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Turkey's new geopolitics


Auteurs : | | |
Éditeur : Westview Press Date & Lieu : 1993, Boulder & Oxford
Préface : Pages : 180
Traduction : ISBN : 0-8133-8659-4
Langue : AnglaisFormat : 145x215 mm
Code FIKP : Liv. Ang.Thème : Politique

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Table des Matières Introduction Identité PDF
Turkey's new geopolitics

Turkey's new geopolitics

Graham E. Fuller,
Ian 0. Lesser,
Paul B. Henze,
J. F. Brown
Langue : Anglais

Westview Press

With the astonishing transformations in the geopolitics of the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been profoundly affected by the changes on its periphery. For the first time since the beginning of the century, a Turkic world has blossomed, giving Turkey potential new foreign policy clout from the Balkans across the Caucasus and into Central Asia and Western China.

These geopolitical opportunities have dramatically changed the character of Turkey itself, once an isolationist, Eurocentered NATO ally. At the same time, Turkey has undergone an internal evolution over the last decade, making it an attractive model of Middle Eastern development because of its increasingly free market, democratic governance, and secularist outlook.

This book explores the character of the new Turkey, assessing its foreign policy options and interpreting the significance of those choices for the Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, and the United States.



Graham E. Fuller is a Senior Political Scientist at Rand. He served 20 years as a foreign service officer, including three years in Istanbul, and was the National Intelligence Officer for long-range Middle East forecasting at the CIA. His degrees include a B.A. and an M.A. from Harvard University. Mr. Fuller speaks fluent Turkish and Russian and is finishing a study on modern Turkey as seen through the eyes of its novelists. Among his publications are RAND studies on Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He is the author of two books: The "Center of the Universe": The Geopolitics of Iran (Westview, 1991) and The Democracy Trap: Perils of the Post-Cold War World (Dutton, 1992).

Ian O. Lesser is a member of the International Policy Department at RAND, specializing in European and Mediterranean affairs. Prior to joining RAND, he was a Senior Fellow in International Security Affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and has also been a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council and a staff consultant at International Energy Associates in Washington D.C. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the London School of Economics, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, he received his doctorate from St. Antony's College, Oxford. Dr. Lesser is the author of Resources and Strategy (St. Martin's Press, 1989), as well as numerous publications on the foreign and security policies of southern European countries and the Mediterranean.

Paul B. Henze is a long-time Resident Consultant at Rand. He has occupied a considerable variety of senior government positions, including two tours in the American Embassy in Ankara. He was Staff Officer of the National Security Council from 1977 to 1980 with responsibility for several countries, including Turkey. Mr. Henze speaks Turkish, has worked closely with the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington D.C., and has been a trustee of the American Turkish Foundation for almost a decade.

J. F. Brown was a Senior Staff member at RAND between 1989 and 1991. Educated at Manchester University and the University of Michigan, he is a former head of Radio Free Europe (RFE) Research and was Director of Radio Free Europe itself. He has taught at Berkeley and UCLA and has been a visiting research associate at Columbia University and St. Antony's College, Oxford. He is the author of Eastern Europe and Communist Rule and Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe, both published by Duke University Press. His latest book is Nationalism, Democracy, and Security in the Balkans (Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1992). At present he is Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the RFE/RL (Radio Liberty) Research Institute in Munich and is working on a study of post-communist Eastern Europe.

 

 


FOREWORD

Ambassador Morton Abramowitz

The world on Turkey's borders has changed radically in the last three years. To the north old and new states are trying to make the transition from communism to market economies. To the south the Middle East is no longer the stage on which Cold War rivalries are played out, but it still remains a mélange of fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and militarism. And to the east new nations have emerged from the debris of the Soviet Union, each looking for a path into the twenty-first century. Turkey, in the center of it all, is striving to come to grips with these changes.

