Turkey’s Erdogan complicating regional security

By Sarah White*

With his presidency entering its second month, Joe Biden is already being pressed to deliver on his promises to re-center U.S. foreign policy around diplomacy and challenged to patch strained relationships with U.S. allies across the globe. The relationship we have with Turkey is no exception, and it is one of the most fraught.

Turkey is not in the same place it was when the Obama

presidency ended, having soured with NATO and the EU in recent years, so some reset in relations is required under Biden. The path of resetting relations with Turkey and its autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, looks to be an uphill trek.

For the last four years, U.S.-Turkey relations hinged on Erdogan’s friendly relationship with Biden’s predecessor. But their friendship was, in the long term, not beneficial to U.S. interests. The Trump administration’s sympathy for autocrats gave Erdogan tacit permission to flout NATO, and indeed democratic conventions, generally.

Initially, the Trump administration signaled that it might hold Erdogan to account, particularly after Turkey purchased a series of S-400 missiles from Russia in 2017, which resulted in its ex-communication from the F-35 consortium (a decision brought about by Congress and the Pentagon). In 2019, however, Trump approved a Turkish invasion of Syria, in which Erdogan took military action against the United States’ Kurdish allies, undermining progress in the fight against ISIS. At the same time, Erdogan has supported extremist forces that he views as protecting Turkish interests in the region. In response to the threat of sanctions for these actions from the U.S. Congress, Ankara threatened to close the Incirlik airbase, which hosts U.S. tactical nuclear weapons.

It is possible that a different U.S. president, one who prioritized diplomatic solutions, would have deterred Erdogan from taking these courses of action, held him accountable in a more tangible way, or worked with our NATO allies to do so. It is also possible that nothing would have been different; however, the Trump administration’s enabling of Erdogan made the outlook for the alliance and the region bleaker and hampered the chance of rescuing the situation from the low point in which we find it today.

Now, with a new administration that has pledged not to enable Erdogan and leaders like him, the U.S.-Turkey relationship is at a crossroads. Biden will have to tangle with old issues concerning Turkey (acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, addressing Turkey’s human rights-haunted EU bid) and new problems (how to approach Turkey’s infringement on Greek territorial waters for energy exploration, Erdogan’s closeness to Vladimir Putin, his targeting of the Kurds and support for extremists, the country’s place in NATO after the S-400 incident).

Biden will be confronted with an incensed Turkey sooner than he likely anticipated. In mid-December 2020, Trump signed sanctions on Ankara into effect only weeks before leaving office, making his only action on Turkey one of many foreign policy crises left behind for his successor.

The problem with Erdogan is that consequences of any sort, such as punishing economic sanctions on an already struggling economy, could drive him to push Turkey further toward Russia, China, and even Iran. But the opposite could also happen: without Trump’s ideological support, Erdogan has lost his carte blanche from the White House and may consequently exercise greater caution.

With a stabilized U.S. executive and diplomatic apparatus, Erdogan may be reminded that good relations with the U.S. and Europe are just as central to Turkey’s interests as to the West’s. The possibility of advancing its still-troubled EU claim may be a powerful lure for Ankara to cooperate with Washington and with NATO allies. The peril of punishing sanctions on its fragile economy, worsened by COVID-19, is a powerful incentive to avoid situations that might trigger them. Therein lies the hope for a diplomatic reset.

Whether or not relations can be mended, the next four years of conversations with Erdogan are going to be very different from the last four. Erdogan should expect his ability to act with impunity to end here.

* Sarah White is a Senior Research Analyst at Arlington’s Lexington Institute. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Source: realcleardefense.com

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