On October 23, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during an event in Turkey's northeast that he had given "necessary instructions" to the foreign minister, asking the Turkish Foreign Ministry to declare ten Ambassadors from Western countries, including the United States, "persona non grata" and even say that they might be expelled. Erdogan said: "These ambassadors need to understand, understand and know Turkey. As long as they don't understand, don't understand Turkey, they have to leave."
In the face of the Aukus established by britain, the United States and Australia, which cost France 50 billion Australian dollars in conventional submarine construction orders, French President Macron only "recalled the French ambassadors to the United States and Australia", what happened to make Turkish President Erdogan make such an "incredible" move, suddenly expelling the ambassadors of the ten Western countries?
According to the US cable news (cnn) network reported that on the 18th local time, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden jointly issued a statement asking the Turkish authorities to speed up the trial of the detained Osman Kavala, and also tried to interfere in the work of the Turkish government and the judicial system procedures in pursuit of so-called "fairness and justice".
Osman Kavala, 64, is a Native of France. In 2013, Kavala expressed support for an anti-government demonstration called Occupy Gezi. The "Occupy Gezi" campaign is mainly aimed at Erdogan's rule as prime minister.
Subsequently, Kavala was accused of participating in an attempted coup d'état in 2016 in an attempt to "overthrow the government." The 2016 coup failed because Putin ignored the past, but Erdogan was almost overthrown, so Kavala was detained in 2017 and has spent four years in prison, still awaiting trial.
The Ten Western Powers want Turkey to "immediately release" a "reactionary" who is trying to overthrow itself, and Erdogan's anger can be imagined, even bluntly saying: "How old are you?" Don't touch Kavala! ”
After Erdogan said he would expel the ambassadors from the ten Western countries, on October 25, the U.S. Embassy in Turkey announced that it would abide by article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. According to this provision, diplomats are required to abide by the laws of the host State and not to interfere in the internal affairs of the host State. The embassies of Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Finland subsequently released similar information. Erdogan also responded later in the day, saying that "our intention was never to create a crisis."
Turkey's conflict with the Ten Western powers seems to have returned to calm in a compromise between the two sides. But Turkey's tough diplomatic style has left a deep impression on the world.
In recent years, there has been a lot of news about Turkey, such as the expulsion of the ambassadors of the ten Western countries. For example, laying down Russian warplanes, pointing fingers at China's Xinjiang issue, insisting on purchasing the Russian S400 anti-control missile system despite the opposition of the United States, meddling in the Syrian issue, and engaging in a war of words with EU leaders around the mediterranean oil and gas resources issue.
From these events, we will find that Turkey's hard-line style is consistent, and behind this tough style is Turkey's diplomatic style - not afraid of contradictions with major powers, and even trying to profit from it. So why did Turkey choose to adopt such a style? What is the underlying reason behind this? This article will try to analyze Turkey's geopolitics, state power, and Erdogan personally.
Turkey's problems are very serious, oil and gas resources are scarce and require large imports; water shortages, with a per capita water volume of only 1,430 cubic meters; many weapons and equipment and military technology are heavily dependent on foreign countries; and there is a risk of economic collapse due to the dependence of the United States dollar on foreign debt. But why is Turkey still in the right and left? This is because Turkey occupies an important geographical position and its geopolitical value is very important.
Turkey covers an area of 783,600 square kilometers, of which 97% is located in Asia Minor and 3% in the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. The population is about 83 million, of which ethnic Turks make up more than 80% and Kurds account for about 15%. Religiously, 99% of the population is Muslim, of which 85% are Sunni, the rest are Shia, and a minority believes in Christianity and Judaism.
From the map, Turkey is connected to Greece and Bulgaria in the northwest, Syria and Iraq in the south, Iran and the Greater Caucasus in the east, and Russia in the north across the Black Sea. Turkey is located at the junction of Asia, Europe and Africa, and controls the Turkish Strait, the throat between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. And Turkey is located on the Anatolian plateau, which has a geographical advantage over the Arabian Peninsula. It can be said that Turkey is both a transit point for the Black Sea-Mediterranean trade and a transit point for Asia-Europe trade.
