threat to the integrity of the state. For similar reasons, Ankara avoided the "Imperial Adventures" that had previously characterized the Ottoman Empire. However, just a dozen or so years after Atatürk's death, forces that had a different view of the country's politics came to power.
Neo-Ottomanism - The Birth
How did this "Copernican coup" in Turkish foreign policy come about? How did a country that until recently was so self-absorbed - so much so that it was afraid of the consequences of excessive adventurism - steadily transform itself into an ambitious, self-confident, sometimes overconfident, actor of international reality that not only saw almost every crisis as an opportunity but also wanted to shape international relations actively?
The neo-Ottoman tradition, which eventually became an alternative to the republican one, can find its origins in three conditions.
The first was the changing international order. The circumstances of the Cold War resulted in pressures that prompted Turkish politicians to abandon attempts to balance the superpowers and to side with the West clearly, the most glaring example of which was Turkey's accession to NATO. The end of the Cold War resulted not only in the extinguishing of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, but also in the weakening of Russia and the reduction of its possibilities for influence in the international sphere, which opened up new strategic options for Turkey and encouraged it to become more active in its foreign policy. Indeed, Turkey came to the conclusion that in a world that was no longer bipolar - no longer characterized by the rivalry between two great powers - it would be possible to conduct more active diplomacy, especially in areas that these powers previously saw as their spheres of influence. A key example was Central Asia, an area with a Turkic-speaking population and, therefore, in Turkey's view, particularly susceptible to its influence.
The second reason was already emanating from inside Turkey and was the alluring prospect of increasing the country's potential. The U.S. arms embargo imposed on Turkey after the Turks made an armed intervention in Cyprus in 1974 came as a shock to Ankara. At the same time, however, it was a sobering development that resulted in the start of a process of modernizing the army and its own arms industry. Turkey was also growing economically. Thanks to the economic transformation, it had access to more and more resources and this influenced the imagination of Turkish decision-makers and encouraged more proactive policies.
A major internal impetus for the development of the neo-Ottoman line was also the intensification of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, initially demanding the separation of an independent Kurdistan from Turkish territory, carried out its first terrorist attack. In such an environment, it was difficult to maintain the view of the early decision-makers of the Republic of Turkey, who viewed security through the prism of the borders and territorial integrity of the state, since the PKK operated from the territory of other states, the source of Turkey's security threats was there, and it was at its source that Turkey’s leaders believed that the threat had to be fought.
Third and finally, Turkey faced an exchange of elites who had a different view of the world than the Republican founding fathers.
Turgut Özal's Superpower Policy
The most important person of this new wave of Turkish leaders was Turgut Özal. No one since Ataturk has had a greater impact on Turkish politics than Özal. He challenged old patterns of world perception and behavior and thus gave shape to the neo-Ottoman tradition, primarily through his tremendous activism. In 1984, he attempted to improve relations with Greece; he renewed efforts to resume - frozen since 1978 - relations with the European Economic Community; in order to improve relations with Syria and encourage its southern neighbor to stop supporting the PKK, he pledged to release some water from Turkish dams on the Euphrates.
Özal's non-standard concepts were also evident in identity issues. Özal understood that Turkey's homogeneity was a myth and that solving the problem required forging a new identity. It was Turkey's Ottoman past that was to be helpful in this regard, especially the historical coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups within a single state and the shared religion of Islam which united the vast majority of citizens. This approach to the Ottoman Empire's heritage was what most distinguished Özal from his predecessors. In his view, the Ottoman past was an asset to help the state solve not only internal, but also regional, problems.
When opponents criticized his break with the policy of "adventurous avoidance" in foreign policy, Özal came to the opposite conclusion: an active foreign policy was essential. It was probably for this reason he suggested that an effective solution to the Kurdish problem would be a Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi federation, but his critics saw this as a desire to rebuild the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Ozal's aspirations were those of a superpower. He wanted to make Turkey one of the five most powerful countries in the world. "If we do not make serious mistakes, the 21st century will be the century of Turks and Turkey," the former Turkish president used to say.
Özal may never have had the opportunity to solidify his view of the world, and Turkish foreign policy had it not been for a process occurring almost parallel to his rule: the end of the Cold War. This event had far-reaching consequences for Turkish foreign policy. First, it signaled the end of the threat posed by Soviet expansion, which had systematically influenced Turkish decision-makers' choices. Second, it opened up new strategic options for Turkey, as it could pursue a more independent foreign policy under the changed circumstances. Third, cultural ties with many of the newly emerging states after the collapse of the USSR - such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan - directly pushed Turkey to play at least two new roles: an influential regional player and a bridge between East and West.
