War and Peace in the Understanding of Turkish Politics

Turkey had a historic presidential election on May 28th, 2023, which allowed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to continue his third term as president of the country. During his 21 years of rule as Prime Minister until 2014 and later as President, Turkey witnessed many changes at the domestic and regional levels, and especially after the crisis in Syria, the country changed its foreign policy orientation significantly. This chapter examines this change by taking the Syrian crisis as the turning point of Turkey’s historical “peace at home, peace in the world” policy in a more militaristic direction. The dynamics of the change in Turkey’s foreign policy are analyzed at the individual, state, society, and international levels to identify the significant actors and contexts causing the foreign policy shift. With this shift, how the State and society perceived war and peace also changed, and contrary to previous decades, Turkey showed an interest in using military might base on the revised national interests of the political elite. The country is connected to regions that are significant to the recent discussions of security studies: conflict in Syria, Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Turkey’s position in the Black Sea, war and conflict in the Caucasus between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020, etc. Turkey’s increasing interest in regional gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean also created tensions with Greece and Cyprus. All these issues are connected to Turkey’s new approach to foreign policy under President Erdoğan and associated with Turkey’s re-calculation of its national interests, which also created fracture points in its relations with the West. Keeping the background of this policy change in mind, this chapter will highlight the potential of the country to avoid war and bring peace to some of the existing wars and conflicts in the region.