The US and Turkey relations: The returning of the Cold War
While Joe Biden, as President, was in the White House, Turkey and US relations deserve a new definition. In fact, Recep T. Erdoğan made this new definition with a Turkish idiom: “The affairs look bleak.” In Turkish, this idiom indicates that bad things are being prepared. Bleak affairs express a cold war in which bad things are arranged in the background.
Finding the historical experience and roots of Erdogan’s new policy that has grown against the United States will help us understand what Erdogan was planning to do.
One of the political legacies that had remained to Turkey from the Ottoman Empire was utilizing the international balance of power. The balance of power policy had started with the invasion of Egypt by France (1798) and had become the permanent policy with the invasion of Crimea by Russia (1853). Once the Turkish military forces were not enough to defend their territorial integrity, The Turks tried to protect their land ownership by allying with one of the conflicting Western countries.
Turkey’s alliance with the United States was also the result of seeking a balance of power against Soviet threats. Turkey’s alliance to the United States, which started in 1945 with Stalin’s ultimatum for land from Turkey and some military bases to be established in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, had turned into a strategic alliance with its membership of NATO in 1952.
Even though this strategic alliance with the US was paused for a short amount of time due to the Cyprus dispute, it was always sustained. Turkey did not seek a balance of power with the USA. This alliance concept, established in 1945, did not change even in the first decade of Erdoğan’s rule. On the contrary, it had gained depth. So much so that once Barack Obama was elected as President, his first overseas travel was to Turkey in 2009. Hence the strategic partnership between Turkey and the United States had reached its summit.
The break with the US and the pursuit for balance
The US and Turkey alliance would begin to decline rapidly, how fast as the descent begins after the summit. Erdogan was going to start using this credibility as a cover for the enormous corruption of Turkey’s history.
In return for tens of millions of dollars in bribes, the Erdogan administration had violated the US sanction on Iran by state instruments such as state banks. It was a crime. Therefore, Erdogan had begun to consider the United States a threat to his personality and power. The reason for this perception was not an activity of the US against Erdogan or Turkey. On the contrary, Erdogan had sought ways to obtain the tools to balance before the US reaction would emerge due to the possible consequences of his crime.
Nevertheless, Erdogan has believed that Gezi Park Protests in June 2013, and then the 17/25 December 2013 Corruption and Bribery Operations were organized by the US-backed people in Turkey against him and his government. Therefore, Erdoğan had revived the balance policy that had been forgotten in the dusty shelves of history and sought a balance of power against the imaginary threat of the US. This quest had meant to break off the historical ally.
Erdogan might have tried to revitalize neo-Ottomanism because of the goal of acquiring a balance of power. Because the revitalization of Neo-Ottomanism might have given him opportunities to use the tools of Ottomanism policy again, such as the balance of power. Thus, Turkey’s zero-problem policy with neighbors would be replaced by the aggressiveness of the Neo-Ottomanism policies. However, there was one reality that was overlooked. Just as Ottomanism had failed, Neo-Ottomanism had no chance of triumph. But Neo-Ottomanism was to be the stepping milestone of a new paradigm.
To attempt to buy a new air defense system from China was his first trial to measure the US reaction. It was his new pursuit of a balance of power. Although China won the proposal in 2013, this project was shelved in 2015 due to the reactions from the USA and NATO.
However, the detention of Reza Zarrab, who had bribed Erdogan’s government to violate the embargo on Iran in March 2016 in the US, had started sleepless nights for Erdogan. So much so that Erdogan, in order to the extradition of Zarrab, had broken new ground in Turkey’s history and had issued diplomatic NOTE to the United States twice. To issue diplomatic NOTE to the US was the harbinger of a new policy.
15 July 2016: The Second Bay of Pigs Invasion
It has not been clarified hundred percent yet, what happened on the night of July 15, 2016. On the one hand, Erdogan is imposing his discourse on the US and NATO members about the so-called coup attempt; on the other hand, the strange silence of the US and NATO about that. It is always thought-provoking the weak reactions of the US and NATO members to NATO ally Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) undergoing a major liquidation and gradually drifting away from NATO values.
