Nevertheless, it quickly became apparent that Turkey lacked the capacity to fulfil this role due to its own domestic political and economic instability. As in the case of Central Asia, it was possible to witness the development of this discourse in regions where US interests were at stake and where the State Department remained wary of the influence of non-allied states. Research based on the websites of eight leading US think tanks specializing in foreign policy: Totals pertain to the whole period between and It also suggests that this shift is part of the structural pattern of Turkish-American relations, which develops in response to the international and domestic challenges faced by the two partners.
It is possible to witness a similar and even more accentuated trend in American think tank production.
Business as Usual: The U.S.-Turkey Security Partnership | Middle East Policy Council
Bush administration like Paul Wolfowitz. In the United States, we understand that Turkey remains on the frontlines of the war on terror. And we also understand that Turkey is a model for those in the Muslim world who have aspirations for democratic progress and prosperity. Turkey gives us an example of the reconciliation of religious belief with modern secular democratic institutions.
However, such judgement fails to account for the complexity of this discourse, which cannot be reduced to a simplistic expression of the domination of the centre over the periphery. Indeed, the producers of discourses on Turkey within Turkish and American think tanks are characterized by their mobility. There is a remarkable pattern of circulation between different institutions located both within the United States and in Turkey.
A rapid glance at the analysts working in American think tanks on Turkey indicates that the majority are of Turkish origin and move between universities and think tanks in the US and Turkey. Some analysts could qualify as gatekeepers of this particular field of expertise as they have been responsible for producing reports on Turkey for several American think tanks since the beginning of the s.
In addition, this system is characterised by its permeability and especially by its connections with academic and political fields, which further enhances the circulation of actors and thoughts within this system of knowledge production.
- TUSIAD-Brookings Turkey Project.
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When the first revolts started in Tunisia and Egypt, Turkish officials refrained from promoting the vision of Turkey as a model. This was also a way of enhancing its actions and autonomy towards other major actors in world politics such as the United States. Indeed, this also constituted the main paradox of this discourse: This discrepancy allows for some preliminary conjectures to be made: Compiled by Yohanan Benhaim in April This is certainly not a coincidence.
Business as Usual: The U.S.-Turkey Security Partnership
SETA on the other hand is known in the domestic arena and especially in Washington for its strong connections to the AKP government and its foreign policy. The entangled relationship between economic and political interests and think tank productions also serves as a reminder of the lack of autonomy of a large part of the Turkish think tank community from the state. Such a lack of autonomy is, of course, a phenomenon not limited to Turkey alone. Yet, since the authoritarian shift of the AKP government in , it has become particularly accentuated. We chose these two actors as they are the most authoritative actors of the AKP government and Turkish foreign policy abroad.
Democracy , Economy and Trade, and European Soft Power, with the first two voiced consistently and independently of the audience and location of its author. We do not make threats We are cognizant of the fact that our democracy is our biggest soft power. Though there is ample room for improvement, our democracy inspires many in our neighbourhood and constitutes the backbone of our growing soft power. Our geostrategic location, booming economy, ability to understand different social and cultural dynamics in a vast geography and commitment to advance democracy However, it is crucial to consider that all speeches and articles referring to this relationship are geared exclusively towards European audiences.
Europe and Turkey… share a truly common vision for the future of our continent: A Europe that strengthens its soft power and advances its universal values; that promotes diversity: Ali Babacan, October 2, We used our visa policy as a tool of increasing soft power capability , lifting visa requirements with more than 30 countries in the last 5 years. In addition to its political and cultural benefits, these agreements boosted our tourism. Figure 7 represents his core vocabulary. Economic and political cooperation and security are at the heart of his engagement with the world, not democracy or the rule of law.
His speeches, however, can be seen as operationalizations of these concepts, which are implicit in his public statements. The faint hint of the capital of the Islamic Caliphate is inherent in the notion of Muslim cosmopolitanism. His language is emotive, suffused with neo-Ottomanist references and adorned with nationalist fervour. In the last eight and a half years, we have emphasised this soft power dimension in foreign policy. Inspired by the unique resources of our history, our culture, and our civilisation, we are engaged in a hard struggle to have an impact on processes, to contribute to solutions for all questions on the regional and global scale.
The term flexible power may be a new, modern term, but we have believed throughout our history that the pen is mightier than the sword and the doors that cannot be opened by the sword can be opened with a pen. Our historical buildings, scattered over three continents, our tokens from the past, are the most concrete expressions of this.
