Turkey Faces Threats on All Sides

Turkey’s location at the crossroads between Europe and Asia has given it control of one of the most geopolitically important regions in the world.  In the past, this has given Turkey a number of political and economic advantages and has allowed it to have a significant amount of influence in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.  However, such a strategic location also comes with a number of risks, including the threat of unrest along Turkey’s borders.  This is the case today, as Turkey finds itself facing significant threats around all of its borders.

The most pressing threat to Turkey’s security and geopolitical position comes to the south of Turkey in the Middle East.  When the Arab Spring erupted a few years ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now Turkey’s president) viewed this as a unique opportunity for Turkey to regain its lost influence in the Middle East and North Africa.  However, things have not worked out as Turkey had hoped for and today, Turkey faces civil wars Syria and Iraq, wars that have spread directly to the border of Turkey.  Thus far, Turkey has been unable to have much of an influence on the wars in either country.  In fact, Turkey is more alarmed by the rising strength of the Kurdish minorities in Syria and Iraq than by the rise of radical militant groups in these countries, including the Islamic State.  Instead, Turkey now sees the United States, together with a number of Turkey’s Arab rivals, leading the fight against these radical groups, costing Turkey what influence it had in these countries.

To Turkey’s north and east, it is also facing a major threat to its influence and geopolitical position.  This is due to Russia’s increasing assertiveness in these regions, as historically, Turkey and Russia have battled to dominate the Black Sea and the Caucasus regions.  For example, Turkey favors a united and stable Ukraine as a means of limiting Russian power in the Black Sea, particularly as Russia’s historical dream has been to gain control of Istanbul and the Bosporus.  Meanwhile, Turkey’s support of Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia finds Turkey on opposite sides with Russia and both countries are determined to exert more influence in the highly volatile Caucasus region, with Russia recently stepping up its efforts to reassert its dominance there.

Finally, Turkey faces a threat to its future from the West as well.  Here, the European Union has largely turned away from closer ties with Turkey by stalling its progress towards membership in the EU.  Opposition to Turkish membership in the European Union is now so entrenched in a number of EU member states that no one seriously expects Turkey to join the EU in the coming decades.  Moreover, opposition to EU membership in Turkey has also risen sharply in recent years, with many Turks feeling rejected by the European Union.  As such, the two sides now have little incentive to work together on many of the issues that divide them, most notably Cyprus.  As a result, tensions between Turkey and the EU are likely to worsen in the years ahead.

For the Turkish government, the developments of the past few years represent a major policy failure by the Erdogan government.  The architect of this foreign policy, current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (former foreign minister), had sought to enhance Turkish power and prestige by having good relations with all of the countries that border Turkey.  Instead, Turkey now finds itself facing an emboldened Kurdish insurgency in the southeast, two civil wars on its southern border, a resurgent Russia to the north and east, and worsening relations with the European Union.  Balancing this myriad of threats will be a significant challenge for Turkey.  However, if the government fails to manage these external threats, this unrest could spread to Turkey itself and could threaten to tear the country apart.