A Shifting Centrality : The Evolution of Turkish Strategic Posture

Defense Principles and Historical Dynamics

Since the establishment of the Republic ¹ under the charismatic influence of Mustafa Kemal ² —who would become Kemal Atatürk (Father of the Turks) from 1928, the civilian-military bureaucracy has dominated and shaped, the traditional discourse on security, with little public questioning of Türkiye’s definition of national security (Bilgin, 2005, p. 183). Historically, Ankara’s strategy has been based on two main dimensions, deterrence and collective, or allied, security, which constituted the foundations of the Turkish strategy (Kazan, 2005, p. 592). In more recent years, greater emphasis has been given to crisis management and intervention and forward defense, two elements that have become increasingly important as Ankara has become active in regional and global affairs (Kazan, 2005, p. 592).

Ankara’s traditional strategy and its attention to deterrence and collective security have been shaped by several historical factors connected to the particular circumstances underpinning the establishment of the Republic. The first element that needs to be considered is the long-standing mistrust that characterizes the Turkish view of the outside world. This perception of being under permanent attack from external forces who wanted to disaggregate and control the country is directly linked to the Treaty of Sevres and its impact on the Turkish perception of the surrounding world. This perception is at the root of that geographical determinism based on the fear of abandonment and loss of territory that has, to an extent, informed and still informs the Turkish strategic view (Bilgin, 2005, pp. 183–184).

Although it was never implemented (Goldstein, 2013, pp. 57–68), the Treaty of Sevres was considered to be particularly harsh and perceived far more severe (Lewis, 2002, p. 247) than the treaties imposed on the other defeated powers of World War I, such as Germany and the Hapsburg Empire (Goldstein, 2013, p. 59). In the aftermath of World War I, Türkiye was left abandoned and mutilated, reduced to many Turkish-speaking Anatolian provinces. It was even received in Türkiye with a National Day of Mourning (Lewis, 2002, p. 247). Its impact was far-reaching, particularly at the national psychological level, even though it was never implemented. Thus, this created the basis for the emergence of the so-called Sevres syndrome (Guida, 2008), which refers to the constant fear that external forces would work to disaggregate and weaken Türkiye. This view still informs the Turkish view of the world (Arango, 2016), and it is at the root of many conspiracy theories. The latter is particularly developed in Türkiye, with conspiracy theories that are influenced by all the major political cultures in Türkiye, Kemalist, and Islamist perspectives as well as those of the ruling AK Party (Gürpınar, 2019).

A second notable element is the presence of a sort of de facto pacific neutralism, or what was defined as active isolationism, that nevertheless had different meanings depending on its geopolitical declinations. Externally, this approach was based on defensive cooperation and convergence with neighboring countries. Internally, this principle declined more violently following the Kurdish revolts. This approach was based on one of the fundamental principles of Kemalist Türkiye, which was “peace at home, peace in the world.” ³

This resulted in many arrangements to cope with what Türkiye perceived as the most critical threat to its territory and regional influence, namely, Fascist Italy and its expansionary foreign policy ⁴ in the Mediterranean (Arielli, 2010) and the Balkans, particularly Albania (Roselli, 2006). These needs pushed Türkiye to search for greater cooperation with some Balkan states, finally resulting in the conclusion of the Balkan Pact in 1934; the signatories including Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. However, this pact was still seen as a weak guarantee for Türkiye. Bulgaria was not part of it until the late 1930s, as its territorial claims over parts of Macedonia and Western Thrace prevented it from signing an agreement with Yugoslavia and Greece and was perceived as a potential tool in the hands of Mussolini to create problems for Türkiye (Hale, 2013, p. 46).

The same approach dominated the Turkish concerns on another regional issue with several internal ramifications, the Kurdish question. This concern brought Türkiye to conclude the Saabadad ⁵ pact with Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan whose main aim agreement was to avoid frontiers disputes and claims and, above all, to prevent Iran and Iraq from supporting the Kurds instrumentally against Türkiye and vice-versa (Hale, 2013, pp. 46–47). This concern was primarily associated with what happened in 1930 when the Kurdish rebels infiltrated into the Iranian border to escape from the Turkish military at the time of the A˘grı Da˘gı Revolt in 1930, which also led to an exchange of territory between Türkiye and Iran in 1932. ⁶ However, concerning the Kurdish issue, the principle of peace at home was applied rather differently. This peace was substantially based on ethnic domination, as suggested by the military campaigns against the Kurds in the 1920s and 1930s (Olson, 2000). In addition, this de facto neutralism was also the product of the Turkish army’s weakness. Despite the attempt at strengthening its military capacity when it became apparent that as Europe was about to experience a new war, the Turkish military capacities remained weak. Nevertheless, this weakness became an asset in the Turkish quest for neutrality during World War II (Hale, 2013, pp. 56–76). Indeed, on the international level, Türkiye applied this principle rather consistently, and this also became the foundation of an approach characterized by a firm adherence to the principles of non-interference and non-involvement in the internal affairs of other countries.

