Turkey’s Renewed Balance-of-Power Policy

Turkey’s Renewed Balance-of-Power Policy among the Global Powers

Arguably the superpower of the entire world in the sixteenth century under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire slowly declined during subsequent years so that by the middle of the nineteenth century, Russian tsar Nicholas I began referring to it as “the sick man of Europe.” Having chosen the losing side in World War I, the Ottoman Empire and its successor state Turkey even came close to extinction before Kemal Ataturk inspired Turkey’s rebirth. The Father of the Turks successfully resisted multiple attempts to carve up his country’s remnants according to the provisions of the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and its approval of the invading imperialist powers (Britain, France, and Italy) along with the Greeks in the west and Armenians in the east. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 gave birth to the new Republic of Turkey, whose leader Ataturk proclaimed “peace at home and peace aboard.” In many ways the first new post-colonial state, modern Turkey managed to remain neutral in World War II and slowly reemerged among global powers. 

To meet Stalin’s threats to take the Bosphorus and parts of eastern Anatolia after World War II, Turkey made a historical decision to join the Western military alliance NATO in 1952 on the heels of supporting the United Nations during the Korean War from 1950-1953. However, in time, Turkey grew disillusioned with its American ally, especially when US president Lyndon B. Johnson threatened to remove NATO protection from Turkey if it did not pull back from its threatened invasion of Cyprus to protect ethnic Turks from the Greek enosis (union) threat. This caused Turkey to mature as an increasing independent power. Nevertheless, when he first came to power in Turkey in 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued basically to follow a pro-Western policy by maintaining good relations with the United States, Europe, and even Israel. 

However, the European Union’s historical decision to reject Turkey’s membership application due mainly to its Islamic heritage, democratic backsliding and authoritarianism under Erdogan, and the Arab Spring that suddenly arose at the end of 2010, began increasingly to fray Erdogan’s ties to the West. The Turkish president started to emphasize his support for a pro-Muslim Brotherhood foreign policy with Turkey as the future leader implementing a neo-Ottomanism future. 

However, the Brotherhood’s failures—most epitomized by the fall of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, among others—eventually led Erdogan to pivot his foreign policies again, this time to a more transactional foreign policy as an important middle-level power helping to maintain an equitable balance of power among the various global powers. Erdogan’s new Turkey became the only state that not only held membership in the Western NATO alliance, but also harboring a desire to join BRICS, a group of countries from the Global South comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.  

BRICS’s aim was to increase its members’ economic and political global influence at the expense of the West if necessary. Turkey’s ambition to join BRICS reflects its desire to diversify its foreign policy and economic ties by balancing itself between Western and non-Western powers by belonging to both sides. As an important expression of this balancing act, Turkish president joined the non-Western powers at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (CSO) summit held from August 31-September 1, 2025 in Tianjin, China. 

The very day Erdogan arrived in China, the Chinese People’s Daily published an article written by the Turkish president in which he noted Turkey’s centuries’ long role of “building bridges and bringing civilizations together.” Erdogan further explained, “At the core of our foreign policy lies the establishment of trust, maintaining open channels of communication, and demonstrating a resolute commitment to resolving crises. . . .  We contribute significantly to both regional and global stability, striving tirelessly for peace, stability, and dialogue to prevail. . . .  We continue to pursue our peace diplomacy with patience.” In joining the Global South alignment against his NATO allies, Erdogan denied that he was walking away from the West although he added that differences remained. 

Thus, the Turkish leader was a fervent critic of the current world order, especially the United Nations which he saw as an obstacle for a fairer representation of the wider global community. Erdogan summed all this up as “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the privileged veto-wielding five permanent member of the UN Security Council. This censure, of course, not only applied to the West’s three permanent members the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, but also to the East’s China and Russia. These five held their positions as the victors of World War II, 80 long years ago in a now much-altered world. 

