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Turkish-U.S. Ties: Still Needed
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18411 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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9 / 1990 |
2,391 Words |
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Robert Strausz-Hupe
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Napoleon is reported to have said that the foreign policy of a state is contained in its geography. If the history of any state bears out this maxim, it is Turkey's.
Turkey stands athwart the Dardanelles and the Bosporus straits. Approximately 60 percent of the Soviet Union's maritime commerce and at least one-tenth of the Soviet navy have to pass through those straits to reach the Mediterranean and the blue water beyond.
Extending far to the east, Turkey has land border with the USSR, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. It stands between the USSR and the Middle East and on the flank of potential Soviet invasion routes into Iran and Southwest Asia. To the west it borders Bulgaria and Greece.
Given its geostrategic “tough neighborhood,” Turkey has been of vital importance to NATO and the West, just as Turkey has relied on U.S. and NATO support, Irrespective of changes in world politics, the potential of Russian aggression has been for centuries a fact of life for Turkey.
President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia, an eloquent playwright who addressed the U.S. Congress recently, captured the imaginations of many when he touched on the themes of change, saying that “the Second World War and its unhappy consequences are finally coming to an end.”
While the pace of this change is almost mind-boggling, one thing is evident: We are at a crossroad but cannot see clearly what awaits us during the next stage of the journey. Welcome as events in the Soviet Union may be, change there does not necessarily promote stability in the countries surrounding Turkey. Although the threat of Soviet attack may be reduced, regional conflicts and upheavals may well increase.
Our recent and not altogether reassuring experiences with Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria suggest a continued need for common Western security arrangements, though perhaps in a different from. The takeover by the Turkish army in September 1980 was triggered by violent and nationwide political conflict that was supported, and in part instigated, by foreign governments.
VARIED THREATS
We may assume that the kind of conflict that could again threaten Turkey, and in turn other allies, is not a medium- or long-range unclear attack or a massive land invasion from the USSR. The possibilities of armed conflict in the region, however, are as varied as they are alarming: Guerrilla war in urban and rural areas; gas attacks on civilians in neighboring countries; turmoil in the southern USSR; revolutionary change in southeastern Europe; and threats to Western oil links, including pipelines through and near Turkey. All these crises may erupt at one. Any one by itself would be enough to require continuing the military modernization programs that have been under way with U.S. assistance for many years. Turkey has not been able to relax its strategic stance just because the countries surrounding it are in flux. Turkey's guard of the straits that control access to the only Soviet warm-water ports is a constant of Turkish foreign policy. It is not a matter of choice. The Turkish-Soviet border may now be less tense from NATO's standpoint, but it has not gotten any
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