Strategic Minute

Vol. 1. No. 8. July 5, 2022

A Word First

Turkish President Recep Erdogan is a chameleon. One day, he can act the responsible Western statesman, the next day, he threatens to lead a Muslim war against Europe. He is a dictator with close ties to Putin as well as the United States. His skill is using Turkey's position to the maximum. And that makes him admirable. It also makes him dangerous.

From On High

"And thanks to our efforts, we believe that we will be able to go back to our countries with our hands full and with full satisfaction."

President Recep Erdogan is pleased with a U.S. commitment regarding NATO as well as upgrading Turkey's military.

The Merchant from Ankara

Western leaders come and go. Recep Erdogan remains in power.

Turkey's president has been a ruler for 20 years, responsible for transforming his country into a Muslim state and regional power. He maintains a veto in NATO while benefiting from his alliance with China and Russia. He is dictator, yet wooed by democracies. He is the most successful politician on the world stage.

Turkey is not a model for anything. Corruption is on the rise, so is inflation, censorship and purges. But like Russia's Vladimir Putin, Erdogan's measure of success is not governance rather raw power. The European Union might shun him but it cannot ignore him. When Brussels gets under his skin, Erdogan threatens to send millions of Muslims refugees to EU states. He urges Turks in those countries to bear plenty of children to overwhelm the Christians. To Israel, the president, rumored to come from a Jewish separatist sect, sounds like a reincarnation of Salah Eddin.

The bottom line: Erdogan always takes more than he gives.

Playing Beijing off Moscow

Today, Turkey is more powerful than at any other time in its modern history. It enjoys the benefits of NATO while avoiding many of its commitments. Ankara has successfully played Washington off Beijing and Moscow without serious repercussions. Turkey has established a bulwark in neighboring Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan while intimidating such regional rivals as Egypt and Israel.

"President Erdogan now aims to project Turkey’s power further, especially in the Middle East, where a receding U.S. presence has left a vacuum Ankara hopes to fill," the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations said in a report dated June 29.

Erdogan has used his bargaining skills to check NATO's expansion. For weeks, he vigorously objected to the entry of Finland and Sweden, saying they were aiding the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, regarded by Ankara as a terrorist group. That led to U.S. pressure on Helsinki and Stockholm to quietly reconsider their support for the Kurdish insurgency.

U.S. has Erdogan’s back

A big part of Erdogan's success has been the United States. He benefited from a warm relationship with then-President Barack Obama, an admirer of Erdogan's ability to balance Islam and modernity. Obama, whose first foreign trip was to Turkey, also saw Ankara as an alternative to American dependence on Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Erdogan remained in Washington's good graces with Obama's successor, Donald Trump. In late 2019, Trump approved a Turkish offensive in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria, and the U.S. military withdrew from the area to avoid interference.

With President Joe Biden, Erdogan, after a rocky start, has fared well. On June 29, Biden met Erdogan in Madrid and gushed over his Turkish counterpart, particularly in lifting his veto from Finland and Sweden. This was a far cry from late 2021, when Biden excluded Turkey from his Summit for Democracy.

"I want to particularly thank you for what you did putting together the situation with regard to Finland and Sweden, and all the incredible work you’re doing to try to get the grain out of Ukraine and Russia," Biden said after their latest meeting. "I mean, you’re doing a great job."

Not one word from Biden on Erdogan's oppression of his critics, human rights violations and support for groups on the U.S. terror list. There also wasn't one bad word on Erdogan's strategic alliances with China and Russia. Ankara has cooperated with Beijing on major infrastructure projects as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. Thanks to China, Turkey has an operational solid-fuel ballistic missile called Bora as well as a cruise missile. Bilateral trade skyrocketed under Erdogan as he held out the prospect that Turkey would join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization rather than the EU.

Strong Russian-Turkish Ties

Despite Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Russian-Turkish relations remain strong. The Blue Stream natural gas pipeline continues to flow from Russia through Turkey and toward Western Europe. Russia has been committed to helping Turkey in everything from oil pipelines, military modernization to nuclear power.

“[Turkey’s] new foreign policy is best understood not as a drift toward Russia or China but as expressive of a desire to keep a foot in each camp and to manage great-power rivalry,” Asli Aydintasbas of the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote in the U.S. magazine Foreign Affairs.

Nobody in NATO is happy with Erdogan. But nearly everybody acknowledges that without Turkey the alliance won’t be viable. So, to placate Erdogan, a master at fomenting crises, U.S. officials now assert that Biden would support the sale of F-16 fighter-jets and upgrades to Ankara. This, despite Turkey's purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, which Western countries termed a threat to NATO as well as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. At one point, the United States imposed sanctions on senior Turkish officials and blocked military projects.

But that was all in the past.

"The U.S. Department of Defense fully supports Turkey's modernization plans," U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Celeste Wallander said on June 28. "Turkey is a highly capable, highly valued, strategic NATO ally and Turkish defense capabilities, strong Turkish defense capabilities, contribute to strong NATO defense capabilities."

Missiles and nukes

Unlike his predecessors, Erdogan has thumbed his nose at NATO, the EU and Christian Europe. With help from China and Pakistan, he is determined to make Turkey into a nuclear power with long-range ballistic missiles that can more than match neighboring Iran. At the same time, Brussels has been working with Ankara on the Eurosam long-range air and ballistic missile defense system.

And that explains Erdogan's steady support at home. Despite a failed military coup in 2016, violent protests and a united opposition, Erdogan remains in control. His constituency remains the masses of poor Muslims, who for decades were ignored by the secular governments modeled after Ataturk. Over the last two decades, Erdogan has provided devout Muslims with university education and civil service careers. In turn, they have remained loyal even under difficult economic conditions, which includes near triple-digit inflation.

The only real threat to Erdogan, who faces reelection in 2023, comes from above. The 68-year-old has long been plagued by poor health, hobbles to appearances and recently even fell asleep during a speech. For nearly a decade, he was rumored to have battled cancer. There must be fire in this smoke because the president has ordered the arrest of those who spread these rumors.

"Erdogan has not designated an heir for himself, and so it is unclear whether after his departure there will be an orderly temporary transfer of power to the vice president as written in the constitution, or chaos," the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies said in November 2021.