Turkey's Foreign Policy in the 21st Century

A Changing Role in World Politics

Mustafa Aydin, Tareq Y. Ismael

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351773881
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Title first published in 2003. In this insightful book, the authors explore Turkey's role within a globalizing world and, as a new century unfolds, examine a nation at the crossroads of both time and space within the international political order. Chapters consider Turkey's policy history, its prospects and policy issues and discuss them with positive alternatives outlined for Turkish policy-makers and the academics who examine them.

PART I: TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY IN A NEW CENTURY

Chapter 1

Twenty Years Before, Twenty Years After: Turkish Foreign Policy at the Threshold of the 21st Century

Mustafa Aydın

We are witnessing momentous changes in the international system. None, perhaps, was so greatly welcomed as the end of the Cold War. As the Berlin Wall crumbled, the Eastern Europeans took their future into their own hands and the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Cold War was declared over and the World anticipated the dawn of an unprecedented era of peace, stability and democracy. Today, unfortunately, the wisdom of these anticipations is questioned. The initial optimism and euphoria have been silenced by extremely grave problems that have subsequently developed. The community of nations was either ill prepared to recognise such problems or simply too slow in preventing them. However, if one thing is certain today, it is the ‘change’ that the international system has experienced and continues to be influenced by.

Amidst the dust created by the important systemic changes that we have experienced since the end of the Cold War in 1989, Turkey, once a distant outpost of NATO on the European periphery, has emerged as an important actor, poised to play a leading role across a vast region extending ‘from eastern Europe to western China’.¹ This change in Turkey’s status, however, was not accidental, but due to wider changes experienced within and around Turkey during the 1980s.

Today, Turkey is a country on the move. The roots and dynamics of this lie in the changes that affected her throughout the 1980s and 1990s, changes without which she could not have expected to benefit from her new role as it emerged in the international arena after the end of the Cold War. It is not exactly certain where this movement will take Turkey. However, taking into account general principles of foreign policy making in Turkey together with recent developments that force change, we may project the possible future paths for her external relations.

In today’s world, while interdependence is being intensified with mind-blowing speed, ‘change’ is the most pronounced word that has become a byword for development and progress. This of course makes prediction a difficult business in international relations. It also increases the suspicions and concerns about the expectations and capabilities of the countries that could be influential within their sub-regions, which are not yet stabilised within the ‘new world order’ context, and thus makes their realistic analysis imperative for world security and peace in general.

Turkey is one of the most affected countries from the cyclical systemic changes in world politics. Another important attribute of Turkey that makes her interesting to our analysis is that her internal political system as well as socio-economic dynamics is changing in parallel to the international system. Sure enough, ‘change’ is one of the consistencies of Turkish daily life. Since the military coup d’état of 12 September 1980, Turkey has experienced fundamental changes in every field. Her political structure, her economic system, social strata, cultural patterns, religious expressions, and of course her foreign policy, have all had their share of fast evolving developments. Turkey at the end of the decade was a largely transformed country and the impetus for change is still visible. At the same time, while the constant change became the rule within the country, Turkey, from a reverse angle, is considered a stability factor within her surrounding unstable and insecure region. Therefore, as a country expected to play an important role in regional and global politics in the coming years, analysis of Turkey’s security and foreign policies are important not only for the understanding of the said country but also for world peace and stability.

Balance of Last 20 Years in Turkey and the World

While the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signified the beginning of the end for the system that the international community had become used to during the Cold War, for Turkey it introduced new difficulties in her foreign and security policies. During the Cold War, Turkey’s foreign policy was conducted within well-know parameters and with age-old policies. Even though the nuclear bipolarity carried within it the dangers of a possible global catastrophe, it also provided a stable, balanced, well known and thus a ‘secure’ environment for countries like Turkey. Within this system, Turkey, entrusting her security to NATO membership and the USA’s nuclear umbrella, was occupied in her foreign policy with well-delineated problems such as the Aegean and Cyprus.

In this context, Turkey, with the principles developed since the establishment of the republic, followed a foreign policy known for its high degree of rationality, sense of responsibility, long-term perspective and ‘realism found in few developing nations’.² What’s more, the governments, like most of the Turkish people during the 1970s, were engulfed with a struggle for survival while the leftist and rightist groups continuously killed each other on the streets, and thus refrained largely to take a new initiative in foreign policy

This picture has changed because of two important developments, one internal and the other external. The internal development was the 12 September 1980 coup d’état and the dilemmas that it brought for the country. Externally, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the international system that we had become so used to sent shock waves throughout the Turkish foreign policy-making structure necessitating a re-evaluation. The September 12 coup unleashed number of forces that had long-term implications for Turkish foreign policy.

i)First of all, upon takeover, the military decided to promote Turgut Özal to the post of state minister responsible for economics. Before the takeover, he was part of the technical team that prepared the ‘January 24th Economic Austerity Measures’. This decision showed that the military intended to follow the economic policies that had been introduced by the previous civilian government. This had a number of important implications for Turkey’s foreign policy.

