Regional Power Role and Intervention: The Turkish Case Over Syria in the 2000s

Introduction

Since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Turkey has become one of the most affected countries and the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—the Justice and Development Party) government has intervened in Syria with a variety of means, from diplomatic involvement to sending troops, all of which seems to have deeply influenced Turkey’s claim to a leading regional power role in the Middle East. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, “regional powers” were started to be considered “important contributors to regional and global order because they are expected to, for instance, ensure stability and effective regional cooperation in a world that is increasingly difficult to govern” (Destradi, Detlef, & Prys-Hansen, 2018).

However, influential roles are becoming difficult to fulfill for many, including South Africa, Brazil, and Turkey, which are currently facing important domestic challenges, such as significant setbacks to their economies, restrained state capacity to mobilize resources, and growing populist, nationalist sentiments (Destradi et al., 2018). Furthermore, with nationalist trends on the rise and the upsurge of the ultraright throughout Europe and beyond, regions, regional politics, and regional powers have become subject to further challenges. Among all these internal and external challenges, the article focuses on Ankara’s changing relations with its bordering neighbor through its intervention in Syria as one of the most defining elements that has adversely affected Turkey’s embraced regional power role, which prevailed in the first decade of the AKP government in 2002–2012.

Despite the growing number of works on great power intervention in civil conflicts after the Cold War, the relationship between external interventions and regional power status has not been analyzed in depth and no comprehensive theoretical debate has been engaged in. For instance, there is no substantial work that identifies what types of interventions could be detrimental to any given state’s status. Instead, most studies focus on “why do states intervene in civil wars in other countries and how does third-party intervention influence the settlement of civil conflict” (Kim, 2012, p. 4). There is no study that directly deals with the correlation between intervention and regional power capacity. Regardless of the increasing intervention literature since the 1990s, how interventions affect the power hierarchy has not been analyzed in depth or no detailed theoretical framework has been provided.

There are a number of works dealing with how the US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has badly affected the US international standing by distorting its reputation as a superpower, but no similar studies exist regarding the regional power-intervention nexus. Additionally, there are recent studies dealing with Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Syria that claim that these interventions made Russia a power-seeking global actor. Some of them highlight how hard power has taken over soft power in terms of power projection in recent times (Freire & Heller, 2018, p. 1185). However, this article continues to adhere to the importance of soft power in any power projection that depends on “the act of persuading others to support your desired outcome through culture, politics, and foreign policy” (Nye, 2011b, p. 84). It therefore aims to draw attention to this less explored part of intervention and regional power studies with an exemplary case.

Focusing on soft power, the intervention in Syria will be treated as an important element, if not the most important one, in the downfall of Turkey’s soft power and hence, its regional power role. When elaborating the Turkish foreign policy toward Syria as a factor in mapping its leading role bid in the Middle East through intervention, it is almost impossible to distinguish what is internal or external. There are already many studies dealing with Turkey’s Syrian policy (Bardakçı, 2017; Bishku, 2012; Çakmak, 2016; Demirtaş-Bagdanos, 2014; Hinnebusch & Tür, 2013; Okyay, 2017) and its implications, but this article differs from them by attempting to present a specific angle aiming to provide at least a relevant case for further studies on the nexus between third-party intervention and the precedent role of a regional power, which is generally associated with the pursuit of soft power.

In examining the relationship between outside third-party intervention and the regional power role in light of Turkey’s intervention in Syria, the two consecutive periods of 2002–2012 and post-2012 will be considered. The period of 2002–2012 will be treated as the period when Turkey’s close involvement with Syria contributed greatly to the rise of Turkey’s soft power via growing trade, cooperation in conflict resolution and all confidence building measures in its policy toward the Middle East. On the other hand, the post-2012 period following the Arab Spring will be taken as the period during which Turkey’s policy toward Syria via multiple multipurpose interventions seems to have adversely affected its regional power claim. Before focusing on the case, a closer examination of the concepts of “regional power” and “third-party intervention” as a relevant conceptual framework will be presented.

Conceptual Framework

While choosing “regional power” and “intervention” as the concepts for analysis, it is important to revisit some well-accepted features of these concepts, even though there is no standard definition of them. There is a broad understanding that a necessary condition for being a regional power state is to have tangible and intangible resources in relation to the other states within a geographic region. At the same time, regional powers often attempt to shape their regions as part of a political project. An examination of references by scholars such as Maxi Schoeman, Detlef Nolte, and Daniel Flames to commonly accepted criteria for being a regional power could be enlightening (Flemes, 2007; Nolte, 2010; Schoeman, 2000).

Schoeman describes the requirements for being a regional power and taking the lead in a particular region as follows: internal dynamics (having an economically and politically stabilizing and leading role in the region), willingness (assuming the role of a peacekeeper or stabilizer), capacity (having the capacity to influence regional affairs), and being acceptable to others in the role (being accountable to countries in the region for regional security) (Schoeman, 2000). According to Flemes (2007, p. 11), regional powers can be distinguished by the following four pivotal criteria: claim to leadership, power resources, employment of foreign policy instruments, and acceptance of leadership by third countries. One can encounter overlapping points across various definitions of regional power despite certain nuances among them, such as having material and soft power capabilities to assume the role of a regional leader, the willingness to adopt the role of a regional leader, the acceptance of this leading role by third parties, and the capacity to influence regional events (Sever & Gök, 2016, p. 5).