A fresh look at Turkey in its new surroundings is badly needed. In fact, since Turkey gets little attention from the American media or the American public, one could almost say that any look is a useful one. In 1990 the press incredibly managed to overlook an extraordinary two-day legislative battle between two Senate titans, Robert Dole and Robert Byrd, over a proposed Armenian genocide resolution and its potential impact on American-Turkish relations. This neglect prompts readers hoping to gain a grasp on events in Turkey to rely on such British publications as the Financial Times or the Economist.

The five essays composing this book are thus a badly needed and much welcomed introduction to the impact of recent upheavals on Turkey and its role in a nascent new world. While Paul Henze provides a broad treatment of such major domestic issues as the role of Islam in Turkish society and Turkey's deepening problems dealing with its Kurdish minority, the book's focus is on geopolitical and foreign policy concerns. The basis for this orientation is Rand's interest in the magnitude and suddenness of the transformation of Turkey's neighborhood.

All of the authors have experience in Turkey and keep in close touch with the current situation; two have lived there. They approach the Turkish scene sympathetically and with the conviction that Turkey can become a regional leader. They stress that the long-term importance of the country, deriving from its geography, must not be overlooked. They argue that Turkey's role in the world has been significantly enlarged by the breakup of the Soviet Union and that in the next decade Turkey's influence will stretch from the Balkans to Chinese Central Asia.

Greater integration into the West tops the list of Turkish priorities, but the authors are skeptical that Turkey will ever gain admittance to the European Community. Moreover, the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the strengthening of the United Nations, and the creation of organizations such as the Western European Union have caused NATO to lose at least some of its cogency. As NATO erodes, so too do Turkey's ties with its NATO allies. The "Southern flank," once an integral component of containment strategy, now resonates with a certain hollowness. While looking to readjust its foreign and defense policies to a changed world, Turkey clings to NATO, less for security than for its psychological value as Turkey's principal institutional tie to the West.

These essays cover much ground, quickly and effectively, providing a useful introduction to the new era emerging in Turkish foreign and defense policy. The threat of the past 400 years -Russia- has been virtually eliminated. Turkey is now more secure than it has been since its birth as a republic after the First World War. Instead of being surrounded by an expansionist empire, Turkey finds itself bordered by a plethora of states that are militarily and economically inferior. Some even look to Turkey for help and support. While Turkey carefully watches its southern neighbors -Iran, Iraq, and Syria- it faces no serious threat from them for at least the next decade, except from their capability to roil Turkey's troubled domestic scene by supporting the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) insurgency. Despite its own internal weaknesses, Turkey is by far the strongest state in the area.

The book highlights a growing struggle between those who share Ataturk's devotion to keeping Turkey's interests focused on Anatolia and those who envision a more cosmopolitan role for their nation. Such a role, which dates back to the pan-Turkist movements abolished by Ataturk, stems from Turkey's awakened interest in Turkish-speaking populations outside of Turkey, an interest carefully squelched while the Soviet Union existed. Despite Turkey's secularism another of Ataturk's lasting legacies-Turkey remains an Islamic nation that feels an affinity for some Muslim communities, especially those once ruled by the Ottomans. Bosnia and Herzegovina fit that label because the bulk of their 43 percent Muslim population was converted by the Turks, a tie buttressed through the years by the emigration of Bosnians to Turkey. The populace has been aroused by the atrocities perpetrated against Bosnian Muslims, and, while unilateral action is out of the question, Turkey is willing to contribute troops to an international peacemaking force.

Among the book's principal conclusions are the following:

1. Turkish foreign policy will increasingly focus on Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In the Central Asian republics, Turkey's role will be critical and of significance to both Turkey and the West. The emerging states will look to Turkey as a model for their development as well as for material help. Turkey will take advantage of these newly opened markets for investment and trade and can serve as a funnel for Western investment.