A soft power claim that is not supported by deterrent power is only talk.
Turkey is now in a period in which potentials are transformed to action. References to Turkish aspirations for regional leadership are muted and the language is generally diplomatic and well considered. Intriguingly absent is any reference to the United States, which we earlier identified as one of the main drivers of the Turkish model discourse.
We have highlighted the prominence of American interests in the Turkish model discourse and outlined the changing interdependencies between Turkey, the United States, and the European Union in the formation of the discourse. We have flagged the role of Turkish and American think tanks in the process of discourse formation and the centrality of Turkish gatekeepers within this system.
Turkey’s June 2011 Elections: Perspectives from the U.S.
And finally, we have shown the overlapping and contradicting elements in this complex discourse involving a range of Turkish and global actors from decision-makers to think-tanks and academics. This Turkish quest for autonomy and regional hegemony, however, was frustrated by the course of the Arab uprisings and the robustness of the autocratic non-Islamist regimes in Egypt and Syria.
In this paper, we have discussed the generation, modification, and operation of a discourse in a mutually constituted field involving academia, the think-tank community, and foreign policy actors. Neither think tanks, nor foreign policy actors have a mission to deconstruct, enlighten, explain and elucidate power relations, and indeed they have not done so in this case.
Academics, at least in the academic tradition the authors of this paper adhere to, do have such a mission. Rise and Fall of a Regional Actor? The New Turkish Republic: Is the American Century Over? Radikal December 3, The Fall of the Turkish Model: The authors would like to extend their thanks to Julien Paris, whose Google Scholar research has made a major empirical contribution to this paper. This was a manifestly unrealistic bar. Indeed, the widely celebrated Vienna Agreement allowed Iran to keep 5, centrifuges active at Natanz and to enrich uranium to 3.
The even worse affront, however, was the tone of U. Those criticizing Turkey for not taking a tougher stance against Iran are failing to appreciate the longstanding strategic balance between the two countries. Turkey has no zero-sum strategic competition with Iran comparable to the Saudis' stakes in Bahrain and Yemen or Iran's territorial disputes with the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, most flash points of Iran's grand strategy like Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain are not priorities for Turkey.
In contrast, Turkey and Iran have many converging interests, from thwarting the rise of the Kurds to carrying Iranian gas to European markets to balancing Russian power in the Caucasus. As in the case of the tripartite nuclear-fuel-swap deal, Turkey has sought to leverage these attributes to the benefit of its allies and has never truly departed from its broader commitments to the Atlantic alliance. Yet, somehow it is still getting the blame for not cheerleading for a war against an enemy it did not have. The same is true with Israel.
While the rise of political Islam in Turkey and the nature of party politics in Israel have surely contributed to the worsening of bilateral relations, it was structural factors that drove a wedge between Israel and Turkey. Had the United States preserved its traditional relations with Israel, it is likely that Washington would have mediated these crises, compelling its two close allies to play nicely.
Yet, in the year of the Davos crisis, the "special relationship between Israel and the United States [was] about to enter perhaps its rockiest patch ever [with Israel] growing exasperated with the Obama administration's effort to use diplomacy to roll back Iran's growing uranium-enrichment program.
Netanyahu's address was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Congress,"98 wrote Lisa Goldman at the time of Netanyahu's speech. A day later, John B. Judis wrote that the rift created by Netanyahu ended up "threatening the 'special relationship' between the United States and Israel, a hallmark [of which had] been its bipartisan nature. It is misleading to assess Turkey's changing relations with Israel without reference to the dramatic transformations in U.
Turkey's increased engagement with the Middle East the so-called "neo-Ottoman" foreign policy was surely frustrating to Israel, but just as frustrating was the Obama administration's denial of a carte blanche to Israel in its dealings with the Palestinians and Iran. In this regard, it is a common mistake to project Turkey's deteriorating relations with Israel onto Turkey's relations with the United States; on Israel, Washington and Ankara had shared sentiments.
Indeed, in an address at the Brookings Institution on September 9, , former secretary of state and current presidential contender Hillary Clinton confirmed this argument, discussing how she "spent literally years trying to get the Israelis to apologize to the Turks for the flotilla. The analysis so far presents a fairly compelling picture of a the ill-founded alarmism of the "losing Turkey" narrative, b the conflation of agency and structure in describing the landscape of the security partnership between Turkey and the United States, c the intact nature of the pillars of the U.