The third element that needs to be highlighted is the presence of a significant westward orientation that, particularly with the emergence of the Cold War, characterized the Turkish strategic posture. While it is indisputable that this was due to several peculiar ideological characteristics of the Kemalist regime, this also was a function of the changing global strategic context. Indeed, this pro-Western emerged more visible with the rise of the bipolar confrontation and the need for Türkiye to strengthen its Western orientation to defend itself from the Soviet threat. Türkiye became a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member in 1952. As such, it had to abandon the option of neutral passivity, having to focus on defending its borders from an impending threat. Initially, the United States was skeptical and rejected Turkish application for NATO but as the situation in Europe was evolving and the Americans feared a potential attack by the Soviet Union in central Europe—what Eisenhower defined as a strategic bottleneck, Türkiye was increasingly seen as functional for attacking the Soviets from the sides, in case of a crisis. As such, the Americans also persuaded the other members of the organizations—notably the UK and the Scandinavian countries – to accept Türkiye, which became a full member of the organization in 1952 (Hale, 2013, pp. 85–87). One year later, Türkiye also sent troops to the Korean War. This was the first engagement of Turkish troops abroad since the establishment of the Republic, and given the lack of direct security interests for Türkiye in the Korean Peninsula, this was done to strengthen relations with the United States. One of the most striking features of this strategic approach was the choice to ignore the Turkish geographical location, isolating itself from its southern—and old—neighborhood, although with some rare and notable exceptions, like the Bagdad Pact in 1955 ⁷ —also a product of the Cold War—representing a de-facto eastward extension of NATO (Sluglett, 2016, p. 71).

Oscillating Between Change and Continuity

The Turkish approach, characterized by an apparent westward orientation and little engagement with regional problems, changed slightly in the 1980s. The decade began with the third coup d’état of the Republican era and the adoption of a new constitution in 1982. Article 118 sanctioned the establishment of the so-called Milli Güvenlik Kurulu ⁸ (National Security Council), which started its activities one year later. Since then, this has become the central forum to establish the main guidelines of the Turkish strategic policies, although its internal balances of power have shifted over the years.

By 1983, under the leadership of Turgut Özal, Türkiye started deepening its economic relations with its Southern neighbors. This was part of the wider attempt at liberalizing Turkish politics, society, and the economy (Yavuz, 2009, p. 16). The changes in the external dimension were connected to these deeper, structural changes. For instance, Özal saw the opening to the wider Middle East region as a way to strengthen its support among the Anatolian business groups—the so-called Anadolu Kaplanlarır (Anatolian Tigers) —who saw trade with southern Turkish neighbors essential to strengthen themselves and were one of the key drivers of Turkish liberalization and new capitalism.

In terms of strategic posture, the most important change probably was the affirmation of the presidency’s centrality in dictating the country’s strategic position. Only after Özal decided to support the American-led coalition in the war against Saddam Hussein in 1991, it became apparent that several changes were undergoing. Their impact would have been, however, more significant than it appeared at first sight, and were not limited to the evolution of Turkish external priorities. They were also affecting consolidated domestic balances that saw the military dominating the civilian power in defining the Turkish strategy.

For the Turkish regional and international stance, the Iraq war harmed its relations with the Arab world. Despite the opening toward the Middle East during the 1980s, the significant economic ties that Ankara had built with Iraq in that period and the cautious approach that the Turkish historical elites adopted in the wake of the Kuwait crisis, Turgut Özal decided to position himself—and consequently Türkiye—closer to the United States as the crisis developed. He allowed the United States to use the Incirlik base and, through the deployment of Turkish troops at the border, kept in check several Iraqi forces from incursion (Robins, 2002, pp. 326–328).

