home > the think tank > tanusmes > publications > Turkey's War at Home
Email
| Author: | Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
|---|
October-November 2009
International Institute for Strategic Studies
When President Barack Obama visited the mausoleum of Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in April 2009, he finished his inscription in the ceremonial Honor Book with one of Atatürk's most famous maxims: 'Peace at home, peace abroad'. This is an ideal Turks and their leaders have always aspired to but consistently failed to live up to. Even now, as Ankara enjoys unprecedented influence abroad, Turkey's domestic ideological struggles have taken on a new intensity, threatening both the impressive reforms enacted earlier this decade and the country's new-found international standing. Turkey is more polarised now than at any time since the left-right violence that engulfed the country during the 1970s. Although bloodshed seems unlikely, the consequences of political instability in Turkey will reverberate in the Middle East, Europe and the Caucasus. Western, and particularly American, policymakers need a Turkey strategy that goes well beyond getting Ankara to help in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in favour of an approach that also addresses Turkey's domestic tribulations.
Ankara's current dilemmas may surprise even those well attuned to foreign affairs. Turkey rarely rates more than a passing mention in major American and European newspapers. It is hard not to see why. Ankara's tortured relations with Brussels, periodic flare-ups between Turkish forces and the terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, and the culture wars between secularists and Islamists seem to be permanent and unremarkable features of Turkey's politics.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.