Turkey Chooses a Side: Atlanticism? Eurasianism?
As a country that traditionally pursued a policy of balance, Turkey was particularly shaken by the letter sent by US President Johnson in June 1964, on the eve of the intervention in Cyprus. Turkey learned the painful lesson that its military could not "use" American weapons without authorization. Thus, the Turkish political and military perspective based on unconditional loyalty to NATO and its leader, the United States, which it had joined in 1952, began to give way to multilateral and multilateral foreign relations.
Shifting Balances after the Cold War
The post-Cold War unipolar world order dominated by American hegemony seems to be almost obsolete. The optimistic mood that dominated international politics in the early 1990s was soon shattered, and the fraternal nations of Yugoslavia, which had been torn apart in the heart of Europe, were locked in a bloody struggle for inheritance. Unable to extinguish the fire inside their own homes, Europeans were rescued by the American army, which belatedly landed in the Balkans under the NATO hat. Meanwhile, when it became clear that the military capabilities of the Western European Union were not enough, it became clear that Europe was still a political and military "dwarf".
While the Russian Federation began to retain its backbone in the disintegrated Soviet Union, new states in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Turkestan (Central Asia) seized the opportunity to declare their independence.
In 1969, the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which almost came to the brink of hot conflict over a border dispute between them, did not have the opportunity to establish a warm relationship until the end of the Cold War due to their different perspectives on the ideology of communism. Eventually, the end of the Cold War brought the two countries closer to each other. Especially in the face of American hegemony, these two great powers saw it necessary to act together and join forces against the US-led Western world, which continued its containment strategy. As an extension of this policy, in April 1996, the China-Russia relationship was re-established at the level of "strategic partnership".
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is Established
Russia and China announced the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in order not to lose Turkestan to the US influence and at the same time to solve the historical border problems between them and to increase security and regional cooperation, especially border cooperation. Thus, the so-called Shanghai Five, a Beijing-based organization whose official languages are Russian and Chinese, emerged in 1996 with three countries from Turkestan (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan).
In 2001, Uzbekistan joined this organization. Meanwhile, using the September 11 incident as an excuse, the US used the terrorism card very well to settle in Turkestan. Inevitably, China and Russia did not raise their voices against the NATO-backed American military deployment in Afghanistan, and even had to support the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the context of global security. Over time, as Afghanistan began to stabilize, the Russian Federation, especially under Putin, began to speak out against American hegemony. As the US began to establish itself in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus through NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) mechanism, and as NATO's enlargement process began to bring the former Warsaw Pact members into the Western camp one by one, Russia began to feel the need to join forces with China and put a "stop" to American hegemony.
Indeed, at the SCO summit in Bishkek in August 2007, Putin declared that "a unipolar world is unacceptable!" and opened the Eurasianism card as an alternative to the Atlantic world. In other words, he signaled the need for the SCO, which could be called the NATO of the East as an organization opposing NATO, the security organization established by the Western countries in the Atlantic Basin, but which was still partially dormant or stagnant at that time, to come to the fore.
China, which preferred to position itself in the international system mainly through its trade relations and economic power, had no intention of confronting the Western world at that time. While the rising Chinese economy functioned as the world's production factory, the vitality of its lifeblood was only possible if it sold what it produced to the Western world. Conflict with the West was therefore not yet a priority for China. This Chinese perspective was reflected in the SCO's policies and made it impossible for the SCO to evolve as a security organization.
Russia launches its own security initiatives independent of the SCO
For this reason, Russia started to act independently from the SCO in the security field and did not receive any support from China in the 2008 Georgia and 2014 Ukraine interventions. Nevertheless, the SCO continued to expand. In 2017, India and Pakistan became SCO members together. Therefore, despite the existence of historical border issues (e.g. the Kashmir issue) and tense relations between these two countries, which at times have led to hot confrontation, their membership in the SCO did not pose a problem. In 2021, Iran's membership process was initiated and is expected to be completed in 2023.
Currently, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia participate in the organization as observers. Dialogue partner countries, which are considered inferior to this status, include Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Qatar. Supporting groups/countries also include ASEAN, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkmenistan.
The SCO, which has become a bastion of Eurasianism, represents 60% of the Eurasian geography, 40% of the world population (3.2 billion) and 30% of the global GDP ($20 trillion). Now clearly emerging as a balancing power center in the face of the Western world, the SCO's appeal and the opportunities it can offer within itself have begun to increase.
Turkey's Relations in the Context of Atlanticism and Eurasianism
As a country that traditionally pursued a policy of balance, Turkey was particularly shaken by the letter sent by US President Johnson in June 1964, on the eve of the intervention in Cyprus. Turkey learned the painful lesson that its military could not "use" American weapons without authorization. Thus, the Turkish political and military perspective based on unconditional loyalty to NATO and its leader, the United States, which it had joined in 1952, began to give way to multilateral and multilateral foreign relations. Subsequently, Turkey, which considered it necessary to develop close relations with Russia even during the Cold War, began to pursue a balanced policy within NATO. After the Cold War, Turkey was excluded from the Western European Union and was not made a member of the European Union. The Western world, which had been seen as the symbol of civilization since the late Ottoman period, began to push Turkey into the other camp in order to establish relations with an alternative power center. From this perspective, in a sense, Western civilization has lost its former importance in Turkish politics and even society. In addition to the Atlanticist world, Eurasianism also began to appeal to the Turkish people, but one missile fired had a cold shower effect on Turkish society.