In a visible act of disagreement toward this decision, the chief of staff, Necip Torumtay, decided to resign. This episode is a clear example of the increasing tension between the old Kemalist and military elite and Özal and the social groups he represented. At that time, these disagreements were expressed by diverging foreign policy agendas, but their roots were more profound. Thus, Özal took a decision that shocked Türkiye, displaying his intention of moving the decision-making power away from the hands of the military and challenging the balances in terms of internal power between the army and civilian politicians (Çelik, 1999, pp. 87–88). This process was not accomplished in those years, and in the following period, the military would still find ways to dominate the decision-making process on security issues—as in the case of the PKK guerrilla—and interfere in politics, as evident in the Memorandum of February 1997 (Lombardi, 1997). However, this was the beginning of a process that would mature and strengthen under the AKP and Erdoğan.

The peculiar neutral passivity of the Republic era was gradually replaced by a more active and dynamic approach, in which the changing conditions of the global system, and threats emerging from the South, were rapidly changing the context for the action of Türkiye and, thus, impacting significantly on its strategic posture.

As the Cold War ended, so did the era of changes that Turgut Özal brought in the 1980s. Although the latter was due primarily to domestic reasons, following the defeat of Özal’s party in the 1991 elections and the increasing fragmentation of the Turkish political landscape, the military regained the upper hand in domestic affairs, particularly in the security domain. This element would characterize the entire decade before the rise to power of the AKP in 2002 and would also play a role in pushing the military back into the Turkish domestic political dynamics.

At a regional level, the ground-breaking changes that led to the end of the bipolar confrontation exacerbated tension within the Middle East, particularly in the Arab World, and changed some significant features that were structural to the regional balances during the Cold War. For instance, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the end of the primary protector for many local regimes. Its end also paved the way for the brief emergence of the United States as the sole superpower in the world (Krauthammer, 1991). These global dynamics later progressively interacted with several more specific local issues, such as the failure of the Palestinian Intifada and the fears that the new Russian Aliyah to Israel would change the demographic balances inexorably strengthened the frustration within the Arab World (Cleveland & Bunton, 2013, p. 446). Trying to exploit these shifting geopolitical balances, Saddam Hussein sought to seize the momentum, raising his rhetoric attacks against the United States and Israel, an escalation that would result in the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 (Gause III, 2001). While the war would end in a fiasco for Saddam Hussein, it nevertheless had a major, direct impact on Türkiye’s security.

The Gulf War had several significant effects and had several security consequences for Türkiye. Following the brutal repression of Saddam against the Iraqi Kurds, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 688, which enforced a safe haven in North Iraq through Operation “Provide Comfort,” allowing the refugees that left Iraq to come back. This exacerbated further the problems that Türkiye had to face regarding its internal Kurdish issue, as it assumed a new, greater international dimension and, strategically, reduced central control of Bagdad over its northern regions, thereby allowing the PKK to strengthen its presence in the area (Hale, 2013, p. 144). Soon, the Kurdish problem and the terrorist campaign orchestrated by the PKK emerged as a critical security threat to address, becoming the Turkish primary and most immediate security emergency (Hale, 2013, p. 143). These were changing regional conditions that interplayed with other domestic elements. The murder of Veday Aydin on 5 July 1991 and the killing of seven people during his funeral five days later (Gunes, 2013, p. 111) gave the Kurdish struggle a different dimension. It soon spiraled out of control, with thousands of Kurds willing to join the guerrilla, the rising awareness that a possible legal engagement with the Turkish state had become impossible and this war affecting more and more urban centers (Öktem, 2011, pp. 88–93). As such, the decade defined as the “lost decade” (Öktem, 2011) was increasingly characterized by militarization, the deepening of the Kurdish conflict, and rising levels of political and economic instability. The former peaked in 1997, as the military intervened through a public memorandum to force the government to step down, while the latter manifested in a profound economic crisis that culminated in the banking crisis of 2001.

Geographical Centrality: Change Within Continuity

In the post-Cold War era, the most significant shift in the Turkish strategic posture was due primarily to a significant domestic political change that brought an Islamist political party to power for the first time in the history of the Republic. The rise to power of the AKP represented a ground-breaking change in Turkish politics. The party represented primarily those sectors that had been largely excluded from the mainstream political landscape in the Republican era and whose political centrality started to emerge only in the Özal’s years. The party was in itself as heterogeneous as it was successful. Initially, even liberals and more leftist-oriented intellectuals perceived the AKP as a viable alternative to the traditional dominance of the Turkish centers of economic and political power by the Kemalist elites. Thus, the rise to power of the AKP had several significant consequences for the Turkish strategic posture, its military doctrine, and perceptions of internal, regional, and international threats.

