During the Cold War, Turkey without objecting NATO’s strategies and politics, became the frontline sentry of the North Atlantic alliance at the border of the former Soviet Union, however the country demonstrated readiness to confront certain decisions, when it felt its national interests were at stake.

The end of the Cold War in 1990’s brought another geopolitical turmoil, which drove Turkey to reconsider its strategic surroundings and become more aggressive in pursuing its national interests. In 2000, Turkey’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu has theoretically shaped the country’s foreign policy in accordance with the pursuit of an expansionist geopolitical agenda, enshrined in his book Strategic Depth. The Strategic Depth’s concept assumes that Turkey is in the center of several geocultural regions and Davutoglu’s plans included the quest for regional hegemony, considering the political and economic factors of soft power and mutual interdependency. Furthermore, Davutoglu’s doctrine described the need to expand the Lebensraum of the state in the immediate periphery and establish a sphere of influence in the Balkans, MENA region, Caucasia and Central Asian region.

Turkey’s hardheaded stance is visible while dealing with other major actors in the international system. From the beginning of its membership in NATO, Turkey was not just the frontline watchdog aiming to push back a potential attack on the Baltic states or Poland. Yet, with the changing geopolitical circumstances, having Turkey in the North Atlantic alliance seems to be mutually beneficial for all parties. On the other hand, as part of the alliance, Turkey has the veto mechanism at hand, which proves to be detrimental to NATO’s strategic discourse and at the same time convenient for Turkey in acquiring certain political concessions from NATO and EU. For instance, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s clear position of disagreement, vetoing Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the alliance, definitely serves to safeguard Putin’s trust and also ensure other concessions, such as lifting of Turkey’s defense industry embargo. However, it also exposes the country’s readiness to confront other alliance members over the Nordic countries’ NATO membership, which is also linked with the growing dispute between Greece and Turkey and the current militarization of the disputed Aegean sea islands near Turkey’s coast. The Eastern Mediterranean tensions were previously escalated by the deployment of Turkish oil and gas research vessels in the region.

The decades-long Cyprus dispute between Greece and Turkey has been escalating in the recent period, in spite of the continual UN-backed efforts to reach a settlement. As the war rhetoric among the two NATO countries currently intensifies, certain Cyprus officials started expressing fears that the country would be sucked into an armed conflict. At the same time, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s Foreign Minister unleashed criticism regarding the lifting of the arms embargo for the fiscal year 2023 and the growing militarization of the disputed island, the Greek part of Cyprus to be more precise. It was further stated that the inclusion of the Greek Cypriot administration into the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program under the US Department of Defense was not justified.

Also, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the US and Greek ambassadors in protest against the deployment of military hardware on the island, further vowing to take all the necessary measures to defend the Turkish population in Cyprus. As a result, Turkey is expected to boost its military presence on the disputed island, which will almost certainly disrupt the military balance in the Eastern Mediterranean and further cause diplomatic backlashes among NATO allied countries. In short, Turkey’s primary objective in Cyprus is to utilize the island as a backbone for its geo-economic ambitions of acquiring and exploring hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, while maintaining a status-quo on the island, which from Turkish perspective is seen as a two-states-one-island scenario.

In regard to the EU, there have been several events that disrupted Turkey’s relations with the Union, such as the Turkish military intervention in Syria, the gas exploration near the coast of Cyprus, the defiance of the European Court of Human Rights’ decision to release Osman Kavala, the philanthropist who was accused by Turkey of supporting terrorism, and the Turkish threats to release waves of Syrian migrants to Europe’s heartland. Ultimately, the refugee crisis seems to have been successfully instrumentalized by the Turkish administration over the years, as a tool to blackmail certain EU member countries and resulted in granting EU funds for Turkey in order to keep the migrants contained and refrain them from reaching Western Europe.

In addition, the dispute that arose between Erdogan and the French President Emmanuel Macron over the latter’s anti-Islamic remarks back in 2020, caused a diplomatic fallout among the two countries, revealing Turkey’s efforts to present itself as the defender of Islam. Nonetheless, this is not the only problem between France and Turkey, since the latter has increasingly been present in Sub-Saharan Africa and Libya recently, where France has had its footprint for a longer period in the past. These events contributed to the West’s increasing awareness of Turkey’s rising neo-Ottoman ideology. The revival of the Ottoman legacy and the utilization of Islamic rhetoric can be evidenced by the changing of the legal status of the museum Hagia Sofia into a mosque, in July 2020. This decision triggered international public criticism, yet in local terms the move represented reinforcement of Erdogan’s image and was endorsed by Turkey’s conservative camp. Then again, it could be said that this event served to divert the local population’s focus from Turkey’s reduction in economic growth amid the pandemic.

As for the Middle East, Turkey’s bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia were strained with the kingdom’s support of the 2013 coup d’état in Egypt and Turkey’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood, that aimed to delegitimize Egypt’s ruling elite. The geopolitical game to disrupt Saudi Arabia’s influence with the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seems to have not played out well for Turkey, realizing that the price for normalizing the relations with the kingdom was transferring the Khashoggi case and suspects to Saudi Arabia.

The recent request by the Turkish Public Prosecution to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia, reveals the Turkish efforts to mend the ties with Middle Eastern kingdom, and also raised concerns of the international public whether justice would be served with this move. Following this event, Erdogan met with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman several times, signaling the revival of the mutual trade relations amid Turkey’s economic hardships. In addition, such high-profile visits reveal that Turkey is aiming to break free from its regional isolation, which has occurred as a result of the country’s hyperactive foreign policy discourse.

