Quest for Strategic Autonomy Continues, or How to Make Sense of Turkey's "New Wave"

8/3/2019 Quest for Strategic Autonomy Continues, or How to Make Sense of Turkey's "New Wave"

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Summary: This brief responds

to a recent On Turkey brief by

Ian O. Lesser, which had argued

that Turkey’s “third wave” will be

characterized by the search for

strategic reassurance, mainly

through Ankara’s greater reliance

on Turkey’s traditional Western

allies. Kardas rebuts that the

quest for strategic autonomy

of the past years still instructs

Turkish leaders’ thinking on inter-

national affairs, and says this is

unlikely to disappear. An analysis

taking into account the role of

political actors and personalities

in the making of Turkey’s regional

policies suggests that even in

this current risk-prone security

environment, which clearly led

to Turkey revaluing partnership

and coordinated actions with theWest, the country will still cling

to the pre-Arab world behavioral

traits of self-condence, asser-

tiveness, and coolness towards

the West. Turkey will not trade its

strategic autonomy for reassur-

ance and deterrence This will

be so, at least as long as the AK

Party’s currently unchallenged

reign lasts.

Analysis

Quest for Strategic Autonomy Continues, or

How to Make Sense of Turkey’s “New Wave”

by Şaban Kardaş

November 28, 2011

Washington, DC• Berlin • Paris • Brussels

BelgraDe • ankara • BuCharest • WarsaW

O f f i c e s

Analysis

urkey’s pursuit o oreign policy

activism in the midst o the ArabSpring continues unabated and thetransormation o the content o urkey’s regional policies is remark-able. Tere is growing intellectual andanalytical curiosity to dene this newphase o the apparent deviations romAnkara’s positions a year ago.

A welcome contribution is oeredby Ian Lesser in a recent On Turkey piece, “urkey’s Tird Wave — And

the Coming Quest or Strategic Reas-surance,” where he identies a struc-tural transormation, or what he callsthe coming o the “third wave,” inurkish oreign policy. As the permis-sive external environment, which hadenabled the ambitious second wave —i.e., the erosion o security-centered w

orldview and rise o a liberal neighbor-hood policy — eclipses, Lesser expectsurkey to ace a more risk-prone,

unstable, and unpredictable environ-ment. With the return o security questions in this third wave, urkey is advised to make a meta choice andpursue reassurance and deterrencethrough closer cooperation with itstraditional partners in the West, withwhich it increasingly has overlappingsecurity concerns, and avoid unilater-alism or nationalism.

Tis brie advances Lesser’s analysis

one step urther by asking what theextent to which urkish leaders willseize the moment in the manner headvises them to do might be.

Getting the Drivers of the “Waves”

Right: Beware the Structural

Determinism

Explaining oreign policy behavior by using structural actors, or instancewhether states operate in peaceulor conict-ridden neighborhoods,

is a well-established tradition ininternational relations scholarship.Subscribing to that structuralistpremise, Lesser asserts that what madepossible urkey’s abandoning o asecurity-centric worldview and pursuito liberal policies such as zero prob-lems with neighbors was the benignregional environment urkish leadersound themselves in. Te changingsecurity environment, the argumentgoes, is driving the recent redenitiono urkey’s oreign policy.

As someone who also believes inthe analytical value o the structuralperspective, I understand how theexternal security environment wasa major causal orce inuencing themaking o urkey’s recent regionalpolicies under the AK Party. Nonethe-less, it was not the only causal variable



Analysis

2

Analysis

look at the driving motive behind urkey’s regional policies

during the AK Party’s term in oce. At the core o urkey’sregional policy has been its leaders’ ceaseless search or stra-tegic autonomy. While this quest is common to many ascen-dant regional powers, in the urkish context, it is nicely captured in Ahmet Davutoglu’s concept o “central country.”Tis concept is particularly relevant in this context, as weare dealing with actors that are equipped with a sense o mission and responsibility to redesign the destiny o theircountry afer their own worldview.

Beore the Arab Spring, urkey’s assertion o strategicautonomy was expressed through increasing conver-gence with other regional powers, coupled with search

or building various global partnerships. Ankara’s eortsto develop a nascent multi-dimensional partnership withRussia, bolster economic and security ties with ehran,create cooperation schemes in the surrounding regions,and normalize political relations with neighbors were themost indicative maniestations o the new thinking. Overallurkey proessed a dualistic attitude o declaring a commit-ment to the country’s Western orientation on one hand, andacting independently rom its Western partners, accompa-nied by occasional rhetorical criticism o the West, on theother.