Destructive nationalism in the Balkans clearly was dormant for the past half century, not dead. As one author suggests, Balkan history is now "making up for lost time." Turkey cannot avoid veering attention "back to the Balkans." Regardless of the outcome in Bosnia, with 2 million Muslims in Kosovo and another 500,000 in Macedonia, Turkey could be drawn into an expansion of the Yugoslav conflict.

Turkey's emerging defense strategy will be driven, in large part, by Turkey's need to protect itself against the threat posed by Arab or Iranian accumulation of advanced weaponry. Because of its prominence in the Gulf War Allied Coalition, Turkey fears an ultimately revived Iraq; it risks conflict with Syria and Iran over their support of the PKK; and it has competing aims with Iran in Azerbaijan. In addition, water is also a major source of conflict with Syria and Iraq. Despite the potential for trouble over these contentious issues, Turkey wants to avoid an alliance that makes it appear as an instrument of Western policy in the region.

2. Turkey's relationship with the United States will increase in importance if Turkey continues to find itself excluded from the new Europe. However, cuts in defense and foreign aid budgets will reduce American resources in the country and accelerate the reappraisal of U.S. strategic interests in Turkey. Although the Gulf War may have increased appreciation in some American quarters for strong defense ties, Turks themselves are ambivalent. Prime Minister Demirel appears reluctant to place the same weight on U.S.-Turkish ties as his predecessor, Turgut Ozal. The post-Cold War relationship between the United States and Turkey is more likely to consist of a reduced defense arrangement and a "more mature" relationship involving economic and political interests.

3. Turkey's most challenging domestic problem is the growth of Kurdish nationalism. For a long time Turkey denied it had a Kurdish problem; successive governments refused to concede that Kurds existed; and use of the Kurdish language in Turkey was strictly prohibited. The bloody war with the PKK in southern Turkey, which has gone on for eight years, has changed that situation and has led the Turks to discuss the Kurdish issue publicly and seriously. However, the Gulf War and the creation of an autonomous Kurdish province next door in Iraq have heightened fears in Turkey that its own Kurdish population will intensify its demands. Some Turks would actually prefer a revitalized Saddam atop a solidly centralized state to a federated Iraq without him.

4. The threat of Turkey turning into a fundamentalist state is exaggerated. While the cultural influence of Islam is pervasive, the devotion of Turkish Muslims varies greatly: some are devout; some practice their faith like Americans practice Christianity. While new ties to the republics of Central Asia and Western inaction with regard to Bosnia may increase attention to Islam in Turkey, the nation will remain a secular state. However, continued rejection by the European Community might generate some shift in Turkish foreign policy toward opportunities in the Islamic and Turkic world.

These conclusions touch important matters. All are arguable and most are being vigorously discussed in Turkey. I agree with many of them. For example, the Kurdish issue will be around for a long time and could blight Turkish relations with the West. The issue is immensely complicated because over half of Turkey's Kurds now live in urban areas outside the southeast. The upsurge of fighting in the southeast has created some tensions in major Turkish cities and has hampered, at least temporarily, the continuing and important integration of Kurds into the Turkish polity. The war is also an increasing economic burden and a threat to Turkish democracy. Sooner or later, Turkey may learn to live with a real degree of autonomy for the Iraqi Kurds and to allow Kurds in Turkey to be both Kurds and Turks.

I also agree that despite the late-1992 local elections in which Islamic fundamentalists increased their portion of the vote, the danger of a fundamentalist takeover is overblown, often fostered by itinerant Western journalists. Turkey may be a state of Muslims, but it is far from an Islamic state and will not become one unless its army disintegrates, its modernization program totally falters, or its political system deteriorates badly. Even the EC's closed doors will not alter Turkey's pro-Western orientation; the Turkish modern sector has no intention of committing suicide.