While his predecessors would have seen a change in the global and regional status quo as a huge threat, Turgut Özal saw it as a great opportunity. He was quick to conclude that the world was moving toward a unipolar order, but at the same time assumed that this would be a transitional state. He did not see this as too great a threat to Turkey. Indeed, he claimed that in the new conditions, Turkey would finally have the opportunity to play the "two cards" it held, which were supposed to complement each other - one representing relations with the West and the other with Muslim and Arab states. He also stated that three new regions were opening up to Turkey: Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Middle East. It was in these that the state was to realize its growth aspirations.
Özal did not have time to complete the foreign policy revolution. He died unexpectedly in April 1993. During his decade in power, however, he bent almost all the guidelines of the republican tradition and laid the foundation for its alternative, which was becoming neo-Ottomanism.
Neo-Ottomanism of the XXI century
So, what is the neo-Ottoman tradition in practice? It can be described as a policy of accepting the heterogeneous nature of Turkey, the coexistence of multiple identities within it, and exploiting this fact in foreign policy with the whole strategy set on a foundation of Islam. From this stems the desire to balance between the East and West in order to maximize gains with the ultimate goal of becoming a regional, or even global, power. And the tool to achieve this goal is to be international activism and even interventionism, thus with the neo-Ottoman line, Turkey treats disruption of the international order as an opportunity.
Although neo-Ottomanism is not a new phenomenon, it has gained particular notoriety only in the last dozen years or so. It has become the term used most often to describe the foreign policy of the Republic of Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP. The architect of Turkey's neo-Ottoman strategy from the AKP was Ahmet Davutoğlu - a professor of international relations, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's longtime adviser on international affairs, Turkey's foreign minister and even its prime minister.
The place where Davutoğlu laid out his neo-Ottoman concepts was the veritable "bible of neo-Ottomanism," a book titled, "Strategic Depth." It is here that Davutoglu argues that Turkey should not have pursued a one-way and one-dimensional foreign policy after the end of the Cold War, because of Turkey's unique location, history, and culture, which, as the heir to the Ottoman Empire, it has the "strategic depth" of the title, and thus this determines that the Turks should pursue an active and multidimensional foreign policy using a variety of tools. Davutoglu places particular emphasis on soft power which has become popular in the form of Turkish schools, especially in Africa or Central Asia. Ultimately, in Davutoglu's conception, this will lead to the transformation of Turkey into a "central state." A state with aspirations to become a global power. In addition, Davutoglu expresses his disapproval of previous Turkish decision-makers who overlooked the state's strengths and pursued conservative policies. These assumptions allow us to understand the underpinnings of the policies Davutolgu pursued during the AKP and Erdogan governments.
In the years that followed, Turkey pursued policies that were consistent with Davutoğlu's directives. It initiated measures along the lines of "zero problems with neighbors," under which it improved and strengthened relations with Syria, Iraq or Iran. It sought to develop relations with Israel, even offering to mediate between Israel and Syria. It has begun to pursue a multifaceted policy, arguing that it needs to maintain good relations with both Western partners and Russia, but this became problematic after the 2014 annexation of Crimea. In addition, Ankara has launched a series of diplomatic initiatives in the Balkans, Central Asia, and in Africa, previously neglected by Turkish policymakers. It sought to have an impact on global politics, for example, by attempting - together with Brazil - to engage diplomatically in resolving the growing dispute between the West and Iran, or by acting as a "defender of Muslims." It also seemed that Turkey would finally fulfill the "age-old dream" of the United States and be a partner to help democratize the Middle East, setting an example to the region with the skillful combination of Islam and democracy.
These hopes were all the stronger when the Arab Spring erupted in the region, and leaders in the post-revolutionary states - especially in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia - began to talk about the so-called Turkish model, understood precisely to be a skillful combination of Islam and democracy, as a possible one for them. All this seemed to confirm the validity of Davutoğlu's concept. It might have seemed that Turkey was on its way to becoming a regional power, and in time - who knows? - maybe even a global one. These successes were evidenced, for example, by Tayyip Erdoğan's tour of the post-revolutionary states, during which, as the media pointed out, he was feted by the crowds like a rock star.
However, soon "luck" ran dry for Turkey. The revolutionary machinery of the Arab Spring jammed in Syria where Bashar al-Assad proceeded with bloody repression. In doing so, he rejected Turkish mediation attempts, leading Turkey to unequivocally side with the Syrian opposition, severing relations with the Syrian dictator. As if that wasn't enough, in July 2013, the military in Egypt overthrew Muhammad Mursi, who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood that’s ideologically close to Turkey's Justice and Development Party. Turkey straightforwardly condemned the coup and thus "lost" Egypt, which until then had been regarded as Turkey's most significant foreign policy success of the Arab Spring era. Dreams of being a superpower which seemed remarkably realistic on the backdrop of changes in the region, began to fade. Frustration began to grow among Turkish policymakers, evident in a number of statements, such as Davutoğlu's insistence that Turkey was on the right side of history or in the phrases of İbrahim Kalın, an adviser to President Erdoğan, who spoke of Turkey's "loneliness in virtue."