Erdogan had undoubtedly thought that the 15 July suspicious and so-called coup attempt, which had turned into a counter-coup, was planned by the US. According to him, 15 July was the Second Bay of Pigs Invasion which was repulsed by Erdogan. Erdogan’s government Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, had expressed this opinion clearly. This situation had increased Erdogan’s paranoia, so he had put the Russia card on the table as a balance of power aganist the US.
When it comes to hostility towards the USA, in early 2014, the cooperation in the TAF, between Erdoğan and the Eurasianist/Ultra-nationalist Factions which is called Ergenekon, on 15 July 2016 had turned into a bloody counter-coup against the pro-NATO soldiers of the TAF.
From the balance of power to the new cold war
The Presidency of Donald Trump, which started at the beginning of 2017, had given Erdogan extraordinary opportunities to designate his new game plan. Trump’s four years in the White House was when Erdogan had succeeded in establishing and institutionalizing strategic relations with Russia as a counterbalance to the United States. Erdogan, who had bought the S-400 defense missiles from Russia in the first year of the Trump administration, had built a new balance of power by the alliance with Russia to the imaginary US threat, just like Fidel Castro.
Fidel Castro had taken over the government by overthrowing Fulgencio Batista, who had cooperation with the USA. The overthrowing of the left-wing government in Guatemala, with the support of the USA, caused Castro to be very nervous about the USA. By the 1960s, these concerns had prompted Castro to seek further USSR support. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, Soviet nuclear missiles were placed in Cuba with Khrushchev’s proposal. Thus, one of the most dangerous crises of the Cold War had emerged.
Erdogan’s reaction to the overthrow of the Islamist Mohammed Morsi government with a coup in 2013 was similar to Castro’s reaction to overthrowing the government in Guatemala. Erdogan had certainly analogized the 15 July suspicious coup attempt to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Castro’s response to the US was to buy nuclear missiles from Khrushchev. Erdogan’s response was to buy the S-400 defense missiles from Putin. The atmosphere of a new cold war, which was constructed by Erdogan, on the one hand, had provided a shield for himself and his government; on the other hand, he had known that this movement would weaken NATO. Thus, an important step was taken that would cause the brain death of NATO.
The US reinforced the atmosphere of the new Cold War by charging the CAATSA sanctions on Turkey into effect on 6 April 2021. I believe that CAATSA was pleased by Erdogan, which was not being deterrent, but rather reinforced the cold war atmosphere.
The US support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), composed primarily of Kurds and militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to fight against ISIS, is still Erdogan’s rhetoric of his cold war. In fact, the transition of YPG militants to Northern Syria had taken place with the help of the Erdogan government itself. YPG militants had crossed from Northern Iraq to Northern Syria via Turkey and under the control of the Turkish Armed Forces.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD), which was established as a Syrian branch of Kurdish Worker Party (PKK), former Co-Leader Salih Muslim had made several official visits to Ankara and was welcomed on the red carpets. However, after Erdogan’s exchanging his pro-western allies with Ergenekon, the YPG, like the PYD and its leaders, was defined as an enemy like PKK. Erdogan is also pressing the US as a NATO ally to consider the Syrian Kurds as terrorists and enemies. So much so that the weapons and arsenal given by the USA to the SDF, pro-government media had described as the US’ battle readiness for the invasion of Turkey.
The issue of Fethullah Gülen is a complete mystery. Gülen had supported Erdogan during the first decade of his rule. Gülen had said that his support was not to Erdoğan, but it was to reforms of Turkey’s becoming EU membership. However, four ministers of Erdogan’s cabinet, his son, and some of his relatives had been caught on the corruption and bribery by Gülen movement linked prosecutors and officers. Afterward, Erdogan had launched a massive defamation campaign against Gülen. So Erdogan had decided to associate with Ergenekon against Gulen and the Pro-western people. Finally, at the beginning of 2014, Erdoğan had freed from jail imprisoned Ergenokon cadres.