Turkey's economic growth can serve as a model for the nascent states of the former Soviet Union. Turkey's cheap consumer goods will promote economic ties. Turkey can and should play a useful role in central Asia, contributing educational, technical, and modest financial assistance. However, the area will remain unstable for a long time, and the resources required by these states vastly exceed Turkey's capabilities. Turkey will need to decide just what the true strategic significance of Central Asia is to its interests and how much of their resources they can afford to invest. Of far more concern are the potential ramifications of the incessant fighting in the Caucasus between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis over Nagorno-Karabakh. This conflict, which shows no signs of going away, could give rise to bitter disagreement with the West and damage relations.

The Balkans also represent a potential quagmire for Turkey depending on how Turkey defines its interests. The most worrisome development -one that might possibly bring a unilateral Turkish military response- is if a fragile and ethnically divided Macedonia were to disintegrate, particularly if Serbia were to add it to the list of areas in need of, "ethnic cleansing."

I believe that a security arrangement between Turkey and the West which extends "out of area" to the Middle East would face major domestic opposition in Turkey. Turkey has a deep-rooted dislike of publicly antagonizing Arab neighbors that the Ottomans once ruled; indeed, at times its behavior borders on the obsequious. While the Turkish military welcomes continued Western military aid, they are not anxious to become embroiled in a Western alliance system in the Middle East. In any event, the possibility for such an alliance seems to have passed with George Bush's sidestepping of President Ozal's requests for "strategic cooperation" after the Gulf War.

The domestic issues for Turkey are critical. Turkey has witnessed two revolutions in the last decade: the one outside its borders and an ongoing internal one. Domestic transformation has produced rapid growth economic liberalization and social progress. Yet despite the extensive modernization, Turkey remains today a country of large pockets of poverty and backwardness, in which a significant portion of the nation stagnates in almost a Third World.

In terms of political and social development, democratization and free expression (made more vigorous by the recent introduction of commercial television) are on the rise. Much has been accomplished in only fifty years, and Turkey's prospects are far brighter than those of its neighbors. Nevertheless, not all the signs are encouraging. Political progress now lags far behind economic. Indeed, the political system is fragmenting amidst major party factionalism and personalism with the "non-political" president forming his own political party after abandoning the one he originally established. Turkey's political parties are still a long way from being institutionalized or popularly based, while politicians are far more obsessed with retaining power than with getting things done. New leaders from a new generation are not even visible on the horizon. And for a country that aspires to EC membership, its human rights practices leave much to be desired. The fact that torture still exists is an obscenity.

The rapid growth of the 1980s has recently been tempered by world recession and the slowing of reform. Turkey's present growth rate of 5 percent may be impressive compared to Western growth, but it is simply not adequate for a country still as poor as Turkey and with a 2.5 percent annual population growth. Inflation hovers stubbornly at 70 percent per year and if not soon corrected could lead to a precipitous decline in popular confidence in the currency. The inflation is fed by a bloated state sector, and talk about privatization -both under Ozal and now Demirel- has far exceeded action.

Despite the significant foreign challenges, I remain Optimistic that Turkey's dynamism will continue and deepen - even if it is suffering from occasional lapses in government attention. Turkey is not Taiwan, but it has shown it can grow at 6 to 8 percent a year. Its private sector is notable and expanding, and its human resources are impressive. While serious privatization and other reform would greatly increase foreign investment in Turkey, such investment is nonetheless on the rise. Success is probable but by no means assured. If the past is any guide, progress is likely to be undulant.

This is where the West comes in. The growth and vigor of Turkey hinge on the expansion of Turkey's scientific and technological capabilities, its institutional growth, and its ties with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries for trade and investment. While Turkey may derive modest trade benefits from enhanced relationships with Russia, Central Asia, the Balkans, or the Middle East, Turkey's future lies in its closer cooperation -formal or informal- with Western Europe, the United States, and the other OECD countries.

What of U.S.-Turkish relations? For the last two decades the United States and Turkey have been joined in a military defense guarantee, the United States providing military aid in exchange for the use of Turkish bases. However, since the Americans have opted against pursuing a politically difficult alliance based on Middle East contingencies, that arrangement no longer accords with reality; a new relationship must be forged. Turkey is increasingly aware that its friendships in the world do not run deep and that the United States is indeed its best and most concerned friend. Turkish leaders recognize that a good relationship with the only remaining superpower serves their nation well.