All of this was compounded by the Gezi, the famous May 2013 protests in defense of the Istanbul park which quickly grew from environmental protests into opposition to Erdoğan's increasingly authoritarian rule. The then Turkish prime minister dealt with this situation "roughly." The protests were quashed, and Turkey was moving more and more clearly down the road to authoritarianism. Of note in all of this was the process of disassociation with the so-called Gülen Movement, Hizmet, a recent political ally of the AKP. In December 2013, there was a corruption scandal in which police detained, among others, the sons of ministers from the AKP government and allegations even reached Erdoğan himself. The prime minister claimed that the affair was faked by members of the Gülen Movement entrenched in the administration, police, and judiciary who wanted, in his words, to stage a "civilian coup." Thus began Turkey's most important political battle of recent years - Erdoğan launched a purge, removing Movement members from key positions. This all culminated in the failed coup of 2016 which the authorities believed was also to be carried out by members of the Gülen Movement. Erdoğan called the coup a "gift from God," because it provided him with even stronger arguments to crack down on Gülen's influence in Turkey. At the same time, Tayyip Erdoğan's key political projects accelerated, among them was his dream of introducing a presidential system which he finally implemented in 2018. In addition, the AKP entered into a coalition with the nationalist MHP party, and it was these two groups, in a distorted and extreme version of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, that began to set the main tone of Turkish politics.
As if Turkey didn't already have enough "plagues," the peace process between the government and the PKK collapsed in 2015 when a period of intense fighting between these parties began, affecting Turkey's southeast the most.
Stripped of Superpower Plans
All of this has made Turkish neo-Ottoman assertiveness counterproductive. The trust of Western allies in Ankara, following the intensification of internal repression, began to degrade significantly. Davutoğlu's writings presented Turkey as a state that struck a balance between politics and security, but with respect for democratic principles. After Gezi, this could no longer be argued. Turkey was heading down an authoritarian path. This also had a direct impact on the economic sphere and the undoing of a positive image for foreign investors.
The coup and the introduction of the presidential system subordinated Turkey's foreign policy to Erdoğan’s interests. This meant that Turkey began to be seen, especially by Western partners, as an unpredictable actor as the Turkish leader made all final decisions by himself. A good example was the decision to purchase S-400 systems from Russia. Many experts believe that this was an individual decision by Erdoğan. It also had another consequence: it made it easier for Tayyip Erdoğan to enforce foreign policy decisions. Hence, there was a firm implementation of the new security policy in which Turkey fought threats "at the source" in the form of Turkish military operations in Syria or Iraq. The consequence of the coup was a deterioration in relations with Western countries and a simultaneous improvement in relations with Iran and Russia.
As a consequence of the coup, Erdogan also carried out purges in the army. Officers with pro-Atlantic views were expelled from the army and, in return, there was to be a strengthening of the Euro-Asian wing critical of the West and arguing that there should be an alliance with Russia and Iran. One of the most popular Euro-Asian concepts became the geopolitical concept of the so-called "blue homeland," or “mavi vatan.” It assumed that in an era of changes in the international order, Turkey needed to increase its position in the maritime sphere, including enforcing favorable divisions of territories in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. It was to do this by, among others, the method of fait accompli, hence we had the Turkish-Libyan agreement on the demarcation of maritime territories which ignored Greece's claims and to which Greece later had to go by.
The AKP's assertive foreign policy, after joining forces with the nationalist MHP, caused Turkey to increasingly resort to its military might. Recognizing its own superiority in this sphere, it stepped up provocations against Greece and was more willing to get involved in conflicts in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. In addition, it emphasized the "hard" elements of its power, such as drone diplomacy and a program to build military bases in various parts of the world. Nevertheless, this has led to a situation that international commentators have derisively called "zero neighbors without problems." In recent years, Turkey has clashed with all of its neighbors, has been isolated in the region (due to an informal economic boycott by Saudi Arabia), and the implementation of the “mavi vatan” concept combined with aggressiveness in foreign policy led to the fulfillment of the Turkish strategists’ "nightmare" as the Arab states (the United Arab Emirates) and Greece, Cyprus and Israel (the so-called "Hellenic triangle", cooperation supported by the United States) were united by common security interests.
