TURKEY’S MILITARY PRESENCE ABROAD

1. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Assists EU oversight of the Dayton peace agreement
2. Serbia: Assists NATO and UN Peacekeeping
3. Mediterranean: Assists NATO forces
4. Azerbaijan: Operates joint peacekeeping mission with Russia
5. Cyprus: Occupies northern Cyprus
6. Syria: Occupies territory in the northwest and fights Kurdish militants
7. Iraq: Operates military bases in northern Iraq to fight the PKK
8. Libya: Supports Tripoli-based government
9. Lebanon: Assists UN peacekeeping
10. Qatar: Operates a base and trains local forces
11. Somalia: Operates a base and trains local forces

In recent years, Turkey has drawn the ire of its neighbors and allies due to Erdogan’s willingness to launch military interventions in Libya and Syria, press territorial claims in the Mediterranean, and court China and Russia. Such moves have isolated Turkey and cast uncertainty on its future in NATO and its prospects for joining the European Union. With Ankara now struggling to weather a financial crisis, Erdogan is trying to repair broken relationships, including by seeking rapprochement with major regional powers.

Turkey emerged from the collapsing Ottoman Empire, which endured for six hundred years, spanned three continents, and ruled the Islamic world as well as swaths of Europe. Its lands have witnessed millennia of conflict and comingling between powerful forces-East and West, Christianity and Islam, modernity and tradition. Today’s Turkey reflects these influences but also seeks to portray itself as an independent power with a unique national identity. The country has built a close partnership with the West through its membership in NATO and deepening trade relations with the EU. However, it has increasingly butted heads with them over its democratic backsliding, relations with Russia and other issues.

Given its position straddling Asia and Europe, Turkey can heavily influence the Caucasus, Central Asia, the EU, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Ankara controls passage through the long-contested Turkish Straits (the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles), vital waterways that connect the Black and Aegean Seas and through which hundreds of millions of tons of cargo pass each year. It hosts U.S. and NATO military forces at several of its bases, with U.S. nuclear weapons housed at Incirlik Air Force Base, and it has played a role in many of the post-Cold War conflicts in the Middle East. As a result, it’s been also a major transit point during the migration crises that have stricken the region. 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. Erdogan has engineered an assertive shift in foreign policy that focuses on expanding Turkey’s military and diplomatic footprint. To this end, Turkey has launched military interventions in countries including Azerbaijan, Iraq, Libya and Syria; supplied partners such as Ethiopia and Ukraine with drones; and built Islamic schools abroad.

With the Turkish economy suffering, Erdogan has reversed policy by attempting to improve relations with Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The new rapprochement aims to shed Turkey’s isolation and to attract munch needed Emirati and Saudi investors.Top of Form

President Joe Biden has mostly kept Ankara at a distance; he excluded Erdogan from his 2021 Summit for Democracy and has referred to the Armenian genocide officially. But Turkey’s support for Ukraine against Russia has shifted the calculus; the Biden administration has indicated it is willing to sell F-16 jets and other hardware to Ankara, which it says would serve U.S. interests and NATO unity. This shift in Washington came after Ankara reversed its opposition to Finland’s and Sweden’s bids to join NATO, which had threatened to further strain Turkey’s ties to others in the Alliance.

As tensions with the West persist, Turkey is exploring other relationships, particularly with China and Russia. It has bolstered ties with Beijing, which became Ankara’s largest import partner in 2021. In 2015, Turkey joined the Belt and Road Initiative, giving it access to non-Western financing for infrastructure projects, including nuclear-and-coal-powered energy plants, and spurring foreign investment from China. China has provided Turkey with billions of dollars, in loans and cash swaps since 2016.

Relations with Russia are likewise complex. In addition to the S-400 missile systems, Ankara and Moscow collaborate on infrastructure projects such as the TurkStream natural gas pipeline and Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Additionally, Turkey depends heavily on Russian energy imports. However, the two countries have backed opposing sides in recent conflicts, including the civil wars in Libya and Syria and the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 2022, Turkey initially tried to remain impartial in the Russian-Ukraine war despite an agreement to supply Ukraine with drones, but it later supported a UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion, banned all combat ships from the Turkish Straits, and blocked Syria-bound aircraft from its airspace. Still, Ankara has opposed Western sanctions on Russia due to its energy needs.

Some experts say Turkey isn’t shunning the West by cultivating these relationships. Turkey’s new foreign policy is best understood not as a drift toward Russia and China but as expressive of a desire to keep a foot in each camp and to manage great-power rivalry, Erdogan sees Turkey’s ties to its Western allies as central to its aspirations to become a world power.

With elections planned for 2023 and Turkey’s economy struggling, many observers expect that the AKP will further emphasize nationalist ideology to galvanize its base. Erdogan is also seeking to elevate Turkey’s international status by establishing it as the representative of the broader Muslim world and by pressing his “bigger than five” agenda which would see international leadership expand beyond the UN Security Council’s five permanent members.  As part of this vision Turkey has pushed its favored approach to Islamic law, especially in Africa in competition with Saudi Arabia.