Tus, a distinguishing element o the second wave, whichmade Ankara’s new orientation a subject o intense debate,was urkish leaders’ daring attitude, as at times they riskedconrontation with the United States in pursuit o strategicautonomy in their region. Teirs was not conrontationor its own sake, however, or the United States more ofenthan not was perceived as a potential hindrance to urkey’sautonomy and a source o threat to its security. While Lesseraptly describes the role o the benign security environmentin inducing autonomous action, we need to add to this

At the core of Turkey’s regional

policy has been its leaders’

ceaseless search for strategic

autonomy.

at work. As other competing schools o thought on interna-

tional relations argue when asserting the eect o externalenvironment on state behavior, one has to be careul toavoid alling into the trap o structural determinism anddownplaying the role o agency. Political actors are nottragic prisoners o their external environment, nor are they the switchmen who mechanically translate systemic eectsinto oreign policy decisions. Tey actively seek to shapetheir strategic environment and enact policies reecting theworldviews to which they subscribe.

Agency o the ruling elite was an equally and perhapsmore eective variable as the benign security environ-

ment driving urkey’s regional policies when the country embraced liberal policies and an independent posturingtowards the West during the second wave. In addition tothe benign external environment, Lesser indeed cites othercausal actors such as urkey’s economic growth, the spreado a less hawkish security culture within the urkish publicopinion, and the decline o PKK’s terror campaign, yetmentions personality only in passing.

None o those actors, however, emerged coincidentally,nor were they independent rom the way the AK Party perceived urkey’s identity, interests, and internationalpositioning, and conducted oreign and domestic policies.For instance, it is unclear i a dierent party in governmentwould have achieved the same degree o economic success,nurtured a liberal security culture within urkish body politic, and perceived the regional environment as benign,even i it was operating under the same structural condi-tions. Let’s not orget that while the AK Party was aggres-sively pursuing normalization o relations with Armenia,Syria, or northern Iraq, it had to conront and take politicalrisks against almost all political actors — including theopposition parties — and at times its own political constitu-ency that were advocating the continuation o the security-

centric oreign policy understanding o the rst wave. Eventhe argument that the PKK-related security threats werecontained begs to acknowledge that this was partly becauseo the specic nonmilitary policy the AK Party pursued toresolve the Kurdish question.

Quest for Strategic Autonomy: Now and Then

o expand on Lesser’s analysis with insights rom an alter-native theoretical perspective considering personality anda sense o active agency as critical variables, we need to



Analysis

3

Analysis

Turkey’s handling of the Arab

Spring resonates well with Western

positions and is increasingly

undertaken in tandem.

picture how the United States conjecturally emerged as the

element o instability and risk against which urkey soughtassurance and deterrence. Te case o the Iraq war and itsafermath bear witness to the strategic rationale behindurkey’s simultaneous quests or convergence with neigh-bors and divergence with the United States.

In recent months, urkish leaders have denitely takennote o the changing geopolitical environment and reca-librated their oreign policy. urkey’s relations with Iranhave been going through a phase o more distance andeven run the risk o creating riction over the deploymento NAO’s early warning radars or over opposing positions

undertaken towards the Arab Spring. In shared neighbor-hoods with Russia, a similar cooling down o the passionor cooperation might be observed. Te risks and threats, aswell as geopolitical realignments likely to ensue in the wakeo regional turmoil, raise the stakes or urkey’s security.Consequently, while urkey’s oreign policy lacked a strongdeense and security policy component in the security environment in the Middle East prior to the Arab Spring,rising risk in the region has prompted urkey to pay greaterattention to security and deense policy, and hence come toreassess the value o NAO in the toolkit o urkish oreignpolicy as a reliable orce projection instrument and agenda-

setting platorm. Likewise, urkey’s handling o the ArabSpring resonates well with Western positions and is increas-ingly undertaken in tandem.

Just as in the old days, however, urkey’s behavior is drivenby the same objective as ever. Partnership with the West, atthis current juncture, is a valuable instrument as long as itenhances Ankara’s ability to meet the new challenges andexpands the room to maneuver, not because o its inherent value. Te quest or strategic autonomy still instructsurkish leaders’ thinking on international aairs, and isunlikely to disappear.

Expect the Continuation of the Dualistic

Approach toward the WestA more nuanced analysis taking into account the role o political actors and personalities in the making o urkey’sregional policies suggests that even in this current risk-prone security environment, which clearly led to urkey revaluing partnership and coordinated actions with theWest, the country will still cling to the pre-Arab worldbehavioral traits o sel-condence, assertiveness, and cool-ness towards the West. Tis will be so, at least as long as theAK Party’s currently unchallenged reign lasts.

