Constructing a realistic explanation of Turkish – US relations

ABSTRACT

U.S. support for the Syrian-Kurdish forces aligned with the PKK; U.S. declining to extradite Fethullah Gülen; Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system; and Turkey’s aggressive interference with natural gas exploration in the Mediterranean are four issues that have roiled U.S.-Turkish relations. This paper examines neorealist and constructivist explanations for these issues and determines that they provide a less than complete understanding of this troubled relationship. The paper then turns to middle level alliance theory and domestic factors favored by neoclassical realism to fill in the explanatory gaps.

KEYWORDS:

• US-Turkey relations
• neorealism
• constructivsm
• Turkish foreign policy
• S-400

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Erdoğan, “Erdogan: How Turkey.”

2 Turkey has also developed a friendship with China, which is beyond the scope of this paper.

3 Waltz, Theory of International Politics.

4 Wendt, Social Theory, and Katzenstein, The Culture.

5 Other approaches not explored here include the attempt to combine realism and constructivism without using intervening variables (see Barkin, “Realist Constructivism,” and “Constructivists and Neoclassical Realisms.” 2020). There are also attempts to make grand theories compatible with each other through “integrative pluralism” (see Banta and Kaufman, “Integrative Pluralism.”)

6 See Meibauer et al., “Forum”; Smith and Smith, “Can Neoclassical Realism”; and Götz, “Neoclassical Realist Theories.” For an application of NCR to Turkish foreign policy generally see Sönmez, A Neoclassical Realist Approach.

7 See Brooks, “Distinguishing.”

8 Gulmez, “The Resilience.”

9 Dursun-Özkanca, Turkey-West Relations.

10 See Kubicek, “Introduction.”

11 The Abraham Accords of August 13, 2020 among Israel, the UAE and the US and the normalization agreement between Bahrain and Israel are considered a consequence of the lessening of US influence in the Arab Middle East.

12 Because of its civil war this paper excludes Syria as a major player in the Eastern Mediterranean together with Lebanon, Gaza, and the North African states of Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria which are not sufficiently “major” players.

13 See Toledo, “Classic Realism.” For theories of “balancing” see Nexon, “The Balance of Power,” 344–47, and Bock and Henneberg, “Why Balancing Fails,” 10–17.

14 For a neorealist explanation of the AKP government’s relations with Russia, see Kubicek, “Structural Dynamics” in this special issue of Turkish Studies.

15 The AKP government has also expressed concern for the “Crimean Turks” under Russian occupation. See Ereker and Özer, “Crimea,” 372.

16 Bayar, “Turkey Hails.”

17 The Minsk Group had unsuccessfully tried to resolve the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh since 1992.

18 Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 27 and 172–76.

19 This is reminiscent of the prisoner’s dilemma used in game theory and occasionally built into systems theory in international politics. See Kaplan, System and Process. It is also reminiscent of the social theory of cross-cutting cleavages that reinforce moderation in groups that compete against each other in one arena but need to cooperate with the competitors in another. See Wallace, “Alliance Polarization.”

20 See Biden, “Letter.”

21 International Energy Agency (IEA), “Turkey 2021,” 116.

22 Kahlesar, “More US LNG Exports.”

23 Tastekin, “Muslim Brotherhood.”

24 Iddon, “How Significant.”

25 President Erdoğan did not help the reconciliation process by making anti-Semitic remarks in May 2021 that stimulated a sharp rebuke from the Biden White House. See Reuters, “US condemns Erdogan comments.” See also the anti-Semitic trope of Nureddin Nebati, the AKP Treasury and Finance Minister who claimed that “The United States central bank does not belong to the public. It is in the hands of five families.” See Ahval, “Turkish Finance Minister.”

26 “Turkey-Israel Pipeline.”

27 See International Crisis Group, “Turkey-Greece.”

28 Stanicek, “Turkey: Remodelling.”

29 Andrei, “The Cyprus Issue.”

30 Reuters, “US to Lift.”

31 See Martin, The Unstable Gulf, 31–73.

32 See White House “Washington Declaration.”

33 See Kubicek, “Introduction,” 7–8.

34 Martin, “A New Track.”

35 Yüksel, “Strategies of Turkish Proxy Warfare,” 8–12.

36 Holmes, “SDF’s Arab Majority.”

37 Tol, “The Clash.”

38 Reynolds, “Damaging Democracy.”

39 Werz and Hoffman, “The Process.”

40 Denizeau, “Mavi Vatan.” Mavi vatan was also designated as the name for the large-scale naval exercise in February-March 2021. See also Candar, “Turkey’s Blue Homeland Doctrine.”

41 See Alles and Badie, “Sovereigntism.”

42 Grigoriadis, “Friends No More?”

43 Aydin, “Public Perceptions.”

44 Kalaycioğlu, “Public Opinion.”

45 Moreover, Gulmez’s comment on the tensions over Eastern Mediterranean gas exploration as reinforcing Turkey’s fear of abandonment is hard to fathom.

46 See Dursun-Özkanca, “An Examination.” A fuller development of her argument can be found in Dursun-Özkanca, Turkey-West Relations.

47 Stewart, “US Officials Wonder.”

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Lenore Martin

Lenore G. Martin is Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at Emmanuel College in Boston, and an Associate of both the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She co-chairs the Middle East Seminar at Harvard. She has written books and numerous articles analyzing national security in the Gulf, the larger Middle East and Turkey.