From these mostly similar criteria reflected in several regional power conceptualizations, Detlef Nolte’s definition is selected as the basis of our use of regional power as the general framework (Nolte, 2010). ¹

The article treats Syria-related problems as an important case for observing how Turkey’s influential role in the region in terms of the power over ideas and power over outcomes has come to be seriously challenged after the Arab Spring. In revisiting the importance of power over ideas/outcomes and its being accepted by others, it is also important to recall Gilpin’s argument to reaffirm Nolte’s views of power projection, as he points out that “states’ projection of power is highly dependent on the level of prestige and recognition” (Gilpin, 1981, p. 31).

When looking at the intervention-regional power relationship, the concept of intervention will be taken quite broadly, as defined in Patrick M. Regan’s article titled “Choosing to Intervene: Outside Interventions in Internal Conflicts” (Regan, 1998, pp. 754–779). Regan broadly conceptualizes James Rosenau’s definition of “intervention” as a “convention breaking military/or economic activities in the internal affairs of a foreign country targeted at the authority structures of the government with the aim of affecting the balance of power between the government and opposition forces” (Rosenau, 1968). Regan’s definition embraces both modest economic sanctions and sizeable military deployments (Regan, 1998, p. 756).

Unlike several studies that view deploying troops on the ground as a threshold of intervention, this article adopts the broader form of intervention, including military aid in the form of training or nonmilitary aid, imposition of economic sanctions, permitting rebels to operate on the territory or facilitating arms transactions (Gleditsch, 2007, p. 295). States can intervene in civil wars multilaterally or unilaterally with or without the use of force and in a neutral or a biased manner. Intervention is regarded as a tool available to third parties to contain civil wars.

Unlike many UN-authorized multilateral interventions that Turkey was involved with in the 2000s, Turkey’s intervention in Syria falls into the category of a biased unilateral third-party intervention, as it has backed anti-Assad forces in the Syrian civil war. Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian civil war could also be easily related to relevant literature on civil war neighboring states since a number of related empirical findings reflect Turkey’s concerns, reactions, and policies regarding the Syrian problem. Several studies have already shown that the effects of civil wars are rarely confined to the warring state and that it is the countries that border the conflict state, such as Turkey, that are the most vulnerable to instability and therefore intervention (Kathman, 2011, p. 850).

The regional diffusion effect of the war can be observed in several ways, including via refugee flows, cross-border ethnic ties, the territorial aspirations of rebel groups, and the level of violence produced by the conflict (Gleditsch, Salehyan & Schultz, 2008; Salehyan & Kristian, 2000). Accommodating millions of refugees has been just one of the obvious diffusion effects that Turkey has had to come to terms with. Timur Kuran importantly argues that civil wars produce demonstration effects regarding dissident groups for the neighboring region, as dissident groups learn from adjacent conflicts that can be used in challenging their own government (Kuran, 1998). Turkey’s concerns about the spillover effects of the Kurdish developments in Syria justifies Kuran’s demonstrative effect argument, since Ankara has become very alarmed about the impact of the Kurdish development on its own Kurdish problem.

States intervene in civil wars with a variety of objectives originating from geostrategic, humanitarian or ethnic/religious considerations. Kathman argues that “intervention as an influence tool is usefully delineated into two types: opportunism and threat reduction” (Kathman, 2011, p. 849). Those states that have intervened in any conflict have often had mixed motives, often including motives that are both humane and self-interested rather than one single objective.

Many interventions are driven by a combination of considerations rather than by one solid purpose, and states always try to characterize their actions in benign terms (Brown, 1996, p. 25). When examining Turkey’s intervention in Syria, one can find signs of all of the abovementioned objectives to a varying degree. While its diplomatic pressure on Syria to induce regime change could be linked to the promotion of democracy, its acceptance of millions of refugees could be linked to its humanitarian concerns and its sending of troops to Northern Syria could be related to security considerations. Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in March 2011, it has become apparent that any of the objectives could gain the upper hand and surpass the others with time. Indeed, since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the AKP government has had a variety of objectives and has put a variety of instruments into effect according to the changing circumstances on the ground. In examining the case, linking the developments in Turkish intervention in Syria with relevant literature on “regional power” and “third-party intervention” will be observed to improve the exploratory capacity of the chosen conceptual framework.

Cooperation, Mediation, and Regional Influence Via Syria: 2002–2011

As Taşpınar describes, “modesty, caution and non-involvement in the Arab world” (Taşpınar, 2012, p. 130) used to be the most common policy of the previous Turkish governments. This has occurred due to the bad memories of enforced Ottoman withdrawal from the Arab provinces after First World War, the unsuccessful regional security involvements via the Baghdad Pact in the 1950s and, more importantly, because of Turkey’s choice of Western modernism, secularism, and a political system that was adopted under Kemal Atatürk. Against this background, the first decade of the AKP government witnessed serious improvements in relations with the Middle East. Ahmet Davutoğlu, the first foreign policy adviser (2003–2009) and then the Foreign Minister of Turkey (2009–2014), spearheaded AKP’s opening up to the Middle East in the context of his policy of ”zero problems with neighbors,” which was consistent with the expectation that regional powers should promote regional cooperation and play the security provider role. Of the surrounding regions, the Middle East attracted special attention. The AKP governing elite, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Davutoğlu, did not explicitly reveal Turkey’s bid for a regional leadership, but their rhetoric and policies confirmed such an objective (Parlar Dal, 2016, p. 1431).