The United States is, and should be, most interested in seeing Turkey continue as a stable, democratic, secular, economically dynamic state in a region that will remain turbulent for a long time to come. If that is indeed an important concern, then the United States must do its part in promoting trade and investment in Turkey, narrowing the economic disparities between Turkey and other Western countries, reducing impediments to EC membership, and generally encouraging Turkish integration into the West. Whatever the limitations, whatever the political and cultural difficulties, and whatever time it takes, the effort will be worth it.



PREFACE

Turkey is among those countries most profoundly affected by the recent revolutionary changes on the international scene. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was a distant outpost on the European periphery, a barrier to Soviet ambitions in the Middle East, and a contributor to the security of Europe. For almost forty years, Ankara's geostrategic "reach" was largely limited to its role within the Atlantic Alliance and, more narrowly, its place within NATO's Southern Region. The Gulf War thrust Turkey into the strategic forefront. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and turmoil in the Balkans, Ankara is now poised to play a leading role across a vast region, from Eastern Europe to western China.

This volume has its origins in a RAND study launched in the fall of 1990, at a time when the transformation of Turkey's regional environment was only just beginning. The impetus for the study came from the identification of internal and external trends that, taken together, suggested a growing role for Turkey and a growing need to understand the implications for regional stability and U.S. policy. The idea of undertaking a sweeping reassessment of Turkey's prospects and orientation grew in equal measure out of ongoing RAND research focused on the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union. The four authors herein bring to bear an active interest in these areas and, in the case of Graham Fuller and Paul Henze, long experience as observers of the Turkish scene. Since the formal completion of the study in the summer of 1992, developments in and around Turkey, from Bosnia to Central Asia, have only reinforced Turkey's significance. The chapters below have been revised and updated to keep abreast of these changes. Inevitably, events will outpace this discussion. But the focus is on long term trends, and the basic lines of analysis should hold.

Taking the evolution of Turkish society itself as a starting point, the following chapters explore where Turkey is headed, where its long-term interests will lie in the face of formidable new opportunities and challenges, and the implications for the United States in its bilateral and institutional relations with Turkey. What will be Turkey's orientation between the Islamic East and the West? To what extent have traditional Ataturkist precepts regarding the dangers of international activism fallen away? Will Turkish and American interests in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia converge or diverge? What are the prospects for Turkish behavior in regional crises?

Turkey's domestic scene is changing almost as rapidly as its external environment. In Chapter 1, Paul Henze explores political, social, and economic trends. He suggests that Islamist political elements have not gained ground, despite the growing prominence of Islam in Turkish society. At the same time, Turkish nationalism has emerged as a more potent force in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. Domestic trends are likely to support a more assertive foreign and security policy, but the Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Anatolia and a problematic human rights record will pose continuing internal and external challenges for Ankara.

Turkey faces tremendous opportunities and new risks in Central Asia and the Middle East. In the Turkic regions of the former Soviet Union, Turkey is emerging as a political, economic, and cultural magnet and an important secular model for development. In Chapter 2, Graham Fuller surveys this new environment and its meaning for Turkey, including the emergence of a potentially dangerous regional competition with Iran. Looking to the Middle East, the Gulf War has given impetus to a violent Kurdish separatist movement on Turkish soil, with strong implications for Ankara's relations with Iran, Iraq, and Syria as well as with the West. Turkey's pivotal resource position, both as a conduit for Iraqi oil exports and as a source of water for its Middle Eastern neighbors, will reinforce Ankara's role in the region.

