What reasons may have existed for Turkey’s real or alleged change of course in the face of Sweden’s accession to NATO? Beyond the news and more or less informed analytical attempts, let’s see what’s at the bottom of the matter.
It has been said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have been subdued or seduced by the United States; that there may have been some profound difference with the government of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, about whose nature little has been said. And finally, it has been claimed that he engineered a major win in the poker game of Middle East geostrategic relations. Perhaps the truth is not so easy to unravel or so obvious. Let’s see why: first of all, it is necessary to note that Erdogan, as the premier of a country that was an empire until a little over a century ago, yearns for the old order of Ottoman power in the Middle East. The country’s vision of him as an essential factor in the chess of the great region counts without a doubt and not in any way.
The game of his foreign policy has been characterized by his desire to turn his country into a bridge between the West (especially the European Union), their Muslim counterparts and the Turkic peoples in Central and East Asia. In addition, it is evident that they want to play a leadership role between the Muslim world in general and those who are not. Otán is an important country, among other things, for the West because it has the two access keys for the Russian fleet from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean (the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits). But, at the same time, an autonomist claim against the dictates of the West is ostensible, both within its territory and in the neighborhood.
Turkey is a country that has struggled to become a member of the European Union for decades, but its candidacy has met with endless setbacks in the European Commission. Some officials (mainly from the center-left sectors) consider that they still do not meet the democratic requirements demanded by the Union for its members. For their part, the European right, nationalist as they are, have viewed the candidacy with apprehension for years, as they assume that Turkey is not really European, but Asian. Indeed, the Turks are originally from Central Asia and were considered the ‘enemy’ in Eastern Europe for several centuries. In addition, it is a country with a great demographic weight compared to the rest of Europe; this would give them advantages in the weighted vote within the community institutions, in addition to the migratory factor.
Of course, the historical argument counts, but it also has its counterparts. A situation of tension and even enmity does not have to be eternal, and it can even be replaced by solid alliances. This is the case of the Franco-German alliance, which has been very functional in building the European Union; It has also been the case with the US-Japan alliance, so important in Asia Pacific today, just to cite two examples.
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On its northern front, Turkey has had major confrontations with Russian expansion in the past, since the time of the tsars. Let’s remember that the 20th century opened with a major conflict between Russia and Turkey, with Crimea as the main course. For Türkiye, NATO membership follows the same logic: a defensive support in case of conflict with its biggest geostrategic adversary on the West Asian mainland, that is, with Russia.
It cannot be said that Turkey wishes to uncritically play the game of the United States; neither is the Russian or the European, or the Chinese: it plays with its own interests, like a country that believes that it wants to have greater autonomy, with a clear balance against the powers, be they global or regional.
US pressure thus has its limitations. Even a few years ago, Turkey (as we have said, an Otan country) acquired a sophisticated anti-aircraft defense system from Russia, against the manifest will of Nato. The promise to sell some F-16s means very little in this context. If it were about skills and price, I could have bought, cheaper, Russian Sukhoi planes of the same style as those bought at the time by Chavez’s Venezuela, (the Su-30s), which have similar performance to the American F-16 . Or have acquired the French Rafale, the type of buyers in 2016 for Egypt. In addition, it is not a gift either. It’s a run-of-the-mill business sale. In other words, this issue cannot have been decisive in Erdogan’s change of position with respect to Sweden. Basically, it is a change from its threatening neighbor Russia.
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Nor can the abstract promise to reactivate the roadmap for joining the European Union be definitive. Hello, because this topic and its future development does not depend on the officials in Brussels or on the senior national officials of the different member countries of the Union. It has to be ratified in the parliaments of the 27 EU countries, and in the European Parliament as such. In other words, the dramatic change in attitude cannot be explained by this simple expectation. Of course, the moment seems propitious to avoid the previous apprehensions of the European right-wing governments, now more numerous than a decade ago.
Finally, that Sweden has promised to send some PKK militants back to Turkey is undoubtedly an important fact, especially for the internal Turkish audience; but, by itself, the matter does not seem to have decisive force. On the contrary, the change in position has three basic contents, little explored in the media:
First, in the short term, Türkiye is going through a very important economic crisis. Financial support and the real magnitude of Western markets may have weighed significantly at the time of ‘choosing’ a side. The Russian market is small, due to the reduction in the purchasing power of the inhabitants as a result of the sanctions caused by the war in Ukraine. The strength of Turkey, manufacturing and its migrations, are not applicable to China either due to the low prices of manufacturing in the Asian giant, as well as the large demographics that prevail in this broad market.
Now, in the medium term, Erdogan and his people may have come to the conclusion that Russia has internal problems, which could get out of the hands of the Putin government and become unmanageable; probably feeling that it is unwise to trust in the automatic continuity of foreign policies or in the stability of the Russian Government. Between that uncertainty and stronger expectations of a relationship with the West (especially after the Wagner hoopla), the options were closed. More importantly, a window of opportunity with Europe seems to open if Turkey is perceived as a country close to the West at a time of great definition.
For its part, in the long term, it is also possible that in Turkey there is a perception that what happened to the Ottoman Empire itself at the end of the First World War could happen in Russia. It was also the case with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two existed as empires before the war, but those empires had already disintegrated by the end of the conflict in 1918: they imploded, to become several independent countries, retaining a relatively small central core.
With that experience in its own flesh, it is possible that the Government of Turkey has even envisioned that type of outcome for Russia in the medium term. It could happen or not; that will arise from many factors and from Russia’s own ability to maintain unity. But in case of realizing it, this would leave a precious space to be covered by concertation and integration agreements with the entire southern zone of present-day Russia, accompanying the already independent countries that were part of the Soviet Union. In almost all of them, the Turkic population (ethnic and linguistic) is important. Türkiye could find with its ‘cousins’ in West Asia an available strategic space; an opportunity of those that present itself once every several centuries. In this sense, a strategy with historical density would advise allying with the West instead of doing with other spaces.
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Also in the medium and long term, it must not be forgotten that the ruling party and a part of Turkish society have had sympathies with radical Muslim groups, such as the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood. We must not forget that the fiercest and most effective adversary of radical Islam today is Russia (in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in Syria, in the Sahel, to name just a few cases). A weakening of Russia could undoubtedly mean a source of fresh air for Islamic radicalism from the Black Sea to the heart of Asia. But also, as paradoxical as it may seem, a rapprochement with the West through the new position regarding Russia’s conflict in Ukraine would imply being well regarded by the modernizers and ‘progressives’ within Turkey. It would win, therefore, consensus by tip and tip.
As can be seen, it is a multi-way game, the outcome of which can only be certain in the medium term. For the moment, knowing what is really at stake allows us to see the news and the situation in a broader and more precise context. The same is true for other regions of the world.
DIEGO CARDONA CARDONA
Special for EL TIEMPO
Ph. D., Professor of Global Affairs, International Analyst, Former Deputy Foreign Minister.
dccplanet@gmail.com
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