Weekly Geopolitical Report By Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA August 5, 2019 and why its president, Recep Erdogan, has implemented a more assertive foreign policy Turkey Lashing Out that is putting the country at odds with the United States and the West, in general. As Here at Confluence, we write a lot about the always, we conclude with a discussion of the rise and fall of hegemonic states – those resulting market implications. great nations that develop enough power and influence to dominate the global economy, From Kemalist to Islamist or at least some region of it. These Modern-day Turkey arose from the ashes of superpowers use their extraordinary military the Ottoman Empire following the end of might and other levers to impose order on World War I. After the war, the victorious their sphere of influence, providing the Allies tried to prevent the resurrection of the security necessary for international trade. empire by occupying parts of its territory They also provide the reserve currency that and giving autonomy to regional groups like acts as a common medium of exchange for the Greeks, the Kurds, and the Armenians. that trade. These hegemons therefore However, a group of Turkish military provide the foundation on which a global or officers led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk regional economy can function. overthrew the Allies’ puppet monarch in 1922 and pushed the occupying forces out, During the Cold War, the United States eventually creating the nation of Turkey. accepted leadership of the Free World and acted as hegemon for the non-communist What distinguished Turkey for most of its bloc. After the disintegration of the Soviet first century was a specific political culture Union and the demise of Soviet-style developed by Ataturk to strengthen and communism in 1991, the United States modernize the country by moving it beyond became a global hegemon. What is now less its roots as an Islamic monarchy. Ataturk’s appreciated is that the burdens of hegemony “Kemalism” centered on two primary and the demise of Soviet communism have concepts, both of which were aimed at eroded the willingness of U.S. citizens to emulating the successful countries of maintain their country’s leading role in the Europe. First, the government embraced world. At the same time, the removal of the republicanism and democracy. Second, it Soviet threat has encouraged other nations to enforced secularism and deliberately once again assert their own interests and the suppressed any attempt to bring Islamic freedom of action they sacrificed to come influences into society. The secularist thrust under U.S. protection during the Cold War. of Kemalism was applied even in the This week’s report looks at one of the best conservative, Islamic-dominated hinterlands examples of that dynamic, the recent discord of the Anatolian peninsula, which gradually between Turkey and the United States, generated simmering discontent. The which has culminated in Turkey’s defiant government and military also harshly purchase of a Russian air-defense system. suppressed minorities in those areas, with a We will review Turkey’s political dynamics particular focus on the Kurdish people Weekly Geopolitical Report – August 5, 2019 Page 2 whose historic homeland straddles the therefore highly valuable to the North Turkish-Iraqi frontier. By the late 1970s, Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and it repression of the Kurds spawned a radical, was admitted to the alliance in 1952. left-wing separatist movement known as the Turkey spent decades as a linchpin of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Western security. After the fall of the PKK’s goals have vacillated from the Soviet Union, however, Turkey became establishment of an independent Kurdish much less valued by Western allies. Even as state to simply achieving equal rights and it loyally supported the First Gulf War in autonomy for the Kurds within Turkey. 1991 (which further irritated the country’s However, the PKK has often used terrorist restive Islamists), the government chafed at methods, so it is seen as an existential threat its loss of status in global affairs. to the government in Ankara. Figure 1. During the Kemalist period, the government’s Westernization efforts included a program of industrialization, but economic performance was generally unimpressive and often erratic. Turkey’s per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a modest average annual rate of just 1.1% in those years, and inflation often surpassed 75%. To improve economic prospects, Turkey and the European Union Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (EU) signed a cooperation agreement in Enter Erdogan 1963 and a limited customs union in 1995. Disillusion with the West, economic Turkey applied for full admission into the underperformance, and the rise of Islamism EU in 1987, but EU leaders have continually finally brought