Geography is an important card in Turkey's hands. For Russia, Turkey is located at the point where the gas pipeline between Russia and the countries of southern and southeastern Europe must pass, controlling the Turkish Strait, russia's throat from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean Sea. If Turkey blockaded the Turkish Strait, Russia's Black Sea Fleet would not be able to enter the Mediterranean. For China, Turkey is a necessary place for China's Belt and Road Initiative and is of great significance to China's Belt and Road Strategy.
For the United States and Europe, Turkey is one of the members of NATO, one of the objects of US-Eu arms sales, and an important chess piece of the West in the Middle East. And after the Arab Spring in 2010, a large number of refugees caused a refugee crisis in Europe. At present, Turkey is the country with the largest number of refugees in the world, approaching 4 million. If the West were to turn against Turkey, Turkey could open its borders, flooding Europe with large numbers of refugees and plunging an already overwhelmed Europe into a new crisis. And if Turkey falls to Russia, it will break the Strategic Layout of the West in the Middle East, making a gap in the Middle East.
The important geographical location makes all the forces compete to win turkey over and are unwilling to fight with it. At the very least, the benefits of punishing Turkey are more likely to be much less than the costs paid by their own countries, so no major country is willing to fight Turkey; Turkey has become fearless, daring to "jump left and right" between major powers, setting up a gamble, and obtaining benefits through risk hedging.
However, it must be pointed out here that external factors are the conditions for change, and internal factors are the basis for change. Looking at the foundations and basic policy direction of Turkey's current regime, perhaps we will be able to look at the roots of its clown-jumping moves.
Turkey, like most of the neighboring Middle Eastern countries, has a very strong say in the topic of "ancestral expanse". After all, hundreds of years ago, it was the Ottoman Empire, the hegemon of the Islamic world that spanned three continents and competed with the continental powers.
Unfortunately, politics is committed to the present after all, and after the glory of the past dissipated in the war, Turkey in the new era had to explore the way to reconstruct the social order of the theocratic country. Thus the battle over the dominance of European institutions, cultures and Western values continued, and there was always an irreparable gap between the secular elite under the protection of military power and the broader Islamic civilian population.
Until the end, as Huntington pointed out in The Clash of Civilizations, Turkey abandoned Mecca and could not enter Brussels. It hung awkwardly outside the entire world of two great civilizational systems and even gradually moving toward regional collectivization, and it was at a loss.
Turkey's embarrassment exacerbated national frustration and eventually led to the rise to power of an emerging political force, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), in the early 21st century. From its inception, this force keenly grasped that the key to solving Turkey's problems was never to quell the quarrels in the parliament, but to make the vast religious paranoia far higher than the level of knowledge of the lower classes to agree with the decisions of the upper classes.
The AKP's dual trajectory of governance was thus established: one is right-wing, that is, ideologically moving closer to the Islamic power state; the other is for the populace, that is, insisting on being the so-called "defender of the interests of the common people" and vigorously attacking the secular elite. These two tracks are not only parallel and non-contradictory directional guidance, but also reflect a high degree of unity in specific practice. The fundamental reason why the AKP has been able to stand for twenty years, even after the reform of the state, is that it has always had a large number of loyal followers among the country's largest vote bank, the Muslim civilian community.
In order to consolidate its foundation for governance and let the fanatical faithful follow it with all their hearts, the AKP has also come up with a sufficiently radical domestic and foreign policy. Internally, the AKP has always pursued and attacked the secular elite forces with the goal of "exterminating them all." It exploits the demagogic whitewashing of de facto authoritarian politics by political discourse.
On the one hand, from the historical perspective of the difficulty of elite rule since Mustafa Kemal, the AKP attacked the so-called "white elite" as a lackey of the West, ignoring the happiness of the vast number of Turkish people. On the other hand, it proceeds from "reality" and attacks the military for secretly colluding with China and Russia, abandoning mustafa Kemal's legacy of Westernization and democratization, guarding itself and forgetting its ancestors.
Externally, the AKP took the "Arab Spring" as a watershed moment and shifted from clinging to the West to seeking the identity of the Clergy state in the Middle East. Actively intervening in regional disputes in the Middle East has even deliberately "tripped" and embarrassed the countries of the United States and Spain. After the 2016 military coup, the AKP, which felt deeply unstable, moved more frequently.
The purchase of armaments must first be compared with the United States and Russia, blackmailing the European Union to exchange 6 billion euros for refugees, sending troops to intervene in the Aasian war... As long as the interests are related, Turkey will never be absent from disputes, and can often be used as unreasonable and unreliable as the typical characteristics of the Turkish diplomatic operations to make all parties anxious and helpless, and finally can only send a steady stream of "diplomatic victory" press materials to turkey's internal propaganda department.
