The concept of security is treated as one of the key and central concepts of Turkish foreign policy (TFP) which consequentially attracted a focus of academic studies on it. In line with this focus, the debates highlighted and focused different discourses assuming that discourses reflected the respective period with its distinctive decision and narration of that decision. If that foreign policy decision was regarded as materialization of thoughts into actions, then it can also be suggested that foreign policy decision inherently consists of strategy. Security strategy —strategy relevant to security realm—is also an indispensable part of Turkish foreign policy. In fact, foreign policy as the process of implementation in a predetermined strategy—praxis of agent (Turkey)—within the security context that is formulated in dialectical interaction with structure and its causal forces carries on both intrinsic thought and action. What is highlighted here is the process of how the perception of agent shapes the security strategy. Security is accepted as “a relative concept” (Booth 2007, 105), but it should also be treated as a reflective one, since agency is an indispensable and intrinsic part of security. This reflexivity stems from the perception of agents which is not shaped in a vacuum that negates external inputs. On the contrary, strategy formulation takes place within a structured context, in which agency introduces its awareness, consciousness , and subjectivity into the process of both strategy articulation and implementation . The reason for highlighting this relationship stems from the fact that strategy from its articulation to its representation and conduct takes place within the dialectical process of agent and structure. Agency through its encounter with structure develops a reading of encompassing situation and creates a picture of the situation that consists of constraints and enablers stemming from both structure and attributes of agents. As the outcome of this encounter, a thought in the mind of agent appears that would be poured into strategy articulation. Furthermore, agency, beyond merely pouring thought into action, tends to represent its strategy through discourse . Then, the conduct of strategy follows this representation process.
What is illustrated in Table 1.1 highlights the process of strategy that emerges within dialectical interaction of agency and structure . This argument is based on the assumption that strategy is an agential and ideational endeavor that is defined, designed, and formulated to overcome the undesired effects of present and existing structure with a determination to create new future conditions that are more conducive for unconstrained thoughts and actions. Hence, strategy emerges within a historical process that is constantly affected and shaped with the inputs of past experiences. Essentially, strategizing can be regarded as point of decision to change existing conditions with intended ones. Hence, it can be suggested that “strategy is what states make of it” (Yalvaç 2012, 166). Here, strategy is conceived as a process of projecting thought beyond spatio-temporal conditions of the present. Or, put differently, strategizing is a process of carrying thought over existing space and time. The words of Mustafa Kemal , “they will go, as they came” in his correspondence with Sultan Vahdettin before initiating the National Struggle , exemplify this future and change-oriented nature of strategy . But, the significant point from the argumentative perspective of this book is the question of how strategy is represented in discourses. Focusing on discursive aspect of strategy, which is an agential activity too, brings about the need to take into account the role of discourses as the politics of representation. In the case of TFP, several discourses gained significance in different periods, reflecting security strategy in their respective periods.
Table 1.1
Process of strategy within agent-structure dialectics
Agency | Structure | |
|---|---|---|
Thought | Agency tries to portray the spatio-temporal conditions of the context through its consciousness in order to alter the undesired conditions of the existing situation | Structure dialectically shapes the thought in line with agential capacity to act consciously. However, structure cannot be conceived and be known comprehensively. But, the nature of context and agency’s consciousness determine the level of awareness of the agency |
Strategy | Agency identifies ends and allocates means in line with the needs of structure | Structure and its specific context either constrain or enable both means and ends |
Discourse | Agency represents strategy with discourse in order to make known its strategy either explicitly or implicitly depending on its preferences | Structure, with its unobservable generative mechanisms that are beyond the conceptions of agency, distorts what is spoken |
Action | Agency operationalizes strategy as conduct | Structure and its causal forces together with other agential strategies either constrain or enable strategy to produce outcomes. Unobservable generative mechanisms that are beyond the conceptions of agency cause the (in)congruence between what is spoken and what is actualized |
Literature Review and Contribution
The main determinants of strategy in TFP are analyzed from varying perspectives, in line with the existing theories of international relations. However, adopting a categorization relying on existing theories may not provide a thorough snapshot of existing literature. Hence, to open new venues for analysis, changing vantage point from theory to meta-theory and adopting a categorization based on the philosophy of science will reveal the gaps of existing studies.