The Turkish strategic posture under the AKP was increasingly shaped by a particular vision, primarily promoted by Ahmet Davutoglu, who initially was—using Gramscian terminology ¹¹ —a sort of organic intellectual within the AKP circles. Davutoglu perceived himself as a twentieth-century style thinker whose duty was to influence and shape a new Türkiye, somehow representing—in terms of strategic thinking - a sort of Turkish version of Kissinger. As noted by Behlül Ozkan, Davutoglu has explained his mission as an attempt at bridging the gap in terms of strategic theory in Türkiye, and he referenced the importance of strategists able to harmonize theory and practice, such as Kissinger and Brzezinski, and this brought Turkish journalists to label him as the Kissinger of Türkiye (Ozkan, 2014, p. 122).

Davutoglu later turned from being an intellectual and advisor developing the strategic view of the AKP, and thus of the Turkish government, to being one of the actual interpreters of this policy, first as foreign affairs minister and later as prime minister. His view centered around the concepts of Strategic Depth and Zero-Problems with Neighbors that he developed in his 2001 book (Davutoğlu, 2001) Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararasi Konumu, whose title loosely translates as “Strategic Depth: the International Position of Turkey.”

To sum up, the main points characterizing Davutoglu’s approach, Türkiye had to again find its geopolitical centrality, which was lost when the post-Ottoman Turkish elites decided to strengthen its relations with the West. In doing so, they neglected Turkish former Ottoman neighbors, several regions of the world in which Turkish could express a natural political influence. From this point of view, rediscovering the Turkish Ottoman roots was also functional in promoting a more active regional foreign policy that, nevertheless, had to be characterized by a cooperative approach toward all of its neighbors, abandoning the zero-sum game and confrontational thinking that brought Türkiye to the brink of war with a number of its neighbors; for instance, Greece in 1996–1997 and Syria in 1998. Given the historical ties nurtured by the common Islamic heritage, the Middle East had a central role in this framework. However, this view aimed at rediscovering the real Ottoman roots of Turkish centrality, and was also critical of the so-called Neo-Ottomanism that characterized the foreign policy approach of Turgut Özal. For Davutoglu, this method was in continuity with the late Ottoman attempt to strengthen its relations with the West during the Tanzimat and post-Tanzimat eras, thus neglecting the Islamic nature of the Ottoman Empire (Ozkan, 2014, pp. 128–129). The historical differences between the Turks and the Arabs (Seni, 2016) and their fears have somehow reduced the capacity of Türkiye to adequately express its influence in the former Ottoman Arab possessions.

Interestingly enough, this view somehow matched with that voiced by Sabahattin Çakmakoglu, the Minister of National Defense in 2000—just two years before the rise to power of the AKP—in the preface to the 2000 Defense White Paper (Millî Savunma Bakanlığı, 2000), the last systemic definition of Turkish strategic priorities. Çakmakoglu stressed the importance of Türkiye’s “geographical position by noting that Turkey is located in the center of a region full of instabilities and uncertainties, such as the Middle East, Caucasus and the Balkans, where the balances are in the process of change” (Millî Savunma Bakanlığı, 2000, pp. 2–3). Thus, a sort of continuity with the geographical determinism historically characterize the Turkish strategic approach (Bilgin, 2005).

What marked a difference in Davutoglu’s approach compared to the pre-AKP era was how to exploit this centrality regarding influence. To this purpose, he later coined a term, “tarihdaş¸” which means people sharing the same history, to explain those ties existing between the state/nation and the people living in the former Ottoman territories, where the rising active presence of Türkiye over the past years meant the fulfilment of the nation’s historical responsibility toward its tarihdaş (Saraçoğlu & Demirkol, 2015, pp. 311–312). This shift served Davutoglu’s discourse—and consequentially the national strategic discourse modeled on the AKP’s priorities—to reinforce Turkish regional and global ambitious activism, which depicts Türkiye as the global leader and being the representative of communities that goes well beyond its formal national borders.