anti-Kemalists to power in blocked action on the application on the 2002, but the transition itself further grounds that Turkish human rights delegitimized the Kemalist elites and violations and weak rule of law would be Turkey’s supposed Western allies. In that incompatible with EU norms. Turkey’s year’s elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and frustration over its lack of access to the his Justice and Development Party (AKP) European market has been an important won a sweeping mandate for their proposed factor in turning public opinion away from program of nationalism and increased the West. respect for Islam. However, Turkey’s electoral authorities initially prevented International security policy also became a Erdogan from taking power on the grounds source of Turkish frustration in the Kemalist that he had publicly read a prohibited period. As shown in Figure 1 below, “Islamic” poem eight years earlier. The ban Turkey’s geographical position separating was reversed in 2003, allowing Erdogan to the southwest flank of the Soviet Union take power, but the damage was done. The from the oil fields of the Middle East made episode further eroded public support for the it supremely vulnerable to Soviet incursion, Kemalist elites and the Western while its control of the Bosphorous Straits governments that did little to support put it into position to bottle up the Soviet Erdogan in his post-election legal battle. Navy in the Black Sea. Turkey was Disillusionment with the West grew even Weekly Geopolitical Report – August 5, 2019 Page 3 more as the United States and its allies Morsi as a betrayal, but the complaints about enlisted the help of Kurdish forces against his handling of the Gezi protests were Iraq in the Second Gulf War in 2003. interpreted as outright hypocrisy. New Frustrations Syrian Civil War. As the civil war in The discussion above shows that many in neighboring Syria intensified in 2014, the the Turkish electorate were already Turkish government saw its interests best disillusioned with the West and its values served in supporting radical Al Qaeda- prior to Erdogan’s ascension to power. linked Islamist groups as they battled both Indeed, dissatisfaction with the status quo is the forces of President Bashir Al Assad and what helped make Erdogan’s program so the Syrian-based Kurds. In contrast, the appealing. Since coming to power, U.S. government chose to support the however, Erdogan and the Turks have faced Kurds. Given the Turkish government’s a range of new frustrations with the West view that the PKK constitutes a mortal that have made them more interested in threat, the U.S. stance has been a growing finding new allies, culminating in Turkey’s irritant up to the present. In fact, the dispute purchase this month of a new air-defense over the PKK in Syria nearly produced a system from Russia. Those new frustrations U.S.-Turkish military confrontation in early have included the following: 2018 when Turkish forces launched an operation against Kurdish forces in the Failure of the Arab Spring. The anti- Syrian enclave of Afrin. While Russia government protests and uprisings that offered its encouragement for the Turkish spread throughout the Arab world in the attack, the U.S. government forced Turkey early 2010s (the “Arab Spring”) initially into a humiliating backdown. seemed to herald an Islamist wakening like Erdogan was promoting in Turkey, but he Failed Coup and Break with Gulen. As and much of Turkish society came to see bad as those events were for U.S.-Turkish Western support for the Islamist protestors relations, they paled in comparison to the to be insufficient. That was especially the failed coup attempt against Erdogan in the case as the uprisings in Libya, Egypt, Syria, summer of 2016. One irritant was that and other countries petered out or were Erdogan simply didn’t think the U.S. suppressed. The case of Egypt was government supported him enough in his especially galling since the popularly elected hour of need. Erdogan has also chafed government of President Mohamed Morsi against U.S. criticism of his post-coup and his Muslim Brotherhood were toppled in roundup of political opponents and his effort a July 2013 coup with little U.S. or Western to get his hands on a moderate Islamist complaint. At almost the same time, the religious leader named Fethullah Gulen, Western media strongly criticized what they who has been living in self-imposed exile in saw as Erdogan’s increasing Pennsylvania since 1999. Gulen had authoritarianism. The Western media provided important political support to criticism reached a fever pitch after Erdogan during his rise to prominence, but Erdogan’s heavy-handed dispersal of just as Western opinion turned against Turkish protestors trying to stop one of his Erdogan following the Gezi protests, Gulen signature construction projects in Istanbul’s also became critical and publicly broke with Gezi Park. Not only did Erdogan interpret him.