The CSO/BRICS openly challenged the United States and its NATO allies for world dominance. Turkey’s appearance at the CSO was almost like a direct response to US diplomat to the Middle East Thomas Barrack’s recent statements regarding Syria and the Kurdish SDF/YPG. In the short period of little more than a month US president Donald Trump’s representative first managed to demand that the Kurdish SDF/YPG merge itself into a newly centralized Syria, but then changed tunes to call for the former to enter a more federal-type relationship with Damascus. 

Similarly, Erdogan’s new Turkey seeks to become an indispensable middle-level power by acting as a diplomatic bridge between the various global actors, while simultaneously pursuing autonomy and leveraging its hard power in part by marketing its powerful but relatively moderately priced drones. This diplomatic path entails a complex, multi-vector foreign policy that maintains ties with Western NATO allies like the United States, while also engaging with their opposite numbers China, Russia and the other member of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (CSO). 

Already, Turkey has tried with partial success to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. For example, Turkey has balanced its military support for Ukraine with opposition to Western sanctions on Moscow. Turkey has also successfully brokered a Black Sea grain deal and multiple prisoner swaps between Moscow and Kyiv since their war began in February 2022. As Erdogan proudly concluded, “Turkiye has been an example by its ability to negotiate with both sides and earn their trust since the war began,” adding, “If we all prioritize dialogue over conflict, peace over war, we can open a window of opportunity.”  

Erdogan also eyes economic and security partnerships in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. According to the 2024 Lowy Global Diplomatic Index, Turkey has the third greatest number of diplomatic missions worldwide (252), trailing only the United States and China. Again, however, these diplomatic moves usually lead to transactional relations that mainly emphasize pragmatic self-interests rather than ideological commitments. 

Take Turkey’s “drone diplomacy” as a specific example of how it is implementing its renewed balance-of-power policy among the global powers. Formerly, an economic and weapons importer/backwater unsuccessfully seeking the latest US F-35 fighter jets being denied because of its earlier acceptance of the Russian S-400 air defense missile system, Selcuk Bayraktar, one of Erdogan’s sons-in-law, achieved precision drone strike capability by 2015. Within two years, Turkey began exporting them in droves to almost two dozen countries including Albania, Poland, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco. Somalia, Tunisia, Qatar, Iraq, and Azerbaijan. By 2020, these moderately priced Bayraktar weapons were proving close to a paradigm change on the battlefield in regional conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus as well as in Syria, and Libya. In all of these conflict fields, Russia was largely Turkey’s opposite number as supplier of the opposition. 

These drones also began turning the tide of battle against the Kurdish PKK’s 40-year struggle against Turkey, possibly helping to lead to the current Turkish-PKK peace process. Recently, these Turkish-made drones also have helped keep Ukraine standing against a supposedly far-superior Russia. They have even been memorialized by the Ukrainians in a patriotic song called “Bayraktar.”  Given such successful results, these paradigm-altering attributes of the Turkish Bayraktar drones remind one of the Soviet Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles from a half century ago. Thus, in practice, these Turkish drones symbolize Turkey’s balance-of-power position as a middle-level power transactionally capable of participating on all sides of the struggle, while still situating itself as a potential mediator as for example in Ukraine, Eurasia, Africa, and the Middle East. 

Erdogan’s performance at the recent CSO conclave opposition to the United States and NATO presents another example of NATO member Turkey’s balance-of-power, middle-level policy. Returning home, Erdogan denounced the US decision to revoke the visas of Palestinian officials. This US action would bar the Palestinians from attending the annual UN General Assembly plenary gathering later in September. As Erdogan explained, the US attempt to block Palestinian diplomatic initiatives was “not in line with the reason d’etre” of the world organization. The U.N. General Assembly exists for the issues of the world to be discussed and for solutions to be found.” 

