Erdoğan’s Dangerous Ambitions Threaten India and Beyond

The age of empire has come and gone, but in some quarters, the imperialist dream is alive and well. Leaders continue to appear on the world stage from time to time to style themselves in this fashion. The latest entry in this category is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is promoting himself as leader of the Muslim world to his coreligionists around the globe – particularly in India.

Turkey’s Bizarre Approach to Missile Defense

The US administration has offered to sell $3.5 billion worth of Patriot missiles to Turkey, apparently in an effort to stop Ankara from going ahead with a planned S-400 deal with Moscow. The Turks will probably shrug off the offer (after making sure it’s not an offer they can’t refuse). For reasons largely unrelated to its military requirements, Ankara has no intention of scrapping the S-400 deal and risking its geostrategic bonds with Moscow.

Indian Muslims: A Valuable Prize for Regional Rivals

The hearts and minds of Indian Muslims would be a valuable prize for Saudi Arabia and Turkey as they vie for leadership of the Muslim world. This is particularly true in the wake of the October 2 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which catapulted the rivalry to center stage.

Erdoğan: Ideological but not Suicidal

Turkey’s radical shift in crises, first with Russia and then with America, shows that while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can be confrontational along ideological lines, he is not suicidal. He cannot afford to risk a punishing economic crisis that might cost him his power.

Turkey vs. the Southern Caucasus Republics

On October 13, 1921, the Kars Agreement was signed in the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia (Western Armenia). This agreement redrew, in Turkey’s favor, the Kars-Ardahan-Artvin border between Turkey and the Caucasus republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, an area that had been stripped from Turkey by the post-WWI Sèvres peace treaty. While there are irredentist trends in the now independent Caucasian republics that wish to invalidate the Turkish claim, they are being restrained by present day realities.

The Fragility of Middle East Alliances

Competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and commercial as it is military and geopolitical. Battles are fought as much on geopolitical fronts as they are on economic and cultural battlefields such as soccer.

The Unknown Turkish Refugee Crisis

Turkey, which hosts some 3.5 million refugees, is generally considered a transit or bulwark country in the ongoing refugee crisis. What is less known is that Turkey is also generating refugees of its own.

How Trump Should Handle the Jamal Khashoggi Killing

On October 2, Saudi-born journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to obtain documentation for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancée. He was never seen exiting the compound and has not been seen or heard from since. This has sparked intense speculation that he was the victim of a hit arranged by the Saudi government, of which he had been sharply critical in his writings. President Trump now has an opportunity to pressure the Saudi leadership to incorporate journalistic freedom into its program of domestic reform.

Turkey’s Syrian Quagmire

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan does not understand that his biggest divergence with Russia is over the future of all of Syria, not just a Syrian province. In theory, it is understandable that he wants to protect the “moderate fighters” because he feels indebted to them for their help to the Turkish army in two cross-border operations. But more than that, he wants to protect them in order to maintain a force that can eventually fight either or both of his two nemeses in Syria: President Assad and the Syrian Kurds.

The Tehran Summit and Iran’s Regional Ambitions

The recent Russian-Turkish-Iranian summit in Tehran underscored the Islamic Republic’s determination to take an active and central part in the future reconstruction of Syria so as to promote a range of civilian and security interests that are bound to work to Israel’s detriment.