Turkey’s axis shift had also begun on this point. Instead of pro-Western people, pro-Russian and pro-Chinese Ergenekon’s team had become Erdogan’s new allies. Erdogan’s purge of Turkey started at the end of 2013 and had turned into a witch hunt after 15 July 2016, with Ergenekon gangs. It is a complete irony that they had demanded Gülen from the US, claiming that the 15 July was made by a US-led consortium, including Fethullah Gülen. Since Erdogan could not produce a legal document for the extradition process, the US has not extradited him to Turkey. Despite this, his rhetoric continues.
One of the chief points of Erdogan’s cold war with the United States was his attacks on the European Union through Greece. The purpose of NATO was to protect Europe from attacks. However, a NATO member, Turkey, emerges to open a new front to the EU through Greece. Sending migrants to the Greece border and building the so-called Blue Homeland doctrine in the Eastern Mediterranean were an attack on NATO members. So much so that the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, who had allied with Erdoğan, had gone so far as to claim some lands from Greece. During the Trump administration, the United States did not seem as eager to protect Europe as it used to.
On the one hand, this situation had forced the EU to develop its own security tools; on the other hand, it had caused weakness in NATO and the leadership of the US. I believe that these circumstances had accelerated the establishment of a new EU permanent defense force called PESCO (The establishment of the Permanent Structured Cooperation) by 25 EU members in 2017. Therefore, the agreement of Germany, France, and Spain to develop a new generation fighter aircraft that will cost approximately 100 billion Euros makes the importance of PESCO even more understandable.
Former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen had said that PESCO could be an alternative to NATO. It should not be forgotten that Germany and France cooked up the project of PESCO. Accordingly, Italian Defense Minister Roberto Pinott talked about fighting more effectively with PESCO against the threats brought by the 21st century, while another signatory, Cyprus Defense Minister Kristoporos Fokaides, stated that his country would become more secure with PESCO. The question is, who threatens Cyprus?
Those statements indicate the tendency to shift initiative from NATO to PESCO along with defense and security. These indicators certainly mean a big collision with the established hegemony of the US. No one doubts that Turkey, or rather Erdogan, is responsible for this framework, which means the weakening of European support in the struggle that the USA has had to engage with China. Because Turkey appears as the Trojan horse of Russia and/or China within NATO. The suspicions about Turkey may cause the cold war with the USA to spread to the EU.
Erdogan’s alliance with Russia and his aggressive attitudes towards the EU had accelerated the establishment of an extraordinary alliance between the US and Greece. Therefore, Erdogan did not hesitate to express his discomfort out loud about the US Military bases in Greece: “I couldn’t count the US military bases in Greece even. Greece, as a whole, has turned into a US military base.” Erdogan had asked the critical question to the US that indicates cold winds between the USA and Turkey: “Why is that all being done now?” cold winds between the USA and Turkey: “Why is that all being done now?”
Cold winds of the Cold War
After Joe Biden took over the Presidency on January 6, 2021, he did not respond to Erdogan’s congratulatory messages for four months. Finally, Biden had replied with a brutal cold call to Erdogan. While responding to Erdogan’s congratulations on April 23, he said he would admit the historic Armenian Genocide. Then, a bilateral meeting at the NATO Summit on June 14, 2021, did not result. Erdogan, who went to New York for a UN meeting at the end of September but could not meet Biden, had released the name of the cold war with the US: “As two NATO countries, affairs look bleak.”
The Osman Kavala statement published recently by Ambassadors via Twitter demonstrated that Erdogan would not give up his bleak affairs with the United States. The document, which was signed by Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Norway, and New Zealand Embassies with the leadership of the US Embassy in Ankara, had demanded the release of Osman Kavala. This request had increased the intensity of the cold winds. Ten countries requested justice only for Osman Kavala, not for Turkey’s 50,000 or so political prisoners. This increased Erdogan’s paranoia.
I believe that Erdogan’s Cold War with Biden will continue with great patience until the 2024 Presidential Elections, hoping Trump will win. Till Trump win, Erdogan will try to preoccupy with Biden and NATO members’ leaders.