Several factors laid the foundation for Turkey’s increasing willingness to adopt a leading regional power role in the Middle East during the first decade following the AKP’s accession to power in November 2002. In compliance with Nye’s soft power definition, which emphasizes foreign policy forms of co-option, multilateral cooperation, institution building, integration and the power of attraction (Nye, 2004), the AKP government initially proceeded with the expected forms of regional foreign policy via trade deals, diplomatic mediation, economic cooperation schemes, and cultural exchanges. First, domestic factors shaped the landscape for the available domestic preconditions for Turkey to adopt a regional power role. In this regard, AKP leaders’ ideological orientation and close attachment to Islamic values have substantially contributed to Ankara’s growing involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. This has also resulted in a cultural demarche toward the region (Sever, 2012, p. 107).

Along with Muslim values and a reinterpretation of the common Ottoman past as a unifying factor (Neo-Ottomanism), the governing elite wished to make use of its historical roots as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire. As Prime Minister, Erdoğan has visited the Middle East more than any other region of the world between 2003 and 2011 (Albarracin, 2011, p. 235). He made 45 official visits to the region (Habibi & Walker, 2011, p. 5). His consistent support for the Palestinian cause made Erdoğan and his government immensely popular with the “Arab street”. In this sense, Andre Bank and Roy Karadağ conceptualize the first decade of the AKP administration in the Middle East prior to the Arab Spring as the emergence of an “Ankara Moment” in the Middle East (Bank & Karadağ, 2013, p. 288).

In addition to the ideational source of interest in the region, the growth rate of the economy has had a defining impact on Turkey’s booming relations with the region in the first decade of the AKP rule. This economic progress met the material necessities for claiming a leading regional role. (Sever, 2012, pp. 103–104). During the period between 2002 and 2011, the average economic growth was 5.2 percent (Ayesh, 2018). As the AKP came to power in November 2002, there was a stabilization program in progress after the 2001 economic crisis (Tür, 2011, p. 591), which was attentively continued under the AKP. In 2008, the World Bank estimated that Turkey accounted for 50 percent of the GDP in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including Israel and Iran (Albarracin, 2011, p. 234). Turkey’s economic growth increased to 7.8 percent in 2010 and in the same year it became the 16th largest economy in 2010 and joined the G-20 (Tür, 2011, p. 592).

Turkey’s growth performance increased its “trading state” (Kirisçi, 2009, p. 33) potential, and this economic dynamism was transformed into a soft power component in its regional politics toward the Middle East (Dinçer & Kutlay, 2012, p. 19). During the 1990s, Turkish exports to Arab countries rarely exceeded US$3 billion per year (Habibi & Walker, 2011, p. 2). The Arab region’s share of Turkey’s exports subsequently enjoyed a strong growth, from 9 percent in 2002 to 20.7 percent in 2009 (Habibi & Walker, 2011, p. 3). The trade became much more than a merely government-led area of cooperation. New business interest groups, such as MÜSİAD, TUSCON, ASKON and TOBB, started to make their debut in business relations in the area. For instance, TUSCON, which represented mostly small- and medium-sized new rural Anatolian businesses, played an important role in the context of opening up to the region economically (Tür, 2011, p. 592). It has also been widely argued that not only TUSCON but also other Gülenist organizations were important players in supporting government policies toward the Middle East ²

In addition to the growing importance of non-state organizations, some public institutions, such as Turkish International Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), Kızılay (Turkish Red Crescent), TOKİ (Housing Development Administration of Turkey), and AFAD (Emergency Disaster Management Presidency), were set up to advance Turkey’s humanitarian activities throughout the world, which also played a significant role in its soft power projection in the Middle East. Turkey had a strong network of government and nongovernment actors that provided foreign assistance, which raised Turkey’s “national brand as a benevolent nation” (Çevik, 2019, p. 9). Moreover, positive developments during the EU candidacy process in 2002–2007 gave a boost to Turkey’s soft power in the region, since the government introduced a series of liberal reforms regarding human rights, freedom of expression, and minority rights (Öniş & Kutlay, 2017, p. 13). All these helped Turkey’s reputation at the regional and global levels during those years.

In Ankara’s new opening to the Middle East, the Turkish–Syrian rapprochement was very significant and demonstrative. During 2002–2011, Ankara’s becoming a possible role model, its ability to use its soft power and its growing efforts to involve itself in regional affairs were mostly modeled on Turkey’s growing political, cultural, economic, and strategic relations with the Assad regime. The first improvement in relations with Syria started before the AKP administration when the 1998 Adana Accords ended Syria’s long-lasting support for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) under the Ecevit-led coalition government. Before that, the Turkish–Syrian relations had suffered from a territorial dispute over Hatay (Alexandretta), contradictory orientation of the parties toward the then existing blocs during the Cold War, rise of a water dispute over the Euphrates and, above all, the mutual hostility that arose over the PKK in the 1980s.

Against this background, the Turkish–Syrian rapprochement would become instrumental in Turkey’s building a positive image in the region. In 2008, at the height of the warm relations with Damascus, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu asserted that “the extensive cooperation between Turkey and Syria in the last decade stood as the most striking example of the success of Turkey’s policy of zero problems with neighbors” (Demirtaş-Bagdanos, 2014, p. 139). The golden age of the relationship between Syria and Turkey was marked by rapidly expanding trade and significant human interaction. After the removal of the visa requirements for travel between the two countries, human contact across the border increased significantly. The number of Syrian tourists visiting Turkey increased considerably, from 154,000 in 2003 to 500,000 in 2010 (Aras, 2012). Political rapprochement between the two states was reflected in non-state activities and companies in all sectors, civic associations, and chambers of commerce became very active in the relations. Erdoğan’s visit to Damascus in 2004 resulted in the signing of numerous agreements, such as the Free Trade Agreement.