While the January 24 decisions opted for structural change for the country’s economic system, it rested on three pillars: more exports, more foreign capital flow towards Turkey, and more foreign borrowing. The significance of these for foreign policy is that, in addition to Turkey’s willingness and perseverance, all three were dependent on the willingness of other states to comply with Turkey’s wishes: that is, their willingness to buy more Turkish goods, to invest more in Turkey, and to supply more aid to Turkey. This, on the one hand, forced the internationalisation of the Turkish economy leading to increased vulnerability, while on the other hand,it brought about a new concept for Turkish foreign policy making: economy-politic or political economy.

This meant that Turkey could not conduct her foreign policy with only a ‘security’ dimension as she had done previously. The Foreign Ministry, in addition to its other duties, was forced now to follow worldwide economic trends and to contribute to the economic development of the country with an ‘active’ foreign policy. Hence, the parameters of foreign policy making in Turkey was expanded, and diplomats and politicians became actively involved in promoting Turkey’s and its businessmen’s economic priorities in the international arena.

ii) Another important aspect of the September 12 coup for Turkish foreign policy-making was that it brought up allegations of torture and the country’s human rights record indicating a failure of democratisation in general, which moved to the top of the political agenda both inside and outside the country. This process that started with the coup d’état forced the internationalisation of Turkey’s domestic politics. Then, the institutionalisation of this practice with the transformation of the Helsinki Process, first to CSCE and later on to OSCE along with the recognition of Turkey’s full membership status in the EU, indicated a new area that Turkey did not have to dwell on during the Cold War: Internationalisation of Turkey’s domestic political problems. This has created a constant restraint on governments, and as such had effects both on the country’s domestic political evaluation and on her foreign relations as well.

iii)Another effect of the September 12 coup on Turkish foreign policy came with the decision to force out all the former politicians from active politics. This enabled new faces to enter politics with new ideas. These ‘new faces’, starting with Turgut Özal and continuing with Murat Karayaçın, Mesut Yılmaz and Tansu Çiller, promoted an ‘active foreign policy’ discourse for Turkey, trying to emphasise their differences with past political leaders. While the discussion of the positive and negative outcomes of this discourse, which was a natural reaction in part to the inactivity of Turkish foreign policy during the 1970s, is beyond the scope of this paper, it is obvious that this new discourse brought about a newfound dynamism to Turkish foreign policy.

While these events were happening within Turkey, forcing the country to new openings, the decade that started with the September 12 coup in Turkey, ended with a new development outside Turkey: The Cold War suddenly ended and the bipolar international system disappeared, leaving behind an uncertain and vague international structure.

It is stated above that Turkey struggled with known problems within well-known parameters during the Cold War. The international system that made possible this policy was the stable character of the Cold War. Everything was rather easy while we knew where and how the threat came. The end of the Cold War, however, has changed this. The game that we played for 45 years ended and was replaced by a new game, the rules of which were not yet known. Therefore, while the new era suddenly signified the emergence of new problems for Turkey, it became clear that Turkey could not follow the foreign polices that were formulated under the tranquillity of the Cold War.

i)First of all, the abandonment of the Communist regime and attempts for democratisation of politics within Russia and other newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, improved the possibility of global cooperation transcending the enmities of the Cold War. However, since then, in the absence of clearly defined mechanisms for preventing regional conflicts in the post-Cold War era, perpetual instability within the new states, and tensions among them, have created a serious risk of interstate military clashes and widespread civil war in the heart of Eurasia, where Turkey is situated.

ii)Additionally, the political implosion of the Soviet system has undermined the international alliances originally designed to counter Soviet expansionism and has created a major risk of socio-political instability extending far beyond former Soviet territories into the nearby countries of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

iii)Moreover, many former Soviet regions and nationalities that once seemed of marginal significance for an understanding of international relations have become critically important. The model that these people should emulate in their quest for national identities, political and economic development, and new international alliances has became a source of controversy not only within these republics but also among the nearby countries and global actors, more so because some of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear capacity was inherited by the newly independent, and yet unstable, states.

iv)Furthermore, a somewhat natural extension of the end of the Cold War has been the diminishing importance of old East-West division of the international system, being replaced with a new line dividing North and South. In such an emerging division, where bi-polarity of the Cold War era had disappeared, it seems inevitable that regional concerns will play a more important role in determining the course of the international relations in the foreseeable future than the ‘interests and restraints related with global concerns’.³ Thus, a struggle between aspiring regional hegemons for supremacy within the various sub-systems of the international system, including the Balkans, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, seems to be the likely order of the day.