On November 24, 2015, a missile fired by a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 jet and the Turkish-Russian relationship suffered a major blow. However, in the aftermath of July 15, the recorded contact between Putin and Erdogan in August 2016 paved the way for Turkey's rapprochement with Russia. In addition to the construction of a nuclear power plant, Turkey, which was in close contact with Russia in the energy sector, added the S-400 air defense system to the Turkish military's inventory, despite the Atlantic world's chorus of "no, you can't have it" warnings. The US response was, among other things, to remove Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet co-production program. Some NATO members, on the other hand, have imposed restrictions, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, on the sale of their defense industry products to Turkey.
At a time when Turkey's place in the Western World was being questioned, the Russian attack on Ukraine brought about a number of developments that shaped Turkish politics. Starting on February 24, 2022, the Russia-Ukraine War pitted Russia and the United States against each other in particular, while Ukraine-centered developments began to shape the ground for the struggle between the Eastern World and the Western World. The US imposed sanctions on Russia and, together with the UK, provided the necessary arms aid to the Ukrainian army in its resistance against the Russians, while at the same time ensuring that all European Union countries acted almost as one against Russia. In the energy sector, the Nord Stream-2 pipeline has been suspended. The Russians forced European countries to buy natural gas in rubles. In response, the majority of European countries, relying to some extent on US LNG support, found it necessary to disobey Russia's 'ruble' decision. The process of Sweden and Finland joining NATO was initiated. In this environment, the Atlantic world, positioned against Russia, chose to mobilize its global influence against Russia in the form of sanctions, with the support of countries such as Australia, New Zealand, as well as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines in the Far East.
Russia, on the other hand, began to look for alternative ways out by clinging more to the ideology of Eurasianism. Although China initially expressed its disapproval of Western sanctions, it eventually focused on not clashing with Europe and the United States due to its trade links. Nevertheless, it did not hesitate to criticize NATO and US policies, which are expanding in Eastern Europe and squeezing Russia. On the other hand, the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan on August 3-4, 2022 made it necessary for China to visibly cooperate with Russia against the American containment policy. Thus, the SCO has begun to be seen as a global alternative to NATO in the security context, as a ground that makes it possible to increase solidarity and cooperation among member states and to develop common global policies.
In this environment, Uzbekistan invited Turkey as a guest participant country to the SCO Samarkand Summit scheduled to be held on September 15-16, 2022. President Erdogan's acceptance of this invitation and the presentation of the photographs of the leaders together at the summit suddenly brought about discussions on Turkey's positioning itself in Eurasia. It relatively left its mark on Turkish foreign policy. Erdoğan, who flew to the United States for the UN meeting immediately after the summit, has now reiterated, once again but more forcefully, that Turkey could become a full member of the SCO in November 2016. Moreover, Erdogan's membership bid has in a sense served as a "godsend" for the "lonely Putin", who is trying to increase the number of his allies against the Western world. The Turkish press began to comment on Putin's support for Turkey's SCO membership.
Turkey under Erdoğan's leadership is now faced with a political identity dilemma or an international system identity dilemma. On the one hand, there is the declining Western World (Atlanticism) dominated by democracy and liberal values; on the other hand, there is the rising Eastern World (Eurasianism) dominated by autocracy, totalitarian regimes and the cult of personality. Turkey, which also functions as a bridge between Asia and Europe, has to build its contact with the Turkestan geography, with which it shares cultural values and a common history, through Eurasianism. However, it also considers it necessary to preserve its ties with Western civilization, with which it conducts more than 50% of its foreign trade and in which it has historically sought to position itself to a large extent, through NATO.
Where will Turkish politics turn in 2023?
Turkey, which finds itself under the NATO umbrella in terms of security, is faced with a dilemma or a dilemma. Or rather, Turkish foreign policy under Erdoğan's leadership has brought us to this point in the last 20 years. Whatever the justification, Turkey is going through a difficult period in terms of its foreign policy and military relations. Faced with the presence of the United States and other Western countries, especially France, acting in concert with the United States, which has allowed the export of defense products to the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus for 2023, increased the number of its bases in this country by signing a joint defense cooperation agreement with Greece, become a patron of the so-called Kurdish independence movements and even terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq, provoke Armenia against Azerbaijan and thus against Turkey, and exclude Turkey from the sale of key defense products such as the F-35 and F-16, I wonder if it is time for Turkey to fully turn its direction to the East?
In my opinion, Erdogan nowadays finds it necessary to use the SCO card and the Turkish-Russian relationship to overcome the stalemate in the Turkey-US relationship. If there is no movement towards a rapprochement in the context of the expected "warm contact" from the Western world, the Erdogan leadership can soon be expected to sharply submit its application for full membership of the SCO to Beijing. This membership, of course, will not be realized immediately, but it could have serious repercussions for Turkey's positioning in the world, consequences that go far beyond the S-400 crisis. In this respect, the general elections that will take place in June 2023 are about to become a necessity, triggering debates that will test the moves that will determine Turkey's foreign policy direction.
The winner of the elections will determine the direction of the train Turkey will board. If Erdogan wins, it will be the Eastern express; if the Millet Alliance wins, it will be the Western express that will carry Turkey to its future destination.