Ian Lesser treats the evolution of and outlook for Turkey's relations with the West in Chapter 3. The prospects for Turkey's joining Europe in the institutional sense, through full membership in the European Community and the Western European Union, remain poor. The Gulf War returned Turkey to the strategic front rank even as its Cold War importance waned. But the strategic value of Turkey is now seen largely in Middle Eastern and Central Asian terms, making its integration into emerging European security arrangements more difficult. Turks like to refer to their country's role as a bridge between east and west, north and south. By contrast, Europeans are increasingly inclined to view Turkey as a barrier to turmoil on the European periphery, even a source of instability in its own right. Our analysis suggests that Turkey will remain broadly pro-Western but will adopt a more reserved approach to regional and security cooperation with Washington.

The proliferation of ethnic conflicts and separatist movements in the Balkans is of great concern to Ankara. Against the background of the Ottoman legacy, James Brown examines the prospects for a revival of Turkish involvement in the Balkans in Chapter 4. Beyond the crisis in Yugoslavia (and Turkey has been at the forefront of calls for Western intervention in Bosnia), developments in Albania, Macedonia, Greek Thrace, or Bulgaria could lead to a more direct political, even military, role for Turkey. Concern for the fate of ethnic Turks and the roughly nine million Muslims in the Balkans as a whole is already having a pronounced effect on the Turkish political debate. The analysis supports the conclusion, developed in Chapter 3, that Turkey's isolation from Europe would worsen the prospects for stability in Turkish-Greek relations and the evolution of the Balkans as a whole.

Finally, in the concluding chapter, Graham Fuller looks across the preceding analyses and offers some overall observations on how changes in and around Turkey are shaping the way Turks see themselves and deal with others. He goes on to discuss more specific implications for the United States in its policies toward Turkey and the surrounding regions - policies that will take on added significance as Turkey begins to define and act on its own interests in a new geopolitical setting.

The authors wish to express their thanks to RAND Vice Presidents Lynn Davis and George Donohue and to Jonathan Pollack, Rand corporate research manager for international policy, for their support in bringing together in this volume the results of the joint Arroyo Center-Project Air Force study on Turkey's future strategic orientation. Rand colleagues David Ochmanek, Nanette Gantz, Joseph Kechichian, F. Stephen Larrabee, James Steinberg, Jeremy Azrael, Mary Morris, and Cindy Kumagawa provided valuable comments and assistance. We are also grateful to Heath Lowry of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington for his comments on two draft chapters and to William Rau of the Turkish-U.S. Business Council for his assistance with contacts in Istanbul. Finally, we wish to thank the many individuals in Turkey and elsewhere who contributed their views over the course of this research.

Ian O. Lesser



1

Turkey: Toward the
Twenty-First Century

Paul B. Henze

Reflecting on the history of the Turkish Republic over the past seventy years and, in particular, on Turkish accomplishments since the military coup of September 12, 1980, my purpose in this essay is to discuss what I consider the most important features of Turkey's development as the country progresses through the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. I use the verb "progress" intentionally, for Turkey as a nation has not only established a record of accelerated net progress during the past decade, but shows every indication of being able to build on that foundation during the decade of the 1990s. In other words, with continued success, it will enter the twenty-first century as one of the world's most successful and promising medium-sized nations.

The main emphasis in this chapter is on internal trends and developments. These must always be the basis for assessing a country's prospects for progress and projecting the course of its relations with the rest of the world. Turkey became much more directly connected with the world during the 1980s. This process will accelerate during the 1990s. As in many other countries, there are elements in Turkey who would like to turn inward, escape into some form of isolationism or political or religious extremism. They would like to restrict the impact of the world on their societies and limit processes of development which they consider adverse to their interests. Such notions are utopian wherever they are found, and especially for a country with Turkey's geography and history. Nevertheless, reactionary forces are so often overdramatized by journalists, superficial researchers, tendentious critics, and apprehensive government officials that they dominate dialogue about Turkey, and important basic facts and trends are obscured. I may be accused of giving too little attention to Islamic extremists, pan-Turkists, sentimental socialists, and political demagogues in the sections which …

 




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