More than 100 bilateral treaties were signed between Ankara and Syria, including a technical military cooperation agreement to deepen collaboration between the states’ defense industries. Erdoğan publicly addressed Syrians as brothers and sisters, whereas Assad described Turkey as Syria’s best friend (Chriss, 2009). Damascus became the most traveled foreign destination for Prime Minister Erdoğan with eight official visits to the city (Habibi & Walker, 2011, p. 5). All the closeness eventually resulted in the formation of the Turkey–Syria High Level Strategic Cooperation Council. The two sides also closely coordinated their policies toward the region. Not only bilateral relations but also togetherness in terms of a wider regional cooperation moved forward. For example, a joint declaration to reduce the restrictiveness of nontariff measures and to liberalize intra-Levant trade among Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon was issued in July 2010 (Lanchovichina & Ivanic, 2014).

Turkey’s growing popularity in the Middle East and Syria fed on each other. When Turkey declared its new foreign policy under the headline “zero problems with neighbors,” the declaration entailed not only “establishing good relations with neighbors” but also not becoming “embroiled in regional conflicts and disputes” (Bağcı & Kurç, 2016). Ankara viewed mediation as the key to acquiring more influence in the region. The advancement in relations with Syria provided Turkey with the opportunity to engage in regional issues, such as the Arab–Israeli question and Lebanese affairs with notable self-confidence. Provided that Turkey maintained its neutrality between conflicting parties, the countries were open to Turkish mediation. For example, under Turkey’s mediation, Syria and Israel engaged in indirect talks in 2008. Turkey expended a serious effort to revive the Syria–Israel negotiations after a long dormant period with the consent of the two countries.

Erdoğan joined Assad in August 2008 to meet the French President Sarkozy and Qatar’s Amir el-Thani in Damascus to discuss the peace process (Islam, 2016, p. 16). The AKP also mediated between Syria and Saudi Arabia. In 2009, Turkey, together with Qatar, mediated the establishment of a government in Lebanon, which used to be Syria’s hinterland, to resolve the political turmoil in that area. Ankara also stepped in as a mediator when a crisis arose between Damascus and Baghdad after Syria was held responsible for a bombing incident in Baghdad in 2009 (Bardakçı, 2017, p. 102). In addition, Turkey played a constructive role in improving Syria’s stance in the international arena when it was boycotted due to its involvement in Hariri’s assassination. Ankara contributed to the restoration of relations between Syria and the West. Four years after the EU–Syria Association agreement was frozen, the EU ended the diplomatic boycott of Syria in 2008, and the Obama administration loosened its sanctions.

Contributing to the betterment of the relations between Syria and the West could be related to the recognition and acceptance of Ankara’s regional power role by other states inside and outside of the region. Likewise, Turkey also became involved in other mediation efforts beyond Syria. For example, it arranged a meeting between the Israeli and Pakistani foreign ministers in September 2005 and, together with Brazil, it undertook a mediating role in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the West in 2010. Turkey’s acceptance as an important player in the Middle East by regional powers and beyond signaled Turkey’s “power over ideas” and “power over action”. However, the acceptance and support that Turkey had experienced in the region as a mediator or an initiator of regional security processes faced a downturn when Turkey was taken off guard by the explosive and unpredictable developments that broke out in the Middle East with the Arab Spring protests.

Multiple Interventions, Power Politics, and the Declining Regional Power Role Via Syria: 2012–2018

The outbreak of Arab upheavals in December 2010 took Ankara by surprise. The government thought that the Arab Spring provided an opportunity for Turkey to reassert itself as a democratized, Muslim-majority polity with ambitions to exert a democratizing influence across the Middle East. Embracing “the Arab Spring”, Erdoğan claimed that the inspiration for popular uprisings in the Arab world came from Turkey. Similarly, Davutoğlu stated that a new Middle East was about to be born and that “we will be the owner, pioneer and servant of this new Middle East” (Salt, 2018, p. 93). The victory of the Ennahda party in Tunisia and of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were welcomed by Ankara in the expectation that AKP-like political projects were on the rise.

In the early days of the Arab protests, the idea that Turkey could be an important model for both Islam and democracy in the region was widely discussed internally and externally. The key members of NATO all supported the revolutionary upsurge against military regimes in the Middle East. The Turkish reaction to the Syrian protests that started in March 2011 differed from the reaction to those in Tunisia and Egypt, where the Arab Spring first started. In the early weeks of the Syrian protests, the AKP administration was in no hurry to call for Assad’s downfall, as it did with Hosni Mubarak of Egypt or Ben Ali of Tunisia.

Instead, when the first serious protests started in the small Syrian village of Dera’a, Turkey’s response was a cautiously calm but firm call for reform in Syria. In March 2011, Prime Minister Erdoğan announced that it was impossible to remain silent in the face of growing protests and asked Assad to adopt a positive, reformist approach (Kathman, 2011, p. 863). In April, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu was dispatched to meet with Assad in Damascus and offered all possible assistance in implementing an overall reform program. Ankara’s democracy promotion effort was a new phenomenon in its relations with the area and was closely related to the Arab Spring protests. It was nothing but a desire to catch the spirit of the time. In the years leading up to the Arab Spring, the AKP government had given no serious signs of being concerned with the Arab states’ serious breaches of human rights or democracy shortages.

However, following Davutoğlu’s visit to Damascus in April 2011, Ankara accelerated its pressure on Assad to make necessary reforms in the face of growing protests and warned him against the brutal handling of the demonstrations. At the time, the AKP administration was quite confident about its capacity to influence Damascus by diplomatic means. Accordingly, Davutoğlu made several trips to Damascus. By August, Turkey had realized that for all its closeness with Syria, the country had no real diplomatic leverage over Assad. This was not good news for Turkey’s regional and international status, as the relevant research on diplomatic intervention suggests that “diplomatic attempts mostly amount to reputational costs to the intervenor in case of failure” (Aydın, 2010, p. 54). Assad’s commitment to the use of force instead of launching a reform program left Turkey in the cold with respect to maintaining relations with that country, as though nothing had changed.

