Erdoğan’s new world order Turkey is taking advantage of global chaos

Celebrating the Turkish centennial, in 2023, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unveiled an outsized vision of his country’s future. The “Century of Turkey” would have his country playing a far more autonomous, assertive role. “The international community will see a Turkey that takes more initiative in solving global crises”, the President promised, as Ankara would push for the “establishment of peace and stability” in its region. The concept built on Erdoğan’s idea that Turkey was on track to become a “logistic superpower” — and would, he predicted, eventually become one of the world’s top powers.

A few years ago, the idea seemed fanciful. Turkey had just been hit by twin earthquakes, killing more than 55,000 people. As the country struggled to recover from the devastation, and amid a mounting economic crisis, Erdoğan’s Turkish Century seemed destined to remain confined to the realm of fantasy and propaganda. But just two years on, the stars seemed seem to be aligning. As the old order collapses, Turkey is on the ascent, and Erdoğan is poised to take advantage. With Assad gone from Syria, and Iran’s regional influence greatly diminished, it is Turkey that looks ready to fill its place.

All the while, Turkey’s profile has been rising in the West, where the fraying transatlantic partnership is rendering Europe weaker and more peripheral by the hour. As the Trump administration raises the spectre of retreat, a disoriented Europe is scrambling to shore up its defence, and Turkey — which boasts the second largest army in Nato and a burgeoning defence industry — suddenly looks like a formidable partner. Ankara seems to be aligning itself with the EU’s bloc of Atlanticist liberals, while European leaders have shown interest in enhanced cooperation. Turkey has been invited to attend various strategic meetings in Europe and the abrupt surge in overtures prompted Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to quip that the Europeans were now “rediscovering” Turkey’s existence.

Earlier this month, Erdoğan said that “establishing European security in the absence of [Turkey] is inconceivable”. Zelenskyy was already well aware of this. On the day peace talks between Russia and the United States began in Saudi Arabia last month, which sidelined both Ukraine and the EU, it was Erdoğan who the Ukrainian President chose to visit. Only the Turkish leader was capable of projecting strength enough to command the respect of both Putin and Trump. It is clear that, in the emergent Trumpian world, one shorn of liberal platitudes about “shared values” and “defending democracy”, Erdoğan carries more weight than Kaja Kallas and Olaf Scholz. And Turkey, a Black Sea power that has retained relations with both Russia and Ukraine, as well as China and the United States, now appears better positioned than many Western states.

Turkey’s new weight in global affairs seems to have emboldened Erdoğan to take drastic authoritarian measures domestically. Earlier this week, Turkish police arrested his main political rival, Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, on charges of corruption and terrorism. Some 100 other people were also arrested in a crackdown on the opposition and government critics. With Trump in the White House and the EU’s relative strength diminished, Erdoğan knows there will be little substantive pushback as he employs draconian methods to extend his political longevity.

The response to the political turmoil in Turkey has been dramatic: protesters have flooded the streets of Turkish cities and Turkish markets have tumbled since İmamoğlu’s arrest. If Erdoğan appears as an erratic autocrat at home, abroad he is seeking to depict himself as a constructive mediator and standard bearer of regional security. He has recently offered to host peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, leveraging Turkey’s middle power status to present Ankara as a constructive bridge builder. This expands on the role Turkey played earlier in the war, when, in early 2022, it negotiated the Black Sea grain deal and brokered peace talks. Positioning himself as an indispensable middleman, Erdoğan has also expressed support for Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, while the two men call each other friends. Though Erdoğan had “no meaningful dialogue” with Biden, Trump has repeatedly described Erdoğan as “a very smart guy” and “very tough”; he has also credited the Turkish President with the fall of Assad. During an official phone call earlier this week, Trump reportedly told Erdoğan that he entrusted Turkey with Syria’s fate. Matching his words with action, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Ankara is one of his closest and most trusted associates, Tom Barrack, the top fundraiser for the President’s 2016 campaign. It’s a position that has been vacant since early September.