Although there have been visits of Turkish officials to other Middle Eastern countries besides Saudi Arabia, such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey seems to have no friends there yet, within the Gulf states apart from Qatar.

The latest visit to UAE in late September 2022 was “crowned” with the sale of twenty Bayraktar drones, in an effort to mend the deteriorating relations between the two countries over Libya, the Turkish support of the Syrian opposition and the close relations with Qatar. Also, the ambassadorial relations with Israel seems to have picked up pace, despite Turkey’s close ties with HAMAS, leaving the harder part of restoring the mutual trust between the two countries to be the next milestone. The normalization of relations between Turkey and Israel are another indicator of the Turkish foreign policy shift from confrontation to cooperation with its neighborhood.

In addition, the creation of immense geoeconomic corridors in partnership with China, translates to the emergence of closer connections with Beijing. Considering Turkey’s EU membership, which is not likely to occur any time soon, it seems that Turkey is not in a rush to conclude the accession negotiations either, most likely due to the fact that it would produce undesirable political sacrifices related to Turkey’s sovereignty and national interests. Thus, dragging the EU accession process on, seems like a convenient way to camouflage the rising fallout with the EU. Meanwhile, at the sidelines of the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that took place in September 2022 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Erdogan announced Turkey’s plan to join this multilateral organization, attempting to expand Turkey’s prospects on the Asian continent. This event was criticized by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, stating that the SCO was not contributing to a good global coexistence.

The power vacuum that has occurred with the shift of US’s foreign policy and the partial withdrawal of US troops from Syria in October 2019 was seized by Turkey, deciding to launch a military intervention dubbed “Peace Spring”, aiming to deal with the Kurdish militants in Syria, which according to Turkey are perceived as a threat to the country’s national interests. Few months later, following the developments in the Second Libyan Civil War, in January 2020 the Turkish parliament backed the deployment of troops to Libya in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord, which is also recognized by the United Nations.

Moreover, Turkey’s involvement in the conflict went even further with the Russian-Ukrainian dispute over the blocked Ukrainian ports, an event that resulted in severe global shortages of grain. With the facilitation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and granting export of Ukrainian grain through the straits, Turkey once again demonstrated its non-alignment with the Western sanctions, and in turn regained Russia’s confidence to implement the agreement. The significance of the Montreux Convention and the role of Turkey in the region of the Black Sea indicates Turkey’s relevance not just in the current conflict, yet in any potential future conflict that might occur in the region. The country’s capability to maintain diplomatic ties in the context of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict, points out on its importance and potential to contribute to the regional security, not just in terms of warfare.

The refusal to impose sanctions on Russia, indicates Turkey’s efforts to maintain diplomatic and economic ties with Russia, by continuing the trade, which from Turkish point of view seems to be vital for the country’s devastated economy, especially in light of the upcoming presidential elections in 2023.
However, noting Turkey’s growing fallout with the West, the relationship with Russia is not likely to be severed, given the Turkish current economic difficulties. On the other hand, it certainly is in Russia’s interest to maintain Turkey’s disputes with its Western allies, despite the sale of defense products to Ukraine.

Additionally, the recent Erdogan-Putin meetings in Sochi and at the outskirts of 22nd Summit of the SCO indicate that Turkey enjoys “walking on a tightrope”, signaling its Western allies that the country also considers other alternative avenues in pursuit of its foreign policy.
This certainly does not mean that Turkey is anti-Western, nor pro-Russian, yet it reveals that marginalizing Russia could be an unwise decision for Turkey’s national interests, similar to Hungary’s political discourse not to follow EU’s sanctions path against Russia.

In summary, regarding the hostilities in Ukraine, it seems that Turkey succeeded in transforming its vulnerable position around Ukraine and Russia into a diplomatic advantage. Offering itself as a mediator in the conflict, Turkey managed to get certain “liberties” from its Western allies in order to expand the economic ties with sanctioned businesses coming from Russia, while simultaneously militarily aiding Ukraine. Should Turkey end the collaboration with Ukraine, it would be detrimental for the brokered grain deal, the supply of Bayraktar drones and the prospect of producing these drones on Ukrainian soil.

This geopolitical initiative from Turkish perspective means nurturing strategic ties with Russia, while pushing forward the EU enlargement negotiations, yet recently we are witnessing Turkey’s efforts to become a member of the informal group of states BRICS, as well as the SCO. Furthermore, improving relations with Saudi Arabia, seems to have become a geopolitical necessity. As for the East Mediterranean region, Turkey’s aggressive strategy around Cyprus and Libya led other regional actors to rally against it.

Looking back at Ukraine, should Erdogan succeed in his mediating role in the Russian – Ukrainian conflict, it may ultimately help his Justice and Development Party to achieve preferable results in the elections, although the party is facing a historically low approval rating currently. Should the ruling AKP fail to secure another mandate, the newly elected government ought to try and mend the ties with its Western partners. Conversely, the western policies which are confronting Turkey’s national issues, including democracy and economic issues as well, are resulting with rising local anti-Western perception, which indicates that Turkey is drifting away from the West, increasing the possibility of pivoting to another bloc.