Turkey's Nationalist Course

📖 The Scoop

For more than six decades, the United States has maintained a strategic partnership with the Republic of Turkey as a key element of U.S. strategy in Eurasia and the Middle East. This partnership was forged at the outset of the Cold War to check Soviet expansionism, and Turkey remains a powerful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally at the nexus of three regions important to U.S. security. The United States and Turkey have long cooperated on a range of global issues, including countering terrorism and violent extremism, enhancing energy security, and promoting prosperity and development. However, the partnership has become strained in recent years because U.S. and Turkish interests and assessments of various challenges are not as aligned as they once were, and significant disagreements have emerged on policies to address many of these challenges. Tensions in Turkey's relations with Europe and other neighbors have exacerbated these strains. In this report, RAND researchers assess the key challenges confronting the U.S.-Turkish partnership over the coming decade and recommend possible initiatives to sustain it during what is likely to be a turbulent period. The researchers focus on the political, social, and economic trends that are changing Turkey's internal dynamics and global interests; explore Turkey's changing relations with key neighbors and partners; and compare how Turkey's interests and those of its neighbors and partners converge, diverge, or are in conflict. Finally, the researchers assess the implications of these trends for Turkey's future course, U.S. defense planning, and the U.S. Army.

Genre: History / General (fancy, right?)