The return of Turkey

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the end of the XVIII century, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt, Mesopotamia, Arabia and the northern Caucasus.In addition the Ottomans extended its power around the Black Sea shores and established its sovereignty over Libya and Algeria.

The Turks established an effective blockade over the European trade routes to China, India and central Asia which crossed the Middle East. The famous silk route was closed. Thereafter and as result of the inability of the disunited Christians to recover Constantinople, the European merchants were deprived of their direct access to Asiatic commercial centers and to its products.
 

In those circumstances, to link Europe and Asia again, was necessary to send naval expeditions to border the unexplored African shores and find the passage which connect the Atlantic ocean and the Indic, and from there, sail through the Indic ocean to India. Portugal, a little but dynamic Atlantic kingdom, accepted these challenges and in 1488, Barlolomeu Dias, a Portuguese sailor arrived to the Cape of Good Hope; the southern point of Africa, and some years later, in 1496, Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese sailor reached India.

Meanwhile, Castile, the Iberian neighbor kingdom of Portugal, conquered Granada in 1492 and financed the Columbus voyage which brought the knowledge of America and opened a new era of opportunities, discoveries and conquests.

These achievements allowed Europe to escape from the Muslim pressure and, simultaneously, break its dependence of land routes. By the other hand, the Ottoman Empire was relegated as a peripheral power without exit to the oceans and thus sidelined from the new discoveries in America. However, the Ottomans still retained an important role in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The Ottoman power was supported by a powerful army which had enough force to besiege Vienna and harass Central Europe while its navy had no opposition in the Mediterranean.

In the XVIII century the Empire started to decline by corruption, economic stagnation, and political instability. One century later, this process got worse by the military defeats in front of Russia and the rise of nationalistic movements within the Empire (Greece, Egypt and the Slavic territories). By the mid of XIX century the Ottoman decadence was so deep that western chancelleries named the Empire as "the sick man of Europe".

The Ottoman Empire in 1914

At the beginning of XX century the fate of the Ottoman Empire was closely tied to the Anglo-Russian rivalry. The Russians wished control the Bosporus and the Dardanelles to secure its presence in the Mediterranean, but the British  viewed this Russian projection to the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt as a threat to the Canal of Suez and the route to India. By this reason, just as by the Russian advances in Central Asia -who pressed India´s northern borders - the British opposed to dismember the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottoman participation in the Great War supporting the central powers and the outbreak of the Russian revolution changed the British policy towards the Middle East. France and Britain agreed the Ottoman Empire division and even planned occupy the heart of the Empire –Anatolia- with the Italian and Greek support.

The treaty of Sevres

The Turkish reaction was leaded by Mustafa Kemal - named Ataturk -, a nationalistic general who refused to accept the mutilation agreed by the allies in the "Treaty of Sèvres".  As consequence, the Sultan–who as Calipha also was a religious figure- was overthrown and started the so-called “Turkish independence war”, which finished with the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. 

As result of this victory, Turkey kept the control of Anatolia, some territories in the South Caucasus, a little European hinterland around Constantinople, with two main geopolitical assets; the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Both straits define the imaginary limits of Europe and make up one of the Mediterranean vital points to control the unique eastern European gate to the Mediterranean. But by the other hand, the Ottoman defeat in the Great War supposed the loss of important places like Syria, Palestine, the Sinai´s peninsula (in front of Suez Canal), and Mesopotamia (with its huge oil reserves) or significant religious sites like the Makkah and Medina.

In addition, the lack of a powerful European ally, along with the traditional backwardness inherited from the Ottoman Empire and the end of the Caliphate -which finished with the Turkish influence in the Muslim world-, demoted Turkey as a peripheral minor power. 

To overcome this status, the Turkish government -still leaded by Ataturk- launched massive campaigns during the 1920´s and 1930´s to westernize the society as a way to modernize Turkey. Ataturk and its successors focused its attention in the army to keep these social changes and submitted the civil powers to the army´s high command. Since then the army has been used to abort leftists uprisings, carry out coup d’états against pro-Islamist governments, or to fight against the Kurdish guerrillas who since Turkey´s foundation have tried to build its own national home. 

Another element which played an important function to organize the new republic was the Turkish nationalism, an ideology promoted to strengthen the sense of national unity and to impose the secularism.  The widespread of these ideas was successful, despite Turkey, unlike the Ottoman Empire, had a low ethnic diversity, as the Armenians were exterminated during the war and the Greeks expelled in 1922, after the Greco-Turkish war. The Kurds remained as the unique different ethnic group.

The cold war context revalued the geostrategic position of Turkey which joined NATO in 1955. This event reinforced the international position of Turkey and at the same time secured its borders to any Soviet aggression. In return, the alliance closed the Soviet access to the Mediterranean and used Turkey´s logistical advantages to install ballistic missiles, radar facilities and air bases which threatened the USSR southern borders. Furthermore, NATO´s presence in this scenario blocked the Soviet expansion to southern Caucasus and allowed to check Iran and Iraq vital commodities (basically oil and gas).

