Turkey Signals Sweeping Regional Ambitions

A nationalist Turkish television station with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dug up a 12-year-old map that projects Turkey’s sphere of influence in 2050 as stretching from southeastern Europe on the northern coast of the Mediterranean and Libya on its southern shore across North Africa, the Gulf, and the Levant into the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Gara Affair: How Not to Rescue Hostages

Burak Bekdil
March 10, 2021
Paper No. 1958

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needed a military success story, and the rescue of 13 hostages held by the PKK in northern Iraq would have fit the bill. Unfortunately, the operation was a tragic failure. Erdoğan now accuses the Kurds, Kurdish political parties, opposition parties, and even the Biden administration of responsibility for the disaster.

Erdoğan’s Turkey Cannot Modernize Via Constitutional Reform

Turks have been seeking to modernize their democratic culture for a century and a half. Recently, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged to reform the constitution. Beware of an Erdoğan bearing democratic gifts.

Islamism Is Stunting Turkish Academic Achievement

The success stories of Turkish Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar and the Turkish couple who developed a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus demonstrate that Turks are capable of spectacular achievements—provided they conduct their academic careers in the free world, not in a country strangled by an increasingly Islamist regime.

Profiling Erdoğan’s Fan Club—No Democracy, No Problem

Studies have shown that only 2.4% of Turks believe their country’s biggest problem is its democratic deficit. Advanced democratic standards, or the acute lack of them, have never been a game changer in any Turkish election. In other words, democracy does not sell in the Turkish market.

Turkey Continues to Honor Its Racists

The true danger facing modern Turkey is not religious extremism but ultra-nationalism. While other nations tear down their monuments to racists, Turkey continues to honor its own.

Israel, Don’t Trust Turkey

Rumors are circulating that an Israeli-Turkish rapprochement might occur soon. Jerusalem and other regional capitals should not fall yet again for Ankara’s deceptions.

The Turkish Air Force: Flying into the Abyss?

Turkey’s F-16s will be phased out in 10 to 15 years. Now that it has been kicked out of the US-led F-35 program and is facing US military sanctions, what can Ankara do to sustain aerial firepower? A Russian fighter seems the only feasible option, but even that may come too late.

Erdoğan’s Reckless Gambit: It’s Payback Time

US CAATSA sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry are now official. The costs to Turkey of its S-400 deal with Russia have been enormous, both strategically and economically. Those costs will continue to rise exponentially and will push Turkey further into the Russian orbit.

Turkey’s Boycott Threats Are Preposterous

Ankara first attempted to use a commercial boycott as a foreign policy weapon in 1998, when Rome refused to extradite Kurdish nationalist Abdullah Öcalan. Turkey has made scores of national boycott attempts since then, but they invariably lose steam quickly. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s most recent boycott threat against France will be no exception.