Before concluding, however, let it be assumed that the entire analysis in this paper is wrong, and that Turkey is indeed careening away from its Atlantic allies. Where can Turkey go? Ostensibly, the expectation is for Turkey to emerge as a challenger to the United States in its perceived sphere of influence and to join, with Russia and China, an "axis of the excluded. This critique, however, reflects a distorted understanding of Ankara's rationale. Turkey has ambitious plans to expand its defense exports.
Considering that Turkey lacks the defense-industrial base to indigenously design and develop its own air defense system, it is only reasonable to leverage acquisition power for optimal conditions in joint production, technology transfer and export prospects. Turkey's concerns are not exclusive. Ankara knew that its deal with China was less than optimal, as there are strong concerns about the Chinese platform.
The Atlantic Council's James Hasik described what Turkey was acquiring as "the air defense equivalent 'of a Hyundai,' which would not be a good deal even at a Volkswagen price. In other words, Ankara was moving forward with China because it was hearing in the Western objections to its missile-defense plans echoed of David Cameron's remarks: Turkey's alliance with China was one of necessity, not preference. Indeed, just as this article was going into print, Turkey announced that it is canceling not only its contract talks with the Chinese but the entire missile-defense tender and instead moving forward with an indigenous program.
This is another instance of Turkey's forcing its hand but eventually turning around to support the Alliance's policies. Further evidence that Turkey remains firmly entrenched in the Western camp is found in the Turkish reaction to increased Russian involvement in Syria. Instead, he bemoaned, "Turkey is bearing the brunt of the crisis in Syria whereas the U. He called Russian involvement in Syria a "grave mistake While Russia's entrance into the Syrian game will inevitably push Turkey closer to the United States, this should not be expected to bring Turkey into lockstep with Washington.
But in a scenario where Turkey is threatened by such an entity or by the PKK's efforts to use it as its backyard, cooperation would be impossible and Turkey could come into conflict with a U. As Hugh Pope astutely observed, the narrative moves in cycles.
Every now and then, someone asks, "Who lost Turkey? But this time, there is a difference: Turkey is seeking to upgrade itself from a "junior partner" to a "regional power. In reality, both Washington and Ankara are beholden to each other. As the saying goes, better the devil you know; after half a century, one comes to know one's devil pretty well. This is not to say that the future of the U. In , Pope wrote that a "reason to be more sanguine about Turkey's foreign policy is that, despite recent strains, the fundamentals of Turkey's alliances with the West have not changed.
The idea of "the West" does not have the moral, political and economic weight it used to carry. It is not as powerful as it used to be, morally or economically. Turkey has its face turned towards the West, but its feet are standing in the East. A future where the West's allure fades holds the specter of an illiberal resurgence.
It is this angst that the persistent fears of "losing Turkey" are anchored in. The remedy to these fears, however, is to pull Turkey towards the West, not push it further away by failing to heed its legitimate political, economic and security interests, and throwing tantrums when Turkey seeks to assert those interests on its own.
A robust alliance between the United States and Turkey cannot be premised on turning Ankara around to Washington's policies kicking and screaming. It can only endure through a constructive dialogue between Turkey and its allies towards identifying the fulcrum that keeps a delicate balance between Turkey's legitimate security interests and the broader objectives of its allies. A partnership that covers Turkey's legitimate security interests would also have a centripetal effect, pulling Turkey closer to the West. Entrenching Turkey's perception of exclusion and double standards would have a centrifugal effect, pushing Turkey away from the moral and political axis of the Atlantic Alliance.
Turkey between Copenhagen and Iraq. Gelb, "Face It, Obama. Countrywide Conflict Report 4 , September 11, , Deputy PM," September 22, Center for American Progress, March 12, Gordon and Omer Taspinar, Winning Turkey: Whither the River Flows? Does Turkey Dissociate from the West? Underlying Dynamics and a Critique," Insight Turkey 13, no.
Waltz, Man, the State, and War: Byman and Kenneth M. How Iraq Has Spoiled U. Past and Present," Middle Eastern Studies 44, no.
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Past, Present, and Future , 91— Jenkins, Between Fact and Fantasy: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, August, How to move forward; Position: Resuscitate the nuclear swap deal," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , 66, no. The Slow Demise of U. Axis of the Excluded? There were times when Turkey was seen as the good country, when Turkey was the model, and Turkey showed the Middle East how it could develop and how progress could be made — a multiplier of Western values and market economics in the region.
And then, almost inexplicably, there would be moments when Turkey was the bad country, Turkey had gone rogue.