Marginalised by America, EU membership has also long eluded Turkey. Though it became a candidate country around the turn of the millennium, its accession was blocked, ostensibly over its democratic deficits and human rights record. But many suspected this rationale concealed an unspoken truth: Turks are Muslim and therefore incompatible with the European project, which has always been more civilisational in character than its liberal proponents like to admit. On rare occasions, someone acknowledges this. In a 2002 interview, Convention on the Future of the EU chair (and former French President) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing said that Turkish membership would spell “the end of the EU as a political union”. Two years later, internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein said that if Turkey joined the EU, the “liberation of Vienna in 1683 would have been in vain”.

In any case, European leaders have often found Turkey more useful outside the EU than in it. During the early years of the Syrian Civil War, millions of refugees entered Turkey. Then, in 2015, an unprecedented number fled onward into the EU. Eager to prevent further new arrivals, the EU struck a deal: Brussels would pay the Turkish government to house Syrians. As far as Europe was concerned, Turkey was a convenient buffer state, useful for the offshoring of the EU’s problems rather than an equal partner. The 2016 attempted coup in Turkey contributed to a further deterioration in relations with EU countries. But recent weeks have seen a reimagining of this relationship, with a country once regarded as a fringe irritant elevated to the status of major player integral in European security.

If recent months have seen the tables turn for Turkey-EU relations, then the shift in relations with Syria have been yet more momentous. Turkey opposed Assad right from the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, in 2011, and for years furnished the Islamist opposition with direct and indirect assistance. His fall last year, and the victory of opposition forces led by former al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was celebrated as their own — and not without reason. There is talk that Turkey might train the new Syrian army and open airbases in the country; now that HTS is in power, Erdoğan is hoping to reshape the country and region to his liking. The ambition is political as well as economic: the day after Damascus fell, Turkish construction-related stocks, primarily in steelmakers and cement, soared to new heights. In Syria’s ruined infrastructure, Turkish firms see a lucrative opportunity.

Even recent massacres of members of the Alawite sect by Sunni militants have allowed Turkey to advance a long-held interest: the thwarting of the Kurdish led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Earlier this month, the new Syrian government signed a landmark agreement with the SDF, which Ankara views as a terrorist affiliate owing to its ties to Kurdish militants in Turkey. The agreement stipulates the integration of all civil and military institutions in SDF-held northeastern Syria into a unified Syrian state. The deal also dissolved the SDF’s autonomous administration, which Turkey regarded as a threat to its security. Pro-government media in Turkey has framed the agreement as a success in securing the SDF’s “disarmament”. Meanwhile, a delegation of senior Turkish officials rushed to Damascus to press for its implementation in line with Ankara’s interests.

While it may yet be derailed, the agreement would remove the main impediment to Turkey-US relations: the US backing of the SDF. America currently has 2,000 troops in Syria to support the SDF in its fight against ISIS, but the Trump administration has hinted it might recall them. The agreement between the SDF and Damascus is seen as a prerequisite for this.

Erdoğan also has high hopes that he can now repatriate many of the millions of Syrians who have fled to Turkey in recent years. If Syria’s security situation spirals into further sectarian violence, Erdoğan risks paying a heavy political price. The initial arrival of Syrian refugees provoked a xenophobic backlash in Turkey, boosting the electoral fortunes of the nationalist opposition to Erdoğan, who see the presence of so many conservative Muslims in the country as a threat to Turkey’s secular tradition. They will only return voluntarily to a stable, functioning Syria. The massacres earlier this month already mean that the Trump administration is all but certain to keep its crippling Assad-era sanctions in place, which will make it far harder to entice Syrians back home. Regime change in Damascus has therefore presented Erdoğan with both immense opportunities and risks.

