Geopolitics, Geostrategic and Geoculture of Turkey and Its Neighbouring Areas

The historical aspect is thus important in the study of geopolitics but is not sufficient. It is a multidisciplinary area that combines sociology, economics, history, law along with political science and geography, that exceeds the boundaries of states

Therefore, as for geopolitics, geostrategy cannot be limited to war and military dynamics. In that sense, geostrategy concerns international relations of a state and involves diplomatic strategies as well as military ones and thus includes political, economic, social, psychological dynamics along with military dynamics. Geoculture on the other hand is about the relation between cultural elements and foreign policy goals. T

The significance of this analogy is that, the territories that Turkey stands, have historically been a crossroad. That is, its peoples and goods have been crossing from one region to the other through not only the land but also the seaways Turkey today borders.

Turkey’s possession of the Straits raises its importance form a regional to a global level. Despite the development of nuclear weapons, the Straits have enormous strategic importance, which gives Turkey the possibility to influence global developments. This also creates problems for Turkey by exposing it to the effects of global developments

The leaders of a torn country typically wish to pursue a bandwagoning strategy and to make their countries members of the West, but the history, culture and traditions of their countries are non- Western

“Turkey, a post-imperial state still in the process of redefining its identity, is pulled in three directions: the modernists would like to see it become a European state and thus look to the west; the Islamists lean in the direction of the Middle East and a Muslim community and thus look to the south; and the historically minded nationalists see in the Turkic peoples of the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia a new mission for a regionally dominant Turkey and thus look eastward. 

Turkey is not a global actor, but a regional one, or as Brzezinski defines it a geopolitical pivot. It is also not a great power, but a medium one. Its status is defined by its geographical position and historical and cultural ties that are attached to this position. 

Even though Turkey itself does not have energy sources, energy has become a major dynamic of Turkish geopolitics. One of the main geostrategies of Turkey is to make bilateral or multilateral agreements with the energy rich countries in order to carry those sources through lines that will go through Turkey

Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geostrategic players.

Turkey has faced negative reactions in its neighboring regions due to the fact that it is the successor of the Ottoman Empire which had almost all these regions under its rule. There has even been wars between the peoples of these states and their memories are still alive or kept alive through generations. Therefore every time Turkey starts a geocultural initiative there are risks about how this initiative will be perceived.

According to Bilgin “it was solely the military strategic interests of western powers that have been the driving force behind the invention and reproduction of [regions]”. (Bilgin, 2004a:26) Europe’s central position is due to its historical position. Even though today it is not the most influential geographical space in terms of world politics, the fact that it once was perpetuates a Eurocentric conceptualization of the world.

First of all, it would be neighbor to the regions that are rich with energy sources that it deeply needs and could have a stronger voice in its distribution. This would provide the Union the geopolitical weight it lasts in international affairs. Apart from that Turkey’s membership would bring in cultural diversity to the Union and thus get it closer to other cultures. This would then contribute to the Union’s geocultural position.

So when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed it was discussed and feared that Turkey’s geopolitical position would lose its importance in the new world order. Yet the years followed did not prove this fear right. The turbulences that started right after the end of the Cold War in the neighbor regions of Turkey, such as the First Gulf War in the Middle East and the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the Balkans put it once more in a geopolitically and geostrategically crucial place for the Western countries, especially the United States.

The geopolitical discourse that was voiced in the early days following the collapse of the Soviet Union was “Turkish world from Adriatic to the Great Wall of China”. This geocultural discourse was closely related to the geostrategy Turkey followed in order to take advantage of the current power gap and become a regional leader. Accordingly Turkey immediately established Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) in 1991, only one year after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Central Asia and the Caucasus are emerging as the new focal point of rivalry between Russia and the United States in the wake of the Iraqi crisis. At the heart of the new standoff are rich oil and gas resources in the Caspian Sea basin, which may hold 100 billion barrels of oil alone. Washington has already a firm foothold in the local hydrocarbon industry, with US and joint US-British companies controlling 27 per cent of the Caspian’s oil reserves and 40 per cent of its gas reserves

The energy-rich country of the region, Azerbaijan is a country that Turkey shares cultural, historical, religious and linguistic elements. Therefore Azerbaijan appears as a country that Turkey can bring together geoculture and geostrategy and shape its policies. The historical and cultural proximity has enabled the two countries to develop good political relations. They have initiated and signed cooperations in many fields including economy and energy cooperations. 

After the end of the Ottoman rule Turkey showed no real interest in the Middle East. Especially until the 1960s, Turkish foreign policy was distant if not at all indifferent to the region. Since the early days of the republic “although bilateral relations with regional states were established, the main thrust remained leaving the Arabs alone.” (Criss and Bilgin, 1997) Therefore it is possible to say that in this period geography did not determine geopolitics or geoculture did not play a major role in Turkey’s foreign policy towards this region.

Turkey has developed relations with Israel that is defined in terms of strategic partnership. Even though the Turkish-Israeli relations are not free of crises as Turkey has in many cases criticized Israel’s policy against Palestine and gave direct popular and political support to Palestine, the geostrategic dimension of the relations —which is supported by the US as well — helped overcome these crises.

The most critical movement in that context was the Greek-Turkish war that followed World War I, when the Greek army stepped in Anatolia to acquire the territories that were given them with the Treaty of Sevres. When the war ended in 1922 and concluded in 1923 with Lausanne Treaty, it also included the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations that were under the jurisdiction of the other state, with the exception of Greeks living in Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos and the Turks living in Western Thrace. The populations that are left in these regions became subjects of geoculture for both countries. Both Greece and Turkey supported the stay of these people where they are as a possible tool of influence.

What makes Turkey a significant, maybe the most significant actor in the region is the Straits. The two straits on Turkish territories are the only exit from the Black Sea. Turkey has a very long border with the Black Sea. At some point in history the Ottoman Empire controlled all the shores of the Sea, which was called an Ottoman lake. It thus has historical ties with the rest of the region.

The main focus of Turkish geopolitics concerning the Mediterranean is Cyprus. The Cyprus issue is in some ways a part of Greek-Turkish relations. The Island, which was under Ottoman rule till the end of the 19th century, populates Greeks and Turks. When Great Britain, who had taken the control of the Island from the Ottomans decided to leave Cyprus, inter-communal conflicts began to surface and finally turned into violence in time, which led to the separation of the Cyprus into two. For Turkey it is an uncompromisable issue. Not only the geocultural ties like history and ethnicity but also geopolitical concerns like regional security make Cyprus one of the top priorities of Turkey. It thus has applied several policies from military intervention to demographic policies to protect the Turks and Turkishness of the Island