After the failed diplomatic efforts, Ankara tried to be a part of an UN-authorized multilateral intervention to depose the Syrian regime. Thus, Ankara called for an immediate international intervention in the crisis, suggesting the creation of a no-fly or buffer zone for civilians. This was not complementary to Turkey’s long accustomed rhetoric against external intervention in Middle Eastern affairs (Salt, 2018, p. 80). However, seeing Assad’s determination to oppress opposition by all means at his disposal, the AKP government persistently urged the USA and regional actors to make a multilateral, coordinated effort to stop the civil war. All its efforts to create a no-fly zone or launch multilateral interventions fell on deaf ears. Various calls for intervention from a variety of platforms fell short of convincing outside forces or the internal public to back the military intervention in Syria. After the US invasion of Iraq, outside intervention was not highly regarded, even on humanitarian grounds.

The UN voting on Syria in February 2012 clearly showed that multilateral/international intervention was almost impossible. Both China and Russia proved their pro-Syrian standing by vetoing a motion that would have punished the Assad regime for its wrongdoings. Any multilateral military intervention became impossible because of international polarization between the two groups of states—the USA, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar on the one side and Russia, Iran, and China on the other. Moreover, the increasing fragmentation of the Syrian opposition did not help an external intervention.

In November 2012, Turkey started to economically intervene in the Syrian situation by imposing economic sanctions on Syria (Ankara’dan Şam'a yaptırım, 2011) and ended its free trade agreement with Syria. This would have serious implications, as Turkey’s trade relations with that country had been very important in its economic engagement with the region. Economic relations with Damascus were an important reflection of Turkey’s soft power-based relations with the region but the sanctions showed the opposite.

After failing diplomatically with Damascus and seeing no progress in a multinational UN-led intervention, Turkey became the first country to host a conference of the Syrian opposition on its territory in April 2012. This was the beginning of a biased third-party intervention in the Syrian affairs, even though the majority of Turkish people remained opposed to any unilateral or multilateral military intervention (Gürsel, 2013). Since then, the AKP government has exhibited a variety of biased intervention in a civil war, including arms transfers, intelligence cooperation, extending logistical support, or providing economic assistance to opposition groups and eventually sending troops.

In doing so, the AKP government also manifestly declared or undeclared a variety of reasons for intervening in the Syrian civil war. Turkey’s involvement in Syria was not particularly unusual given that empirical evidence firmly suggests that states neighboring civil wars are very likely to be party to the ongoing civil war (Friedman & Stephen, 2012; Iqbal & Starr, 2008; Salehyan, 2008). Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was not particularly unprecedented as Turkey was a neighboring state, but this was the first time that Turkey so intensely intervened in any Middle Eastern conflict by almost any means at its disposal (Salt, 2018, p. 80). It was in May 2011 that Prime Minister Erdoğan did not hesitate to publicly ally his country with the Syrian Sunni opposition, describing them as fighters for freedom and warned that “we do not want to see another Hama massacre,” which had happened to the Sunnis in Syria in 1982 (Türkiye-Suriye ilişkilerinde ipler kopma noktasinda, 2011).

In July, the Syrian opposition leaders were hosted in Istanbul and officially announced the creation of the Syrian National Council in October. Mostly Sunni groups were represented in this Council. As the government of a Sunni-majority country, the Erdoğan government believed that the downfall of Assad’s Alawite regime could help create a Turkish-influenced Sunni group of states in the region. Ankara also provided sanctuary for the armed opposition, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), when a modest number of Syrian army defectors fled to Turkey and took up arms. Although Turkish leaders expressed concerns about the interests of the whole of Syrian society, Ankara took the side of the Sunni Arab rebellion. This choice was in line with Turkey’s undoubted support of Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt following the Arab Spring protests. Ankara’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is considered a terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, caused tension between Turkey and some regional countries. Other than Turkey, Western countries gradually withdrew their support from movements challenging authoritarian regimes, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This was not good news for the continuing support that Turkey used to enjoy for its generally applauded regional role during the Arab Spring (Parlar Dal, 2016, p. 1443).

Turkey’s assistance to the Syrian opposition peaked against the Assad regime after Syria shot down a Turkish jet in June 2012 (Çakmak, 2016, p. 711; Öztığ, 2019, p. 120). In response, Turkey called for an emergency NATO meeting and asked to invoke Article IV of the alliance’s charter and sought Western backing for its response (Blair, 2012). At the same time, Turkey deployed antiaircraft guns and trucks carrying multiple rocket launchers on the Syrian borders. In October, the Turkish parliament passed a motion authorizing the Turkish armed forces to engage in extraterritorial operations in the face of the increasing security threat at the Syrian border. In December, the government asked NATO to deploy surface-to-air Patriot missiles to protect its troubled border with Syria. ³

By 2014, Turkey had begun to reassess its Syrian policy, particularly after it became territorially surrounded by ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), and more importantly, after its soil was directly targeted by the terrorist group. The unprecedented territorial expansion of ISIS forced Turkey to revise its strategic priorities, acknowledging that the removal of Assad should not remain the single most important objective when ISIS represented a serious threat and caused the strengthening of the Syrian Kurdish groups—the PYD (Democratic Union Party/YPG—People’s Protection Units) in Northern Syria (Bardakçı, 2017). Turkey declared ISIS a terrorist organization in September 2013 and joined the anti-ISIS coalition formed by the USA in September 2014 NATO Summit (Öztığ, 2019, p. 120).