Turkey is a medium-sized country that has not seized the opportunity to integrate into the Western system, but it does not want to become a vassal of vested interests in peace, and chooses to be the initiator of the dispute, seeking to realize its "new Ottoman" ambitions in the chaotic Middle East and become one of the leaders of the new order. At present, it has taken a certain distance.
Turkey's ability to reach a point where the world's major political body cannot be ignored is naturally the central factor in the AKP's clear governing direction, but the personal charisma of its leader Erdogan is equally important.
Let's start with Erdogan's personal character. Erdogan himself has attracted the attention of the world for his radical and tough style. After the 2016 attempted coup, Erdogan ruthlessly carried out large-scale purges and, seeing Western-backed Kurds as enemies, adopted a tough policy to crack down on Kurds in Turkey. From these events, Erdogan's consistent tough style can be seen, which is not difficult to understand why Erdogan still dares to refute it strongly in the face of the West, which is several times stronger than himself.
At the same time, Erdogan also has enough political sense and ability to win many times with small and broad, and his grasp of opportunities is excellent. For example, for the ten Western countries demanding that Turkey release the anti-government figures, Erdogan's tough response, and later the United States, France, Germany and other ten countries to soften. This is undoubtedly the weakness that Erdogan saw in the United States and Europe.
The United States is still unable to face the Afghan issue, and it also has to face the great power game with China and Russia, coupled with Turkey's unique geographical conditions, the United States and Europe are even more reluctant to make enemies with Turkey. It is precisely because Erdogan saw this that he dared to fight with the West, and at the same time, he could win the support of domestic voters.
Erdogan's ambitions are great, he wants to fully consolidate his regime, firmly maintain the support of his constituents, and use diplomacy to serve the stability of his regime. And the way he consolidated his power was heavily influenced by his experience.
The military coup of 27 May 1960, the execution of Mondelis, and the three military interventions in political takeovers over the two decades from 1960 to 1980 had a great impact on Erdogan's political claims. At the same time, the military's contemptuous and rude attitude toward the regime has also taught him a lesson from history.
A series of actions, from the use of the influence of the Gulen movement to suppress the military, to the 7th plan of democratic reform in 2003, reflected Erdogan's attitude towards the continuous suppression of military power while consolidating his own regime.
Erdogan also attaches great importance to his own power and actively puts it into practice. On July 22, 2007, Erdogan's second term as prime minister inflated his desire for power, amending the constitution in the same year and planning to continue running for prime minister after his term of office ended.
In order to win the support of some voters, he chose to confront the West, stimulate nationalist sentiments, and completely regarded diplomacy as a tool for his own voters, which also caused many contradictions in Turkey's foreign policy and made Turkey's future direction full of uncertainty.
On the one hand, in order to gain the support of the voters, Erdogan himself deliberately wants to establish a presidential image in the minds of the people who strives to defend and fight for the national interests, and exchange diplomatic victories for domestic support, while at the same time strengthening his own strength and expanding his influence in the Middle East.
On the other hand, it is because Erdogan himself is well versed in the situation, has self-knowledge, can clearly see what he needs and what others need, and at the same time is good at seizing opportunities and taking advantage of changes in the international situation.
In summary, as one of the members of NATO, Turkey has been engaged in internal contradictions, and this time it is directly "one hit ten". Although Turkey is often teased for the "contradictions" and "inconceivable" of its policies, it does have a strong geopolitical advantage as capital, and its foreign policy is closely related to the needs of its domestic political stability and President Erdogan personally.
Another point worth noting is that although Turkey is repeatedly provoking the major powers, its policies have always remained within a relatively restrained range and have never really hurt the core interests of the major powers. Seeking hedging and balancing between powers is a thrilling game, both for individuals and for countries.
Erdogan's repeated diplomatic adventures have repeatedly mobilized domestic populism, which in turn has further engulfed the government's foreign policy, which is dangerous and pathological for any country. We can't help but ask: Is such a policy really in the long-term interests of the country? Will Erdogan's government reach the end of the road on the tip of the knife, or will it one day set itself on fire? Let's wait and see.
Source: A Circle Team
Author: Dust Folding Day