Assad’s overthrow has also revived talk of the so-called “Turkish model” — an old idea that held up Turkey as the pinnacle of regional success. The model is associated with Erdoğan’s 2000s-era honeymoon period with the West. Turkish sociologist Cihan Tugal has described it as “a marriage of formal democracy, free market capitalism and (a toned down) conservative Islam — Islamic liberalism”. This meant that Erdoğan’s conservative Muslim government could justify un-Islamic practices like alcohol consumption in economic terms, as essential for boosting tourism. The model was a response to the Iranian revolution and the destabilising reverberations it had sent throughout the region; it was an attempt to incorporate the threat of political Islam rather than suppressing it. During the first decade of the new millennium, many believed the Turkish model might be the answer to the Middle East’s woes: it promised to make Islam both governable and modern.

As far as Turkey’s Western admirers were concerned, the model was a success: it nurtured the entrepreneurial instincts of Anatolian businessmen and tempered any excesses in piety through exposure to globalisation and international capital markets. At the height of the Arab Spring, in 2011, when the Turkish model was being prescribed for the entire region, Turkey’s economy was growing faster than any country in Europe. Infrastructure projects multiplied, the country’s network of roads grew by 10,000 miles; the number of airports doubled to 50; Turkish Airlines flew to more destinations than other airline on Earth; and gleaming shopping malls and mosques proliferated across the country.

At first glance, it appears that the new leaders of Syria would be the ideal pupils for the Turkish model. Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa sounds a bit like Erdoğan did in the mid-2000s. While carefully cultivating a pious image for himself, the former al-Qaeda emir has promised an “inclusive” political process that will reflect the will of the people. He claims to have embraced pragmatism and fashions himself as a neoliberal. He’s so convincing that “globalists” of the old school have been desperate to hear more: in January, al-Sharaa’s foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, was interviewed on the Davos stage by none other than Tony Blair. A few weeks later, al-Sharaa was a guest on Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s podcast The Rest is Politics.

Even in the unimaginably optimistic scenario that would see Syria replicate Turkey’s example, it wouldn’t be a recipe for universal success. The Turkish model always contained major flaws. For one thing, its vast economic growth was not felt by most Turks. Even at the pinnacle of the model’s supposed success, Turkey still had a high unemployment rate, and inequality was the third highest of all OECD countries. In the end, then, the Turkish model contained within it the seeds of its own demise: the new middle class that had been empowered and enriched by neoliberalisation ultimately rebelled against Erdoğan’s neoliberal government, culminating in the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul in 2013. The failures of the Arab Spring, along with the government’s draconian response to the Gezi Park unrest, spelled the end for the optimistic period associated with the Turkish model. As liberal, democratic Islam and a path to EU membership receded from view, a more conservative and authoritarian version took its place. Though Erdoğan kept the neoliberalism, this vision has endured there ever since.

At the same time, Erdoğan’s grand ambitions for Turkey’s role in the world are constrained by a gloomy domestic reality. Turkey’s economy is now in tatters. Last summer, it sank into recession and inflation has been sky-high for years, hitting a peak of 85.5% in October 2022. As of December, it was still a staggering 44.4%. In spring of last year, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the municipal elections to İmamoğlu’s secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in a sweeping, nationwide defeat.

The fall of Assad, then, was a life raft for Erdoğan, as he struggled to navigate these domestic woes. But the neoliberal Islam of early Erdoğan is unlikely to provide Damascus with a similar boost. Donning a suit, courting the affections of the WEF, and preaching the gospel of neoliberalism like a Pole in 1991 have not yet enabled the new Syrian government to bring sectarian strife under control, or convince their doubters that they seek to build anything other than a Sunni supremacist state. And even if they could, the fact that the Trump administration and other Right-wing populists are challenging the entire liberal order — tearing down free-trade treaties, withdrawing from multilateral institutions, and raising the spectre of de-globalisation — makes the Davos crowd and their models look even more outmoded, almost like a relic.