With these general observations in mind we may suggest a working proposition of the following factors as contributing to Turkish foreign policy formulation during the first quarter of the 21st century: the nature of the domestic political regime and external perceptions and reactions towards it; Socio-Economic dynamics; the structure and composition of the policy-making system; and external environmental circumstances.

Structure of the Political System and its International Reflections

In any political system domestic issues have an important bearing on the formulation and substance of foreign policy, though the extent and nature of this influence varies with a nation’s political system.⁴ There are differences between parliamentary democracies; guided democracies (of which Turkey was an example during the second half of 1980s); authoritarian governments (as the military regime of 1980-1983 could be categorized); and totalitarian regimes. In democracies, the government has to contend with political parties, the interests these parties represent, the desire to further improve standard of living, traditions, ethics, religion, and a multitude of pressure groups. Moreover, in democracies, the very nature of democratic multiplicity of interests rarely, if ever, permits unanimous approval of a policy. Thus to maintain political equilibrium, democratic governments must rule by compromise. They have to trade one principle against other. Consequently, democratic administrations may make internal concessions to gain endorsement for foreign policies or, vice-versa, sacrifice foreign policies in order to carry out domestic measures.

The political system of a country is also significant in terms of the decisionmaking process and responsibilities, and it determines powers, focus and the mechanisms of decisions in foreign policy.⁵ The institutional structure in a country, at a minimum, ‘determines the amount of the total social effort which can be devoted to foreign policy’.⁶ Aside from the allocation of resources, the domestic structure crucially affects the way the actions of other states are interpreted. Without denying the importance of other factors, the actual choice of policies within states are determined to a considerable degree by the interpretation of the environment by their leaders and their conception of alternatives. Their-understanding of the nature of their choice in turn depends on many factors, including their experience during the rise to eminence, the structure in which they must operate, and the values of their society.

Moreover, in the contemporary period, the very nature of the governmental structure introduces an element of rigidity that operates more or less independently of the convictions of statesmen or the ideology it represents. Daily issues are usually too complex and relevant facts too manifold to be dealt with on the basis of personal intuition. Therefore, a vast bureaucratic mechanism emerges within the states to aid the leaders to choose between options. In today’s society, there are few government offices that do not contribute to foreign policy-making in one form or another. While doing this, however, in time, they, too, develop a momentum and a vested interest of their own, and certain governmental influences may be brought to bear upon the administrators of foreign affairs. When this happens, of course, bureaucracy becomes an obstacle to policy-makers and thus they may try to overcome it.

In the modem world, the political leadership in most societies acts in order to maintain the security of their national state,⁷ so much so that foreign and security policies have merged to the point where statesmen and military strategists must collaborate closely.⁸ Therefore, it goes without saying that military leaders are needed for expert advice, and it is possible that their considered opinion can strongly influence policy decisions. However, it is the responsibility of the decisionmakers to determine, if they can, ‘how much influence the military may be permitted to exert on foreign policy decisions and whether military personnel should be permitted to state conflicting views in public’.⁹ Whether the influence of military leaders can be kept within bounds by a civilian government will always be crucial to a nation’s position in international affairs and to its own internal politics. Since Turkey was under outright military dictatorship between 1980-1983 and even after 1983 the military was effective in determining policies in the country, the civil-military relationship and the foreign policy-making of the military regime are important aspects of this paper.

During the 1980s, Turkey passed through different regimes. The decade started with a period of multi-party democracy, which was entrapped by mounting terrorism and rampant economic disasters, and which was abruptly interrupted by the September 12 coup d’état. What followed was three years of outright military dictatorship and a transitional period that finally gave way once again to a multiparty parliament, if not full democracy. Thus, from the outset, it might seem that Turkish politics ended the decade where it had originally started. However, appearances are mostly deceptive in the social sciences. Thus, the Turkey of December 3, 1990, when the Chief of Staff, General Torumtay, resigned because the governing framework at the top clashed with his ‘principles and understanding of what the state should be’,¹⁰ or the Turkey of February 28, 1997, when the Generals, Who thought that the survival of the Turkish state was at stake, chose to work within th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I: TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY IN A NEW CENTURY
• PART II: TURKEY AND THE WEST
• PART III: TURKEY AND ITS NEIGHBORS
• Index