Such a foreign policy situation was untenable, especially as the country's economic problems began to worsen which left an increasingly strong mark on domestic politics. And this began to work against Erdogan. Therefore, the Turks have now set their sights on a decidedly relaxed foreign policy. This has resulted in an attempt to improve relations with the European Union and the US after Joe Biden became president. Similar initiatives were directed at Arab states, primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but also at Israel and Armenia.
Turkey decided to make a far-reaching recalibration in its foreign policy. It decided to "suspend" its provocative policy because it saw that it was bringing more costs than benefits, and these costs threatened the security and stability of the state, and even the stability of Erdoğan's regime. At times, Ankara acted as if it had returned to its "initial settings," or the republican tradition which dictated caution in the face of changes in the international order. This does not mean that Turkey has abandoned the neo-Ottoman path, however, it has pragmatically suspended it. This volatility of wearing once "republican" and once "neo-Ottoman" robes gives the impression that Turkey is behaving like a "whirling dervish" that finds harmony in constant volatility and in constant movement.
This constant reassessment of changing circumstances and attempts to adapt to them, can best be seen in Turkey's policy in recent months, especially regarding the war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of Russia’s aggression, Turkey has argued that it does not intend to take sides because it does not want to lose either Ukraine or Russia with which it has built up very good relations, and this, among others, is why it did not put sanctions on Russia. However, at the same time, Turkey supplied Ukraine with weapons - above all, the notorious Bayraktars - strongly condemned Russia's aggression and, at Ukraine's request and under pressure, decided to close its straits. So while it did indeed pursue a balancing policy - as experts on Turkish politics have often described it - it was balancing with a distinctly pro-Ukrainian tinge. Why? Among other reasons, it could not afford a Russian victory, especially the strengthening of Moscow in the Black Sea basin which would have changed Turkey's strategic situation. Russia would again pose a direct military threat to Turkish territory and would prevent Ankara from trying to play the United States and Russia against each other.
However, when Russia proved to be militarily weaker than it might have initially appeared, and Turkey's policy was gaining the applause of Western countries - despite not joining in on Western sanctions - which reinforced the Turks' belief that they were "strategically important," Turkey saw that it had the space to pursue a policy leaning the other way. It is from here that we have initiatives, motivated primarily economically, in which Turkey announced that it would gladly welcome Russian oligarchs to its territory, measures to attract as many Russian tourists as possible, or its turning a blind eye to Russia's theft of Ukrainian grain and, more recently, its efforts to open a grain corridor from Ukraine.
Neo-Ottoman "self-confidence" also made its presence in blocking the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. Internal motivations, such as a desire to mobilize the nationalist electorate, were certainly important in the change of position, but there is no denying that Turkey simply felt that this was a good time to try to push through as many interests as possible.
Demonstrating this "neo-Ottoman" confidence in foreign policy serves Erdoğan's domestic policy goals. In this way, the Turkish president wants to signal to the electorate that he is the only politician who will be able to look after the country's interests on the international stage, especially at such a difficult moment of "global turbulence." All the more so since polls have successively shown a decline in his ratings. Erdoğan is thus using foreign policy as an instrument of domestic politics, trying to convince the public that he is the guarantor of Turkey's survival in this difficult international environment. But what will happen if he fails and the opposition comes to power?
AKP’s Neo-Ottoman legacy
It is extremely difficult to answer this question. The basic problem is that in recent years the AKP-MHP coalition and their propaganda apparatus have almost completely hijacked the foreign policy discourse. For this reason, opposition representatives frequently - and almost ritualistically - support Turkey's external actions. The exception is Syria, where a sizable part of the opposition argues that it is necessary to make a deal with Assad and expel Syrians from Turkey. However, if one looks deeper, one would have to conclude that the opposition shares the belief that Turkey is a unique actor in international relations, a state that, due to its unique geographic location, should play an important role. AKP opponents, however, believe that Erdogan's adventurous way of conducting politics does more harm than good. It is very likely that once the process of re-democratizing Turkey begins, the opposition will demand the resumption of accession negotiations with the EU, which will be a tough nut for Brussels to crack.
Nonetheless, the "AKP legacy" that the opposition would unavoidably get might also push those opposition politicians in the same manner who currently criticize Erdogan's propensity to involve himself in "international adventures.", which the early decision-makers of the Republic of Turkey were so afraid of. A hawkish strategy expressed through drone diplomacy, a strengthened navy, and expansion of foreign bases, further fueled by the potential overcoming of Turkey's economic difficulties, would be very enticing.
And thus – one thing is certain: the geography making Turkey a critical connector between Europe and Asia, means that regardless of who is in power in the new presidential palace in Ankara, Turkey's policies will continue to cast an abundant shadow over Middle Eastern, European, or even global affairs.