Meanwhile, the Kurds expanded their control over the northeast part of the country after the Syrian government forces started to withdraw from there as the Kurds took control of Afrin, Jazira, Kobane, Derik, and Jindire and started to fight with the FSA. Erdoğan threatened to intervene in Syria if the PKK established camps there (Öztığ, 2019, p. 121). As suggested by the literature (Kim, 2012, p. 29), exclusive strategic interests tend to produce unilateral and biased interventions, and fighting the PKK became Turkey’s most announced strategic objective to pursue vis-a-vis Syria. The effective fighting by the YPG/PYD against ISIS and Jihadist groups gave the Syrian Kurds control of a wider territory and increased their popularity among regional Kurdish groups and their external supporter, the USA. Under these circumstances, the Erdoğan government stopped prioritizing the regime-change rhetoric despite its ongoing support for the FSA and became more involved in the fight against ISIS and the YPG. Its own national security started to take the center stage more than anything else.

In addition to the security concerning ISIS and particularly the YPG, the refugee flow from the civil war became a major issue. Facing a massive number of Syrians escaping from Assad’s brutality as early as April 2011, the AKP government has consistently cited humanitarian concerns as a major reason for its involvement in the Syrian crisis. The first Syrian refugees to flee from the violence arrived in southern Turkey in April 2011. This was not too surprising, because as late as 1939, Hatay (Alexandretta) was part of Syria; therefore, there are many Turkish citizens who have relatives across the border. Foreign Minister Davutoğlu proclaimed his country’s open-door policy by stating that Turkey was ready to allow those Syrians “who are not happy at home” into the country (Özden, 2013). He failed to foresee that millions of Syrians would be crossing the border.

Turkey’s open-door policy for refugees was followed by increasing numbers of displaced Syrians crossing the border into Turkey as the violence in Syria escalated. The humanitarian aspect of the Syrian crisis has been impossible to overlook, particularly in view of the crowds of refugees coming to Turkey and the existence of close family and ethnic ties between the people on both sides of the Syrian–Turkish border. This situation also accords well with empirical findings that any state which “shares a land border with the civil war state is more likely to experience spillover effects”, such as the flow of refugees (Biddle, Friedman, & Long, 2012, p. 91). Just after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Turkey started to shelter thousands and thousands of refugees fleeing the Assad government’s repression.

As of 2017, there are more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees at more than 20 camps in Turkey (UNHCR Turkey, 2017). This figure represents the largest number of refugees that any country is now sheltering. The number of Syrian refugees living outside the camps has gradually increased. Border provinces, such as Hatay, Kilis, Gaziantep, and Şanlıurfa, have been the most affected by the refugee crisis. Turkey’s hosting of millions of Syrian refugees with very limited aid from the international community empowered Turkey’s claim to become involved in Syria out of necessity and partly improved its normative outlook in its regional relations.

In 2017, 98 percent of Turkish humanitarian expenditures was allocated to support Syrian refugees, which made Turkey the most generous donor to the Syrians (Çevik, 2019, p. 8). According to the government figures the cost of the refugees reached to about US$30 billion (Salt, 2018, p. 81). Nonetheless, it seems that Turkey’s sacrifice of accepting such a large number of refugees fell short of saving Turkey’s soft power credentials and reputation. For example, demands for housing and other facilities in Turkish border cities have increasingly created economic and social discomfort and occasionally tension between locals and Syrian refugees. These developments confirm the findings of relevant research that refugee communities cause tensions among the local populations in the areas in which they are concentrated (Salehyan & Gleditsch, 2006, p. 335).

Accordingly, Syrian refugee communities started to influence the ethnic and social structure and economic and societal rivalries started to increase. Even large cities as far from the border zone as Istanbul have begun to host large number of Syrians. As Gleditsch, Salehyan, and Schultz (2008) argue, the refugee issue should be addressed as a humanitarian issue more than anything else, but refugee flows also cause particular challenges for neighboring states. The refugee issue has come to be perceived as both a humanitarian and a security issue. In addition to inter-societal tensions that refugees started to cause, the refugees caused “transnational diffusion” of armed groups and weapons (Ansorg, 2011, p. 175).

In parallel with the intensification of civil conflict, controlling the passage of people or goods became a real challenge for the government. From 2012 onwards, smuggling and illegal cross-border travel across the Turkish–Syrian border were frequently reported, and ongoing risks to security gained momentum. Informal networks and uncontrolled armed groups intending to use the Turkish territory as a sanctuary caused tension between Syria and Turkey and between Ankara and its Western allies. The government was then pursuing covert military intervention in Syria by assisting the FSA (Tür & Kumral, 2016, p. 111).

Despite all its official denials, Turkey started to be accused of overlooking military dispatches to some jihadist groups in Syria (Tanış, 2013) and becoming a transit point for the so-called “foreign fighters” who went to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Instead of being viewed as a contributor to the stability of the region, Turkey was frequently regarded as part of the problem. It is almost impossible to know exactly how many arms or jihadists found their way into Syria through the Turkish border. However, as Newman argues, internal wars at the least make border regions vulnerable to all sorts of smuggling and trafficking in small arms and light weapons through the porous points of entry (Newman, 2009, p. 429). Some studies also address that Turkey’s border “management pattern in the earlier stages of the conflict can retrospectively be characterized as one that, unintentionally, contributed to the empowerment of extremist groups, in terms of personnel, operational networks and economic resources” (Okyay, 2017, p. 838). In light of these empirical findings, it is hard to minimize Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian civil war through its provision of arms or its sheltering of some groups that have been party to the ongoing intrastate violence.