In this context, there was a shift in how the Turkish elites imagined the nation. While classical Kemalist nationalism conceived the Turkish territories from a defensive perspective, as something to protect from domestic and external evil forces who wanted to attack and disaggregate, the AKP’s nationalism perceives the same geography differently (Saraçoğlu & Demirkol, 2015, p. 312). It has a more ambitious position, as it aims to retain that position of centrality that would serve to influence the surrounding areas culturally and politically. It aims at creating a more evident line of continuity between the Turkish state and the Ottoman Empire, with the former being its heir and whose influence must spread around the old territories that were united under Istanbul, such as the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East and North Africa (Saraçoğlu & Demirkol, 2015, p. 312).

The element of continuity represented by the perception of Turkish regional centrality, although declined differently, is the point of convergence of (Neo) Ottomanism ¹² —again different from that of Özal—and Kemalism. This is what Omer Taspinar has defined as “Turkish Gaullism,” primarily:

The focus on the Islamic centrality of Türkiye for the region has characterized the AKP’s strategic view, although its intensity has changed depending on the issues at stake, particular geopolitical and historical circumstances and the presence or absence of internal, constraints. The existence of a distinct geopolitical vision of the world by the AKP, in which several complex geo-cultural and identity elements interacted with a specific understanding of the post-Cold War global order, remained firmly embedded in the main Turkish cultural codes. Its implementation proved to be more complex in practice. At the beginning, the party faced several formal and informal limitations. First and foremost, it was the first time in the history of the Republic that an Islamist party was in government alone. This meant that the military, judiciary, and neuralgic centers of political and economic power mostly based in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, were suspicious of the initial moves of the party. In addition, the AKP had to start its government without its charismatic and recognized leader, as Erdoğan was still banned from participating in political activities, due to the conviction he faced after he recited a Ziya Gokalp, a poet from the early years of the 1900s, that was considered against the secular character of the country.

Furthermore, the party had to deal with a significant degree of diplomatic and political inexperience. Although many of its members were well-educated and skilled people, they rarely held positions in the past, and the diplomatic and military spheres were among those areas where the supremacy of the Kemalist elites was still unchallenged. As such, in the beginning, the AKP’s moves would suffer from this lack of experience. At the same time, the leadership of the party and the government were keen on adjusting the Turkish strategic posture to their political agenda. This was evident in how they handled some of the first crises, for instance, the 2003 American war against Iraq and the negotiations over the Annan’s plan in Cyprus (Kaliber, 2016). For the AKP, these changes also achieved several domestic political aims as it wanted to use foreign policy and strategic issues to send a message of discontinuity to the old elites and initiate a process of marginalization.

The AKP Activism and the Impact on the Turkish Military and Strategic Doctrine

This new vision of Turkish centrality and its pro-active foreign policy brought Türkiye to update its strategic approach, adding the concepts of forward defense and active engagement (Kazan, 2005, p. 592) to the classic priorities of deterrence and collective security. The roots of this new approach started to emerge already before the rise to power of the AKP, as Türkiye signed an agreement with the United Nations regarding its contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations on 14 June 2000 (Satana, 2013). Earlier, Turkish troops already participated in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo (Vračić, 2016, p. 16). It was under the AKP that this policy was implemented more actively. For instance, the AKP decision to send troops to Lebanon to monitor a tense cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 prompted a rather intense debate in Türkiye (Park, 2013, p. 160) being the country the first Muslim country that has full diplomatic ties with Israel to participate in this mission but was also the beginning of a more pro-active international engagement. Erdoğan saw this participation as a moral duty to strengthen regional stability and raise Türkiye’s profile on the world stage (Gruen, 2006, p. 436). Since then, Türkiye has also broadened the geographical scope of its strategic engagement by sending troops on peacekeeping missions in Africa (Central African Republic and Mali) and reinforcing security links with many actors on the continent (Sıradağ, 2018), which was functional wider African engagement approach that has emerged over the past fifteen years (Donelli, 2018).

All this was particularly important for Türkiye, where the military has historically played a significant role and was also considered to be a tool of modernization for the entire country (Lerner & Robinson, 1960). The rise to power of the AKP not only has had a significant impact on the self-perception of Türkiye as a strategic player and its regional dimension, but also had a major impact on the role played in the domestic political balances by the military and the wider civil-military relations. Although it has been argued that the military somehow disengaged from politics following the end of the 12 September regime (Hale, 1993, pp. 246–290), it nevertheless retained a far-reaching influence in the domestic domain, as shown by the end of the Refah party government experience in 1997 amid the “postmodern” or “soft” coup mounted against the Islamist-led coalition by an army-inspired campaign of intimidation (Park, 2013, p. 59). From this point of view, the AKP has successfully changed the balance of power between the civilian government and the military, with the former fully controlling the latter. Indeed, only under the AKP has the military gradually shrunk its internal influence.

