In recent years, Turkey, in particular, has faced a complex security environment in the Middle East. The country has endured a wide range of challenging situations – from cross-border counter-terrorism operations to multidimensional tensions with neighbouring states. A multitude of political, military and economic considerations have influenced the country’s security and defence policies.
Is Turkey's security environment really tougher?
With the receding of the Soviet/Russian threat away from Turkey's land borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union, is recent deterioration really making Turkey's security situation worse than it was in 1988?
And in the post-Cold War era isn't any worsening of Turkey's security situation--once you reset it to account for the end of the invasion threat from the north--fully on Erdogan's shoulders for alienating NATO and America?
Turkey just seems to be another caliphate wannabe among a host of imperial wannabes and not a victim of circumstance.
UPDATE: "Turkey seems to be at war with everyone, officially or unofficially. The reality is that Turkey has some priorities in this area." Read the rest for details.
UPDATE: By making the Hagia Sophia a mosque after it was kept a museum that reflected its origin as a Christian cathedral, Erdogan reminds us that he wants to destroy secular Turkey and return to the days when imperial Islamist Turkey was the scourge of Europe:
Opposition figures such as Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu say Erdogan is using the Hagia Sophia controversy to distract from missteps by his government, from the management of the economy to the handling of the coronavirus crisis. But the conversion is consistent with the president’s lifelong political goal: the reassertion of Turkey’s Muslim identity, and its corollary, the rejection of the secular nationalism of the country’s modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
How long will Turkey be worthy of NATO membership? I hoped a break in the relationship would allow us to repair the damage that Erdogan has inflicted. The damage may be too deep to repair any time soon.