The longer and tougher that the war has become, the more the Erdoğan government has become a party to many rivalries and confrontations. Its disagreements with Iran and Russia over the downfall of Assad and its difference in opinions with its major Western ally, the USA, regarding the pursuit of strategies toward Syria and the growing problems with some Arab states such as Saudi Arabia over Syria have caused serious second thoughts about Turkey’s regional power capacity since all these factors have downgraded its reputation in the region and beyond (Zogby Research Services, 2018). In parallel with the refugee issue, when other states’ intervention in the Syrian war gained momentum, the situation became more complex in terms of Turkey’s standing in the region.

By 2015, both Russia and Iran entered Syria with their own armies and sided with the Assad regime. Russia’s direct involvement in Syria caused a reversal of the balance of power and created a favorable atmosphere for the Assad regime. Developments such as the establishment of the Democratic Federal System by the Kurds in Northern Syria in March 2016 were considered a threatening development by Ankara. Under these circumstances, Turkey was to initiate new rapprochement with Moscow and Tehran regardless of their support for Assad to manage ISIS and the YPG/PYD at the same time. This became particularly important, as the USA has been reluctant to accept any connection between the YPG/PYD and PKK and has regarded the YPG as a reliable partner against ISIS (Okyay, 2017, p. 829). In January 2015, the PYD declared its plan to set up an autonomous Kurdish zone composed of Afrin, Kobani and al-Hasakah.

Thus, Turkey’s security concerns due to developments in the Kurdish parts of Syria began to surpass all others. After a failed peace process with its own Kurds in 2013, the Erdoğan government engaged in a full-blown military confrontation with the PKK. Under these circumstances, Ankara has concerns about Syria’s Kurds creating their own statelet in the north of Syria, which could cause separatist tendencies among its own Kurds. Ankara has increased its security measures at its border by raising the number of security forces and by deploying drones and reconnaissance aircraft. As of 2015, Turkey also started to build a wall along its south-eastern border with Syria. On 24 August 2016, Turkey dispatched tanks and special forces backed by air support to northern Syria to push ISIS back from Turkey’s borders and prevent the YPG from expanding the territory under its control. Turkey’s intervention in the region to fight ISIS was generally considered self-defense by its Western allies as long as it was confined to the fight with ISIS. Some countries such as Egypt expressed their dissatisfaction with the move, but Egypt’s position was affected by its strained relations with Ankara since the downfall of Morsi (Middle East Monitor, 2018).

Conversely, the Gulf States mostly endorsed the Turkish operation against ISIS (D’Alema, 2017, p. 3). The intervention was generally considered legitimate against the threat of ISIS. But, its other objective, the involvement in the conflict to safeguard its interests against the spillover of Kurdish insurgency, caused serious rifts between Turkey and its Western allies, the USA in particular. With the launch of Operation Euphrates Shield in August 2016, Ankara planned to form a wedge between Syria’s Kurds to prevent any territorial connection between the cantons of Afrin and Kobane, thus ensuring the territorial continuity of Rojava (TRT World, 2018). Turkey’s concern with safeguarding its territorial integrity against the threat posed by a Kurdish nationalist mobilization within and beyond its borders became the first concern regarding Syria (Tol & Başkan, 2018). Thus, Ankara was ready to cooperate with Tehran and even Damascus, both of which were also interested in preventing a greater role for the PKK/PYD in the region.

The Operation Euphrates Shield, which aimed to push back Kurdish and ISIS forces from the border, was completed in March 2017 (BBC News, 2017), but this would not be the last one. In January 2018, Turkey launched another military operation, Operation Olive Branch, directed at the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin. Declaring that there had been more than 700 attacks from Afrin in 2016, the presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin stressed “Turkey’s right to self-defense” (Alirıza, 2018). The government declared that Turkey’s goal in Afrin was to “create a 30-kilometer deep security belt” that would prevent such attacks in the future (Alirıza, 2018). The Russian consent for the military operation was most crucial and had been secured before the operation began. The response of the USA to the operation was restrained but far from settled. After the two consecutive operations, Turkey’s cross-border operations and shelling are most likely to continue as long as Turkey’s national security concerns about PYD/YPG activeness in Northern Syria continue.

The growing intervention in Syria by military means in Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016 and Operation Olive Branch in 2018 demonstrate that Ankara’s distancing itself from a regional power role based on soft power and replacing it with military engagement that has become the major tool for projecting Turkey’s power in the region. In addition to the serious decline in Turkey’s soft power-driven regional power role stemming from the Syrian effect, Turkey’s worsening economic performance in recent times has also taken its toll on its regional role. Economic growth performance annually declined by 3.2 percent between 2008 and 2014. Turkey’s total trade volume with MENA countries declined to US$55.8 billion in 2014; it was approximately US$63.8 billion in 2012 (Kutlay, 2016). Economic growth has been recorded as 2.6 percent in 2018, which is the slowest since 2009.

Other than economic indicators, the liberal political outlook of the AKP administration was reversed after 2012. Turkey’s slide into a hybrid democracy with restrictions on democratic rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech created serious doubts about the Turkish democracy. The 2016 coup attempt was another serious blow, showing that in these times, Turkey could still face the threat of a military takeover. The newly introduced presidential system of government has caused serious concerns about the democratic credentials of Turkey’s political system in view of the high level of power extended to the presidency.