To meet the EU accession criteria, the AKP accelerated implementing measures to strengthen the civilian control of the military, limiting the jurisdiction of military courts in favor of civilian courts and playing a more active role in the appointments of top military commanders (Çağaptay, 2003). The failed attempt by the military to influence the 2007 election for the president, with the fiasco of their e-memorandum (Kuru, 2012), was a significant political-psychological shift, as from that moment onwards the Turkish government has been more vocal in imposing its agenda. The presence of a rather intrusive military was also the tactical reason for the alliance between the AKP, Erdoğan and the movement of Fethullah Gülen. ¹³ However, this alliance faded soon as it was clear that the military did not represent a threat to elected executives it had previously represented. This led to a rather rapid deterioration of the relations between the Turkish government and the Gulen movement, which culminated in the crisis of 15 July 2016, when a small section of the Turkish military supportive of Gulen tried to carry out an unsuccessful coup d’état (Milan, 2016), which has also triggered a new wave of changes promoted by the government (Gurcan, 2016).

Despite their progressive loss of domestic political influence, the Turkish armed forces ¹⁴ remain a significant actor, which remains paramount in number and technical capacities. This declining influence of the military on the domestic environment and policy-making mechanisms had a significant impact on several doctrinal aspects. Under the AKP, there has been a process of de-securitization of several regional security issues. This was the case with Cyprus, although the troubled relations with Greek Cyprus represented a significant problem in deepening strategic and military cooperation in certain domains, for instance, when NATO and the EU tried to increase their cooperation (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014, p. 176).

In addition, before the eruption of the Arab Spring and the outbreak of the civil war in Syria (van Dam, 2011), the dynamic of de-securitization had also characterized Turkish relations with Syria and the Kurds. Erdoğan and the AKP government strengthened their relations with the Bashar al-Assad regime (Bacık, 2007) before abandoning him. As the Syrian unrest erupted, Erdoğan decided to prioritize the strategic need to be portrayed as the champion of the Arab street and the primary protector of Sunni groups—particularly those closer to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose alliance was a major tool in foreign policy for Türkiye in the aftermath of the Arab Spring (Taş, 2022). This relationship was also crucial in deepening Türkiye–Qatar relations in those years (Başkan, 2016).

As for the Kurds, the deepening of the Syrian crisis created a window of opportunity for the Syrian Kurds to pursue their territorial interests more actively. This raised tension with Türkiye and contributed to derailing the peace process between Ankara and the PKK, which reached its peak in March 2013 when the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, read a letter from jail for the Nowruz in which he called for a “cessation of hostilities” (Candar, 2013). This shift pushed Türkiye to re-securitize its approach to Syria and the Kurds (Kösebalaban, 2020). In the meantime, the AKP government also turned toward a more nationalistic discourse, in line with some domestic changes that saw the strengthening of an alliance between the AKP and the Nationalist Action Party [Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP] (Oktay, 2020). A few years before, the Kurdish issue was significantly divisive in AKP-MHP relations (Celep, 2010). Since then, the Kurdish issue has returned to be one of the most prominent security issues in Türkiye, coupled with the increasing problems associated with the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and the broader area. Particularly following the Suruç attack in July 2015, Türkiye began military operations against IS and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Northern Syria.

In parallel with the loss of political influence and a sense of autonomy experienced over the past years, the Turkish armed forces have also had to adapt their strategic orientation consistently with the new directions of the AKP and the new role that Türkiye has played in the region and beyond. This position was interpreted not only in its geopolitical meaning—a renewed activism in foreign policy to project influence abroad more efficiently—but also in economic terms (Bank & Karadag, 2012). AKP’s Türkiye has strengthened its role as a key economic player, especially in the Middle East (Tür, 2011), with Turkish businesses operating and investing all over the region, actively supported by the government (Civan et al., 2013). From this point of view, the projection capacity also had to progressively adapt to these new economic needs, being able to help Turkish companies investing around the world. In addition, Türkiye was also strengthening this strategy with a policy of soft power attraction toward its neighbors, an approach that nevertheless started to suffer as the Arab Spring displayed several incongruences and contradictions in Turkish regional stance (Benhaïm & Öktem, 2015).