Te voices coming rom urkey’s leaders as they respond to

Syria clearly attest to this. Despite the ailure o the under-lying tenets o their policy in the case o Libya, they stillcontinue to operate rom a similar mindset and advocatepolicies based on the same conceptual ramework. Tepolicy convergence with the West on Damascus’ ongoing violent crackdown has not altered the political discourseo urkish leaders on questions pertaining to the issuescrosscutting the West and their Middle Eastern neighbor-hood. Illustratively, despite his being hailed by U.S. leadersand media outlets, Prime Minister Recip ayyip Erdoğancontinues the same rhetoric questioning the West’s moralcredentials.

One can debate whether this discussion o an independentoreign policy might be political posturing or domesticconsumption or is a reection o actual policy preerences.What is clear is that despite their adaptation to the trans-ormations in their strategic environment and the emergingnew geopolitical reality in the Middle East, urkish leaders’West-skeptic rhetoric will persist along with an enhancedstrategic partnership with the United States. Such a dual-istic attitude might remain as an interesting pattern in theurkish-U.S. relationship in the years to come.

Tere are reasons to expect this dualistic attitude to persist.For their part, urkish leaders realize that they have notpaid any signicant price or their conrontation withWashington over either the Iranian nuclear programor Russia’s reassertion o inuence in the Black Sea andCaucasus. Tere appeared to be no strategic restraintpresenting disincentives against this controversial dualisticpath. Even in this new phase in the post-Arab Spring era,when urkish leaders receive ample amount o applause



Analysis

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Analysis

About the Author

Dr. Şaban Kardaş works as an assistant proessor o international rela-

tions in the Department o International Relations at OBB University

o Economics and echnology in Ankara.

About GMF

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

tisan American public policy and grantmaking institution dedicated

to promoting better understanding and cooperation between North

America and Europe on transatlantic and global issues. GMF does this

by supporting individuals and institutions working in the transatlantic

sphere, by convening leaders and members o the policy and business

communities, by contributing research and analysis on transatlantic

topics, and by providing exchange opportunities to oster renewed

commitment to the transatlantic relationship. In addition, GMF

supports a number o initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded

in 1972 through a gif rom Germany as a permanent memorial to

Marshall Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both

sides o the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington,

DC, GMF has seven oces in Europe: Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade,

Ankara, Bucharest, and Warsaw. GMF also has smaller representations

in Bratislava, urin, and Stockholm.

About the On Turkey Series

GMF’s On urkey is an ongoing series o analysis bries about urkey’scurrent political situation and its uture. GMF provides regular analy-

sis bries by leading urkish, European, and American writers and

intellectuals, with a ocus on dispatches rom on-the-ground urkish

observers. o access the latest bries, please visit our web site at www.

gmus.org/turkey or subscribe to our mailing list at http://database.

gmus.org/reaction.

rom their U.S. counterparts, they see no reason to abandon

the same dualistic attitude.

The Questions to Ponder

Lesser rightly posits that urkey might need greater stra-tegic reassurance and deterrence in the days ahead. Indeed,the partnership with the United States can serve as one signicant strategic asset or such tasks in these turbulenttimes. o complete Lesser’s thought exercise, we need toaddresses several questions about the other side o the coin.

First, it would be worthwhile to take a closer look at thelimits to U.S. power and credibility. urkish decision-

makers are also ollowing the debate on the transition to apost-American world closely. For them, it is increasingly ar rom certain that the United States can make crediblecommitments to urkey, or that it commands the where-withal to act as a strategic anchor to reassure urkey anddeter threats to its security in the volatile Middle East. Tey also increasingly realize that the United States need reli-able allies such as urkey to protect its interests or achieveits objectives in strategically important regions, and advisethe world’s superpower to avoid unilateralism. I it wantedto reassure urkey, the United States would be well advisedto avoid reckless behavior that may trigger urkey’s anxiety

and prompt it to seek strategic autonomy through realign-ments with other powers.

Short o a more serious debate on those questions, it will beincomplete to talk about a new wave o urkey’s regionalpolicies or, at the very least, its contents. Te quest orstrategic autonomy might provide a clue or those seekingto make sense o the new era. Even without a crystal ball, itcan be saely assumed that urkey will not trade its strategicautonomy or reassurance and deterrence. Be preparedto see some o the same old wine in a new bottle: policy convergence with the West accompanied by desire or

autonomous action and rhetorical criticism o the West.

Quest for Strategic Autonomy Continues, or How to Make Sense of Turkey's "New Wave"

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