Since the 1970´s Ankara used its NATO membership to complete its westernization process but also as the first step to access to the Economic European Community. However in European eyes, the Turkish candidacy suffered important handicaps by cultural, economic and political factors like its Muslim heritage, its internal instability, its poor democratic standards, its low economic development, and the bad relations with Greece. For 30 years the western European countries has seen Turkey as kind of “the ugly duckling” and consequently its attempts to join the EU have failed -although its candidacy never has been totally rejected-. The political repression after the failed July 2016 coup, and Erdogan's autocratic drift, difficult even more the Turkey candidacy to the EU.

The European disdain and the rise to the power of Erdogan´s "justice and development party"- a moderate Islamic-oriented party - in 2004 changed the geopolitical orientation of Turkey. With this new political line, the integration in the EU was no longer a priority. Ankara´s government turned its efforts to rebuild its former sphere of influences and to recover a potential leadership in the Islamic world.

The downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened a new geopolitical scenario to Turkey when Azerbaijan -a former Ottoman territory- gained its independence from USSR just as the culturally and ethnically Turkish Central Asian republics -Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kirghizstan-. Turkey recognized these republics immediately and started an economic and cultural offensive to reintroduce its influence in these areas at expense of Russia. Turkish investments started to flow into these impoverished countries and the Turkish culture and language spreaded again. In central Asia, Turkey achieved these goals without any opposition, but in Azerbaijan the Turkish had to compete with Iran which unsuccessfully tried to introduce its political influence through its common ties with the Islam Shia worship.  

By the other hand, the Nagorno-Karabakh war strengthened even more the Turkish- Azeri relations. Initially Azerbaijan wished receive support from Russia - which still maintained an important ascendant over the Azeri leaders, as the major and most powerful Soviet Union´s heir-. But Moscow had an historical alliance with the Armenians - by its Christian roots and by its traditional pro-Russian attitude -, and finally sided the Armenians. At this critical moment for Azerbaijan, Turkey, - which maintained its hostility against the Armenians- provided important military and logistical assistance.  

Nowadays and once consolidated its presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus - establishing Turkish schools, economic investments or even through popular culture as TV shows -, Turkey fights to achieve the political primacy in the region. To reach this place, Ankara´s strategists have to minimize the Russian influence –which still stands strong-, attracting the Russified political elites. Another difficult challenge for Turkey consists in avoid the American penetration in these regions. America has shown its highest interest in Central Asian huge natural resources, but especially in its geostrategic advantages to control the Heartland of Eurasia.

Playing the card of Islam, Erdogan pretends to achieve these goals, but since the 9/11 the local elites are very cautious with the foreign Islamic tendencies (including the moderate Turkish Islamic conceptions). These political difficulties have slowed the Turkification process - linked with the return of Islam- and have affected the Turkish position to lead the Muslim World. Without a firmly Muslim and pro-Turkish Central Asian, Turkey has lost a decisive factor to occupy the vacant as Islamic major power. 

Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war, the turmoil in Iraq and the Kurdish guerrillas destabilize the southern border of Turkey.  The Turkish obsession to destroy the Kurdish resistance and its desires to overthrown Bashar Al Assad, have lined Turkey with the Syrian opposition and circumstantially with ISIL. This position has caused tensions with Russia, (who support Al Assad) and the USA (who fight the ISIL). The foreseeable defeat of the opposition and the dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia have been solved with an unexpected approach with Moscow that probably will be temporary. In any case, the Turkish hopes to turn Syria in a satellite State and to smash definitively the Kurdish guerrilla have disappeared for some years. 

In the next years, Erdogan´s administration probably will focus all its energies to continue the re-islamization of the society and will use the Syrian and Iraqi crisis to obtain economic compensations from EU and to silence the repression against the Kurds. For Turkey the newly relations with Russia suppose economic profits – Russia needs to evade the EU trade sanctions consequence of Ukrainian crisis -, but these actions challenge the NATO´s policies because have broken the strategy to isolate Russia.  All these elements predict that Turkey will adopt a Maverick role inside NATO -as did France in 1958- and consequently a future disaffection with its western allies (especially the USA).  

Following Ankara´s foreign policy, the Turkish army – formed by conscripts and full equipped by its western allies-, had to improve its military capacity, modernize its structure and diversify its supplies (and even develops its own national technology) to intervene abroad in defense of its national interest.

In the other way, the Russian-Turkish relations will collapse by its fight for the primacy in Central Asia. This fight will start when new generations with Islamic conscience and educated in its own national language replace the old Soviet style leaders without religious skills and educated in Russian language.

It´s possible that before the end of this century, Turkey reaches a key piece position in the Eurasian chessboard, achieving the primacy in the Caucasus and central Asian scenarios. To arrive at this point, Turkey had to displace the Russians using the common cultural and religious links with the Central Asian nations. At the same time, a constant political, military and economic pressure over Syrian regime can force this one to accept some kind of Turkish influence to replace the current Russian tutelage.   

Turkish sphere of interests in Central Asia

If finally this forecast becomes a reality, Turkey will control the most important world energy reserves, and will have the political and economic resources to assume the leadership of the Islamic world.