Thus, Erdogan joined many others among the global community in calling for a fully independent Palestine based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The establishment of a Palestinian state was essential for achieving lasting peace throughout the Middle East. This could only be accomplished by multiple initiatives. As Erdogan explained, “Economic ties, infrastructure projects, energy collaborations, and cultural exchange are all institutional elements that contribute to building trust.” Turkey would “continue to be an actor in improving global stability, expanding humanitarian aid capacity, and developing solutions on multilateral platforms.” 

Turkey also fiercely criticized Israel over its actions in Gaza, even concluding that Israel was committing genocide there. Erdogan halted all trade with Israel, called for international actions against it, and for other states to stop supporting the Jewish state. In currying favor among Israel’s opponents, Ankara even called for Israel to be suspended from the UN General Assembly. These actions recalled Erdogan’s dramatic walkout at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 29, 2009, when he clashed with then Israeli president Shimon Peres. Such anti-Israeli positions stood in sharp contrast to those who might still recall that Turkey ironically had been the first Islamic country to recognize Israel in 1949. 

On the other hand, Turkey has supported the recent US peace initiative between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In reference to the strategic Zangezur Corridor transit route across the South Caucasus (also dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity or TRIPP), Erdogan declared, “Peace will help open border crossings and activate new roads and railways.” Turkish officials argued that the Zangezur Corridor would boost regional trade, normalize relations between long-time foes Armenia and Azerbaijan, and create a direct railway and eventually energy and digital infrastructure from Turkey to Central Asia. 

Although Erdogan clashed with Trump during his first administration over Turkey’s S-400 missile defense deal with Russia as well as Turkey’s attacks on the Syrian Kurds to the extent that the Turkish leader even threatened the United States with an “Ottoman slap,” the two leaders subsequently have achieved a much more cordial relationship. Indeed, the US president recently declared, “I have a great relationship with a man named Erdogan. I happen to like him, and he likes me.” Trump also called Erdogan, “a very smart guy and very tough.” The American president even went on to credit Erdogan for convincing him to lift sanctions on Syria and meet the country’s new rebel interim president and former al-Qaeda affiliated group leader Ahmad al-Sharaa when Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip of his second administration.

Finally, in regards to China, Turkey seeks to expand its ties and become a bridge between what has become the world’s second greatest military and economic power and the world’s still greatest power, the United States. Specifically, Erdogan emphasized the importance of joint Sino-Turkish steps to harmonize the Zangezur Corridor with the Middle Corridor and China’s bold and imaginative Belt and Road Initiative, a modern-day Silk Road. The Middle Corridor, also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, is a crucial multimodal land and sea transport network linking China and Europe via Central Asia and the Caucasus, while bypassing Russia. It aims to boost trade, improve supply chain resilience, and offer an alternative to existing routes, with significant investments in infrastructure and digital logistics by countries like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Ongoing international support from entities like the EU’s Global Gateway initiative shows the corridor’s growing strategic and economic importance. Key challenges include improving infrastructure, harmonizing customs procedures, and managing environmental factors like Caspian Sea weather. Centrally situated in all this is Turkey. 

For his part, Chinese president Xi Jinping praised Turkey’s “spirit of self-reliance” and added that both China and Turkey were emerging powers and important members of the Global South who shared a spirit of “independence and self-reliance.” Noting that 2026 would mark the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between their two states, Xi declared, “Maintaining the high-level development of China-Turkiye relations serves the fundamental interests of both countries and the common interests of the Global South.” The Chinese leader added, that the two “should elevate the China-Turkiye strategic cooperative relationship to new heights, and jointly promote the building of a more just and equitable global governance system.” Not only should China and Turkey deepen practical cooperation by further aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with the Middle Corridor Initiative, “they should also strengthen multilateral cooperation by closely coordinating within frameworks such as the United Nations, the G20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to jointly uphold international order and rules, defend fairness and justice, and contribute to world peace and stability. Turkey’s renewed balance-of-power policies as a crucial middle-level power bridging the East and the West was clearly being touted by both East and West. 

Michael M. Gunter is the recent author of Erdogan’s Path to Authoritarianism: The Continuing Path (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2024).