The power resources of a country are not particularly easy to measure (Nye, 2011a, p. 9), but some indexes and public opinion outcomes can give some idea about how Turkey’s soft power started to decline after the Arab upheavals, including those of Syria. For instance, the Monocle Soft Power 30 country rankings index ranked Turkey among the top 20 countries in its 2012 soft power survey, but it consistently backslided and dropped to rank 28 in 2015 and rank 30 in 2017. Eventually, Turkey was not placed among the 30 countries in the Soft Power 30 index in 2018 (The Soft Power 30, 2018). Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey among the least free nations, putting it in the 157th place amongst 180 countries in 2018 (Reporters Without Borders, 2018). Similarly, Turkey was ranked 110th among 160 countries by The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index in 2018 (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2018). According to Freedom House ranking, Turkey’s internet freedom score also dropped from 42 in 2009 to 66 in 2017 in the list that scores countries with 0 being least free and 100 being free (Çevik, 2019, p. 15).

Various public opinion surveys also show a decrease in the perception of Turkey in the Middle East. A Turkish think thank shows the setback, providing data on how Arabs’ positive perceptions of Turkey decreased, especially after 2011. For instance, Turkey’s impact on the Arab Spring was assessed as positive by 56 percent of the Arab public in 2011 but rapidly decreased to 37 percent in 2013 (Akgün & Gündoğar, 2013). In recent years, even pro-government newspapers such as the Daily Sabah have admitted with reference to “the 2016 Arab Opinion Survey” that “Turkey’s image in the Arab world is far from its heyday prior to the Arab Spring” (Farasin, 2017). The Arab Opinion Index which is annually released by the Doha-based Arab Research Centre displayed “a decline in the Arab public opinion of Turkish foreign policy in numbers. According to the index, those who had a negative or a partly negative view of TFP in the Arab world accounted for 25% in 2014 but reached 33 percent in 2015 to 34 percent in 2016” (Arab Opinion Index, 2016).

It is difficult to single out Turkey’s intervention in Syria as the main reason for Ankara’s decline, but one could tentatively suggest that it was a very effective cause since the backsliding of Turkey’s reputation has closely coincided with the timing of the worsening of the Syrian conflict in the area. Having said that, the Arab view of Turkey also varies from one Arab state to another. For example, the Arab Barometer researchers found that Erdoğan is still very popular in Jordan, Palestine, even though the overall positive Arab opinion of Turkey in various fields of common interest has lost ground, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring (Ceyhun, 2018).

Conclusion

Having long opposed outside armed intervention anywhere in the Middle East, Turkey itself gradually became a biased third-party intervener at the expense of its soft-power-backed regional power role. Since March 2011, Turkey has intervened in the Syrian conflict by all means of intervention, from diplomatic means to military intervention, and it has also demonstrated all kinds of mixed motives, including humanitarian concerns in relation to Syrian refugees, national security concerns, and strategic expectations. The more that Turkey has leaned toward hard security means in its policy toward Syria, the more that its bid for a regional power role has started to encounter serious challenges. Combined with the Syrian challenge, domestic developments, such as the Gezi Park protests in 2013, the military coup attempt in 2016, the growing democracy deficits, and the setback in economic performance and problems with its Western allies, have restrained Turkey’s regional power role.

Simultaneously, its regional and extra-regional support, which is generally accepted as a must-have for a regional power role, lost momentum. Turkey’s potential in regional issues could still be observed in some cases, such as its taking part in the Astana process with Iran and Russia for a peace settlement in Syria; however, this did not originate from Ankara’s soft-power-driven diplomatic intervention, but from its involvement in a Russian-led power block, which has a large influence over Damascus through its military presence and support for the Assad regime by all means. Through its involvement in the Astana talks, Ankara also aims to reverse its marginal position (Öniş, 2014, p. 211) regarding the Geneva talks led by Russia and the USA.

While Turkey has progressed in its dialogue with Iran and Russia over Syria, it is distancing itself from some other Arab states such as Saudi Arabia or having difficulties with the USA over Syria. As a result, Turkey is either becoming a party to a Saudi–Iranian drift or to a power struggle between Russia and the USA over Syria. These are not good for a country that has aimed for a regional role by not taking sides but on the contrary by embracing the region with unifying efforts via mediation, good offices or economic incentives and by seeking the approval of interested parties. Turkey’s problems with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, its fragile relations with Israel, and its deepening estrangement from the EU and the USA are increasingly limiting Turkey’s previously widely accepted and regionally ambitious role. A regional power role in the sense of a security provider, a prosperity promoter and a good reputation holder will not be easy to recover for Turkey anytime soon.

It has shifted its approach from soft power to hard power by relying on military operations and deployments outside of Turkey. Currently, the increased focus in hard power, coercion, and inducements, along with the decline in multilateralism in American foreign policy and the appeal of undemocratic but militarily strong states such as China and Russia, signal the decline of soft power. However, this rising global trend can by no means be an inspiration for Turkey to revive its regionally influential role, which was very much alive in the early years of the AKP administration. The government’s turning to the use of hard power and rhetoric in its foreign relations, especially in view of its deeper involvement with Syria, rather than providing a novel, aspiring story to tell to its neighbors, makes Turkey a loser since the region has already been dominated by regimes of hard power and their security-centered regional view, which has so far failed the region on all accounts. Even though Turkey’s move from “hard power” in the 1990s to “soft power” in the 2000s vis-a-vis the Middle East has been significantly reversed after the Syrian conflict, Turkey’s standing in the region could still be vastly improved with the demonstrative effect of serious betterment in its democratic credentials and economic performance and less reliance on military means. Otherwise, Turkey’s influential role in the region in terms of the power over ideas and power over outcomes are destined to lose further ground.