This book adopts an approach and categorization developed by Yalvaç, given his studies are also based on meta-theoretical divergence from existing literature (Yalvaç 2014). Existing literature is based on mainly three contending philosophies of science, which are positivist accounts consisting of realism and liberalism, post-positivist and post-structural accounts encompassing constructivism and post-modernism, and critical realism covering historical materialism and historical-sociological approaches. What differs and what converges among them, in terms of meta-theory, is the fact that each diverges or converges by their respective approach to epistemology, ontology, and methodology, as the main components of meta-theory .
Meta-theory focuses on the formulation of theories that enable to explain subject matter that is under scrutiny, while theories are founded upon a meta-theoretical basis in explaining reality. However, what is accepted as reality differentiates with their respective epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions. Adoption of a categorization in these terms relies on the fact that critical realism is not an IR theory but a philosophy of science with its own ontological, epistemological and methodological commitments which are considerably distinctive from its positivism and post-positivism alternatives (Kurki and Wight 2009, 27).
Analyzing strategy and strategic discourses in Turkish foreign policy is inherently laden with some difficulties, due to the nature of the problem that is to be answered in this study. Conceptually, each of the terms—strategy, discourse and foreign policy—has its own literature and debates. Nevertheless, discussions held before on approaching contextual inputs of strategy had offered some underpinnings to locate the discussion on a process of strategy, the materialization of thought—an idea—into discourse and action.
Positivist approaches to analyses of Turkey’s security strategy followed a similar trait of mainstream theories of IR discipline, covering mainly realism and liberalism, while the former has dominated the field. Realist understanding of power is tried to be enriched by employing the role of geography on politics. This approach essentially treated foreign policy with a state-centric, atomistic, rationalist, power-oriented, militaristic, and security-focused understanding that excludes social aspects of states. However, reduction of security to military inadvertently reduces strategy to available means, which excludes genuine nature of the concept that consists of its generative context. What is ignored actually constitutes the ends of strategy. In fact, given the philosophical orientation of realism, it can be seen as a natural outcome.
Positivist understanding of science is based primarily on the separation of objects and subjects, facts and values. Borrowing from Adorno, who states that “all reification is forgetting” (Jones 1999, 107), security is generalized and reified at the end to take into account only tangible elements of power, while excluding intangible ones. Exclusion in that sense brings about a study of strategy that focuses merely on means, because of treating reality as a phenomenon that is given. Reification of social aspects of reality and phenomena leads to exclusionary perspective of the state that consists of intrinsic social aspects which allow to take into account agential ends. The studies on Turkish foreign policy and strategy followed the mainstream tendencies and have not much deviated from mainstream line of thinking (Yalvaç 2014, 119; Bilgin 2012; Uzgel 2007).
Even though the realist analyses dominate the existing literature, it is widely discussed and criticized by the scholars as well, arguing that realism is accepted as the only game in town due to the unique “geopolitical location” (Aydın 1999, 152) of Turkey which brought about a “geopolitics dogma ” (Bilgin 2012) in time. Taking geopolitics and realism at the center of analysis reduced the formulation of strategy to available means that could be run for ends that are determined by the anarchic nature of international system. However, excluding ends inevitably brings about an understanding of strategy that is formulated upon available means. On the other hand, the shortage of means in eliminating threats is tried to be mitigated by employing balance of power politics that was enabled with geography , since geopolitical location is treated as a remedy to the shortage of means. This trade-off, rather than an agential preference, is stemmed from the loss of ability to determine the true agential preferences out of agential subjectivity and will. The outcome of this process was ahistoric, problem-solving, and event-driven understanding of developments (Yalvaç 2014, 119), which has constantly running the risk of losing consciousness or developing a false-consciousness. In fact, a more discernible outcome, from...