Turkish foreign policy under Erdogan snared by short vision and militant tendency

Hossam al-Haddad

The Turkish media was beating the drums of war in an escalation of tensions with Greece over regional disputes and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean on September 1. The pro-government media in particular was rife with comments about how Turkey’s military might outweighs that of Greece and how Turkey would easily win in a potential war with its neighbor. The same pro-government commentators and retired generals are now praising the benefits of diplomacy and dialogue while accusing those who fail to change the tone of encouraging tensions and war.

On this subject, the American Al-Monitor website published an important report by Metin Gurcan, a writer and specialist on Turkish affairs, in which he stated:

Such sudden turns on major issues of national interest have become worryingly frequent in Turkey since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed great executive powers in 2018, indicating that Ankara’s foreign policy has fallen into a trap of short-term vision and is becoming increasingly unpredictable.

Moreover, almost everyone in Ankara feels entitled to speak on foreign policy matters. The president’s spokesperson, the head of communications, and the ministers of defense, economy, energy and interior have all made comments. Shouting against Turkey’s opponents is today a very common thing in Ankara, and the clamor of politics seems to be that foreign affairs has become an easy way for members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to project their images and promote their political life, usually without risk but with high populist return.

Amid these frequent shifts and cacophony of messages, foreign policy in Ankara today has become a world of contradiction and confusion.

In the past two years, Erdogan has claimed credit for any bold foreign policy move, including the Turkish military operation in northeastern Syria in October 2019, Ankara’s maritime agreement with Libya the following month, and efforts to assert its presence in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. But when it comes to ordering lesser-known events like Washington’s response to Ankara’s purchase of Russian air defense systems, President Donald Trump’s loud message to Erdogan about Syria, the killing of 36 Turkish soldiers in a raid in Idlib, or Greece’s militarization of the Aegean islands near Turkey’s shores, no one exists to be held accountable to the public.

In short, foreign affairs has become a tool to boost Erdogan’s image, and the result is a very personal foreign policy.

On September 17, for example, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin formulated Ankara’s decision to withdraw an exploration ship from the disputed waters in the Mediterranean as a personal gesture from Erdogan toward Greece. “Our president has given an opportunity for diplomacy once again, and we hope the Greek side will use this as an opportunity to push talks ahead,” he said.

The dangerous repercussions of Erdogan’s position in foreign policy, which has come to reflect his short-tempered and polarized style in domestic politics, are the erosion of institutional decision-making and implementation in foreign policy matters. The institutional capacity of the Foreign Ministry has been seriously damaged and overly politicized, including through crony appointments and promotions.

Since 2018, the gap between Ankara’s dreams or desires and the reality on the ground or realpolitik has widened as well. Ankara has come to pursue dreams of “games of spoiling” by others rather than a foreign policy based on its economic and military capacity. The defensive inclination of the status quo of Turkey’s foreign policy in the past was not the best example, but its current offensive and revisionist brand is devoid of grand strategy and matching ambitions, making it extremely risky. Due to its failure to develop a realistic, rational, and strategic framework, Turkey has become increasingly isolated, trying to compensate for its perilous unity with revisionist military activity.

Until 2010, Ankara had used only limited military force to manage a complex and multi-threat environment. Its main priority was the four-decade-old domestic conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Diplomacy and deterrence were also used to freeze rivalry in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Cyprus conflict. This began to change in the summer of 2018 when Erdogan assumed sweeping powers under a new executive presidency system.

Turkey’s adoption of methods of might is rooted in profound shifts in its foreign environment and domestic dynamics.

Abroad, Ankara’s perceptions of the threat shifted east and south due to increased security risks in the eastern Mediterranean, Iraq, North Africa and Syria, in addition to strategic competition with Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other regional powers. Ankara was particularly troubled by NATO’s passivity on its southern side during the Syrian crisis, which contributed to a security vacuum there. By relying on the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to counter ISIS, Western powers ignored or even dismissed Turkey’s well-known concerns. Also, there is a pervasive and enduring feeling among the Turkish ruling elite that the Western security bloc failed to adequately support Ankara during and after the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.

A number of domestic factors have also led to the militarization of Turkish foreign policy. First, foreign policy became an important item of Ankara’s political agenda since the executive presidency system came into effect. Military actions abroad enjoy strong popular support and help maintain Erdogan’s popularity. In particular, his embrace of a more nationalist rhetoric at home helped cement his de facto alliance with the extreme Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Second, military deployments abroad are popular with the armed forces themselves. It enhances morale and motivation through additional pay and promotion opportunities, as well as provides valuable experience in joint force operations.

The third domestic drive for Turkey’s more militaristic approach is its role in coordinating relations between the military and civilian leadership, who both agree on the need to strengthen Turkey’s military capabilities and defense industry. The military is more interested in the technical dimensions of this consensus as part of the transformation and restructuring process called Vision 2033.

Meanwhile, politicians are keen to use this new capacity and energy in domestic and foreign policy. They also hope that the continued preoccupation of the military abroad will facilitate civilian control of the army as the generals focus on foreign affairs rather than domestic affairs. Finally, the boom in the Turkish defense industry allows Ankara to pursue a more independent strategy and offer its defense systems for the purpose of international marketing.

The basic problems of Turkish foreign policy today can be summarized as follows: it lacks a grand strategy and succumbs to a short-lived trap.

Turkey’s foreign policy has increasingly become a tool of everyday politics at home, which has been shaped by a populist approach that prioritizes domestic consumption and thus sticks foreign policy to the government’s domestic political agenda. It is also excessively echoing Erdogan’s polarizing and populist approach at home.

The field of foreign affairs has become entwined with political career planning, as it is now easy to appoint AKP politicians as ambassadors or other foreign positions.

In addition, the decision-making process often lacks inclusive consultation and transparency, which leads to uncertainty, arbitrariness, and unpredictability in foreign policy decisions.

All of Ankara’s leading figures do not hesitate to get into the realm of foreign policy, which often leads to messing up. For foreign actors, especially those in the West, this could create confusion over who is their interlocutor on the Turkish side and fuel a perception of a worsening governance and management crisis in Ankara.

What will be the mood in Turkey next week on the ranks in the Eastern Mediterranean? Does it remain in favor of dialogue or is it reflected in provoking wars? These questions are becoming increasingly difficult to answer, because seven days has now become a very long time in Turkish foreign policy.