It is usually said that all politics is local. Foreign policy, however, is supposed to be different. Compared to daily domestic politics driven by special-interest groups and narrow political calculations, foreign policy is all about the “grand strategy” and national interest, right? Think again. There are many countries where foreign policy is even more local. Turkey falls in this category. Domestic agenda has always been the primary determinant of Turkish foreign policy. This is a tradition with deep roots in Turkish history. Since the inception of the modern republic in 1923, domestic dynamics consistently dictated the foreign policy orientation of the country. And today, to understand Turkey’s foray into Syria – in Afrin and elsewhere – you must understand the currents of domestic policy considerations that have always informed Ankara’s decisions and revisions abroad.
In the decades when Ataturk and his Kemalist followers pursued a radical project of cultural westernization at home, Ankara embraced a Western-oriented strategic vision in foreign affairs. Westernization was where domestic and foreign policy converged. A secularist push against Islamic tradition at home also meant a turn against the Arab world in foreign policy. When the caliphate was abolished and Western legal codes, institutions and dress were adopted in the 1930s, Turkey broke its historic ties with the Islamic world, adopted an attitude of benign neglect toward the Middle East and worked hard to align itself with Western powers. In short, westernization at home dictated a Western-oriented strategic shift in foreign policy.
This trend continued during the Cold War, too. To be sure, geostrategic realities helped Turkey to quickly make up its mind. With the Soviet Union at its borders making territorial claims, the imperative of a solid security alliance with the West gained urgency. Nato membership became a top priority for Ankara. Yet, Turkey’s journey to Nato was no cakewalk. Ankara had to prove its transatlantic credential by sending Turkish troops to Korea, where the first bonds of the security partnership between Turkey and the United States were founded. Again, in the 1950s when France and Germany launched their project of historic reconciliation and economic cooperation, Ankara began its quest for membership in this European edifice that later evolved into the European Union. Domestic dynamics continued to dictate foreign policy during the following decades. Turkey’s relations with the West, and particularly with Europe, were at its best when Ankara took steps toward democratization at home. And relations with Europe nosedived each time the country took an autocratic turn.
The latest evidence of such ups and downs in relations with the EU came during the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When he first came to power in 2003, Erdogan took major a step toward reform and democracy at home. His liberal agenda improved Turkey’s dismal human rights record by resisting Islamist and nationalist temptations. Good relations with the EU quickly followed. Turkey was rewarded with the opening of accession negotiations with the EU in 2005.
The clear linkage between domestic politics and foreign policy was even more evident on the Middle East front. Democratic improvements on the Kurdish question at home went hand in hand with a foreign policy of “zero-problems” in the neighborhood. Once again, peaceful and democratic politics at home – particularly thanks to a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – produced a highly successful strategy in regional foreign policy. Syria – a country Turkey threatened to invade in 1998 at the height of the domestic war against the PKK – became the crown jewel of Erdogan’s AKP party’s successful regional engagement.
Today, there is nothing left of Turkey’s once highly praised zero-problems regional policy. Instead, Turkey has zero-neighbors without problems. The reason is simple: Turkish politics once again turned authoritarian and anti-Kurdish. The war with the PKK has resumed with a vengeance since 2015. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed between 2015 and 2017 as the Turkish army leveled large urban areas in the Kurdish southeast. In the meantime, a failed coup attempt in 2016 – a strange affair with many unknowns – enabled Erdogan to establish a “sultanic” presidential system bereft of any checks and balances.
Although Western media likes to portray Erdogan as an Islamist determined to destroy Ataturk’s secularist legacy, today the real trend in Turkish politics is not Islamization but nationalism driven by anti-Americanism and anti-Kurdish sentiments. Erdogan is currently riding this nationalist wave with his military adventure in Syria. Once again, it is domestic dynamics of populist, anti-American nationalism that dictates foreign policy. Erdogan needs to galvanize nationalism in order to stay in power. All his calculations, in domestic and foreign policy, are above all motivated by regime survival. Most opinion polls show the Afrin operation helps Erdogan’s AKP thanks to the nationalist frenzy it created. Instead of waiting until 2019 for presidential elections, Erdogan is therefore likely to capitalize on such dynamics and call early elections this summer.
In short, if you want to understand Turkey’s timing in Syria, look no further than Erdogan’s domestic agenda. Finally, Erdogan needed this war because of another urgent domestic problem: the economy. High inflation, growing unemployment and diminished consumer confidence means that time is not on his side. Under such circumstances, Erdogan doubled down on nationalist populism and launched the Afrin incursion.
His anti-Kurdish agenda has also created strange bedfellows. Erdogan’s partners are an eclectic bunch: the proto fascist MHP (or Nationalist Action Party), neo-nationalist ultra-secularists who favor strong relations with Moscow and a military that enjoy carte blanche to solve the Kurdish problem the only way it knows how.
Yes, all politics is local, and foreign policy is no exception for Turkey’s dangerous adventure in Syria.
Ömer Taşpınar is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of national-security strategy at the National Defense University in Washington.
AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN
