Give War a Chance: Turkish Leader Finesses Political Defeat

Burak Bekdil
July 30, 2021
Paper No. 2109

Turks are hungry for fairy tales. Any feel-good news propaganda—including Erdoğan’s “The West, including the Germans, are jealous of us!” tirade—finds millions of receptive listeners in Turkey’s postmodern marketplace of absurdity.

How Long Will the Aegean Sea’s Peaceful Summer Last?

Burak Bekdil
July 27, 2021
Paper No. 2106

How sustainable will the Aegean Sea’s peaceful summer of 2021 prove to be? For Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the primary reason for peace in the Aegean has been the threat of further Western sanctions amid Turkey’s ongoing economic descent. But his election campaign for the 2023 race could drive him back to his bullying, aggressive self in terms of regional policy to consolidate conservative and nationalist votes.

Turkey’s Mobgate Reveals the Islamist Deep State

Burak Bekdil
July 20, 2021
Paper No. 2100

Revelations on YouTube by Turkish mob boss and Erdoğan ally Sedat Peker are rattling the Turkish government. Peker’s disclosures involve murder, rape, corruption, bribery, political assassination, drug smuggling, arms shipments to jihadists, and torture and violence committed on the government’s behalf to silence the opposition. Through Peker’s revelations, the Turkish people are witnessing the extent to which the Islamist “deep state” has exponentially flourished under Erdoğan’s rule.

How Turkey Bypasses Western Arms Embargoes

Burak Bekdil
July 2, 2021
Paper No. 2086

US and Canadian embargoes are threatening Turkey’s attack helicopter and drone sales to third-party countries. Ankara has come up with a corporate legal solution to this problem, but it might fail to overcome the political impetus behind the export restrictions.

Turkey’s Crypto Crackdown Leaves Investors Scrambling

Gerelyn Terzo
June 28, 2021
Paper No. 2082

Turkey has decided to throw down the gauntlet on the cryptocurrency industry. It has assigned money laundering and terror financing regulations to the nascent market, leaving Turkish crypto investors scrambling as they face sky-high inflation and a severely weakened national currency.

Iran, Russia, and Turkey: A Eurasionist Model of Foreign Relations

Emil Avdaliani
June 22, 2021
Paper No. 2078

Iran, Turkey, and Russia are building a new model of bilateral ties. Unshackled by formal alliances, the trio is showing it can work together to limit Western influence while avoiding an overreliance on one another. This mixture of correlating and contradictory interests, which characterizes the new Eurasianist model of bilateral relations, is a product of the changing global order.

Erdoğan’s Caricature State

Burak Bekdil
June 21, 2021
Paper No. 2077

Power fatigue per se does not fully explain the decline of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He will have a hard time uniting a majority of Turks around the flag and the mosque in the presidential elections of 2023.

Erdoğan’s Eastern Med Repentance: Too Little, Too Late

Burak Bekdil
June 17, 2021
Paper No. 2074

Turkey’s string of failures and increasing isolation in the Eastern Med have forced President Erdoğan to recalibrate his policy toward the region.

Biden’s Use of the G-Word Furthers Turkey’s Isolation

Burak Bekdil
June 1, 2021
Paper No. 2060

President Joe Biden’s use of the word “genocide” on Armenian Remembrance Day was not a game-changer in US-Turkish relations, which are plagued by more fundamental problems. But it enhances Turkey’s political isolation, weakens its arguments on whether a genocide did or did not occur in 1915-24, and further destabilizes whatever is left of Ankara’s soft power.

Turkey: How Not to Handle a Pandemic

Burak Bekdil
May 28, 2021
Paper No. 2054

Turkey’s official COVID-19 numbers reveal the government’s efforts to combat the pandemic as worthy of a commedia all’Italiana. As of mid-April, Turkey was the second-worst performer in the world, with 710.46 cases per million people. This is despite the country’s possession of a strong health infrastructure.