If Turkey can’t export peace or a recipe for economic growth to Syria, Erdoğan could yet profit from war. The country’s booming defence industry is fast becoming a source of national pride. According to Erdoğan, Turkey now ranks eleventh in the world in defence industry exports. Last year, its defence exports totalled $7.1 billion, an increase of 29% from $5.5 billion in 2023, while its defence products are now exported to 180 countries around the world. In particular, Turkey has excelled in the production of drones. Its flagship product, the Bayraktar TB2, has been described as “the drone that changed the nature of warfare” for its affordability and capacity to evade air defences.

Also burgeoning is Turkey’s space programme, though few outside of Turkey may have heard about it. Turkey is building up its existing space research and development to supplement its defence industry. At the end of last year, construction began on its first spaceport in Somalia. (Turkey opened its first African military base in Mogadishu in 2017 and is rapidly expanding its presence across Africa.) Meanwhile, the Turkish government has acknowledged that it plans to use its spaceport for missile testing. In space as on Earth, Turkey has sought to diversify its foreign relations: it has applied to join the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a planned lunar base led by the Russian Roscosmos and China’s National Space Administration that is a competitor to the American Artemis program. Erdoğan has also met with Elon Musk and the two are said to enjoy cordial relations, the Turkish president expressing an interest in collaborating with Musk in the future, since they are both “actively working in the fields of space and technology”.

With this array of cards to play, Erdoğan is now making a renewed bid for EU membership. This time, though, he is not just asking for Turkey’s accession; instead, he is fashioning himself as the EU’s saviour. “It is Turkey and its full EU membership that can save the European Union from its deadlock, ranging from the economy to defence and from politics to international standing,” he said at the end of last month.

Of course, not everyone in Europe will be happy about the prospect of closer relations with Turkey. Erdoğan and his ambitions are still viewed with suspicion by many. Distrustful observers have deemed his civilisational rhetoric and aspirations “neo-Ottomanism” — an irredentist ideology that would supposedly see the return of old imperial lands to Turkey. Steve Bannon has described Erdoğan as “the most dangerous man in the world” over his alleged desire to restore the Ottoman Empire. Such fears are misplaced: “neo-Ottomanism” is more of a rhetorical device used to fire up his base than a sinister plan for territorial reconquest. Still, Erdoğan’s civilisational rhetoric makes some in Europe bristle. Only last year the Turkish President asserted that “the West’s progress — built on blood, tears, massacres, genocide, and exploitation… has temporarily gained the upper hand to strangle the divine and human-centered civilisation of the East”. Such proclamations are standard fare among leaders outside the West, but surely trouble some in Europe.

Others still are concerned about Erdoğan’s “transactional” approach to foreign policy, on full display when Sweden and Finland made bids to join Nato. Erdoğan wielded Turkey’s veto power to block the membership of both Nordic states until they agreed to crack down on Kurdish exiles accused of terrorism. If some EU leaders are prepared to embrace Erdoğan to fortify European security, they know he’ll expect to receive something in return.

This week’s arrest of İmamoğlu will be another major concern for those already sceptical of deepening EU-Turkey relations. It will also be a significant test of widely touted “European values”: will European leaders prioritise defence and security (and therefore preserving their relationship with Erdoğan) over democracy? Blunt-force authoritarian tactics can only strengthen European reservations about the prospect of enhanced cooperation, but it is also entirely possible that European leaders will simply choose to look the other way: since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Brussels has pivoted to a more aggressive posture, adopting the vision of a so-called “geopolitical Europe” that is less concerned with values and has “at last learned to speak the language of power”. Erdoğan fits into such a picture perfectly.

Indeed, Turkey’s message of European renewal has been gaining traction. Though the EU is effectively closed to new members, and Turkish accession will not be forthcoming, the country is suddenly being treated as a formidable power worthy of respect. After four years of Biden, during which European liberals paid lip service to combatting authoritarianism and defending democracy, their sudden embrace of Erdoğan reveals more than just the extent of Turkey’s new relative power. That the Europeans must line up now to kiss the sultan’s ring demonstrates how swiftly the world has changed.