by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] “Whoever controls the seas controls the world,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on August 24 at the commissioning ceremony of the TCG Pirireis submarine, the first in the Reis-class submarine series.
| All hail the coming neo-Ottoman sultinate, Sultan Recep Tayip Erdogan I, “the much beloved”, presiding. |
Erdogan also added that “Ankara’s friends are watching the country’s steps with admiration, while its opponents are watching with fear.” He recalled the “Blue Homeland” doctrine and emphasized the strategic importance of the submarine force in strengthening this Turkish concept.
From the statements of the Turkish leader, it is obvious that for the Turkish Republic, the foreign policy concept of the "Blue Homeland" is still extremely relevant and determines its guidelines. It underlies, among other things, the programs for building the fleet and international activities.
Therefore, of course, Turkey’s foreign policy itself is not formulated due to some immediate needs and challenges, but is based on developed and implemented geopolitical doctrines that ensure the advancement of its long-term interests.
"STRATEGIC DEPTH" BY AHMET DAVUTOGLU
The Blue Homeland concept was adopted after the implementation of some of Turkey's previous geopolitical constructs reached a dead end. However, this does not mean that their implementation has been abandoned altogether. On the contrary, they all ultimately merge with the Blue Homeland and form a broader geostrategy for Ankara.
Therefore, the undoubted strength that has given Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) an advantage since its first victory in the parliamentary elections in 2002 and to this day is the presence of a clear conceptual foreign policy line.
Turkey's new goal, couched in slogans and policy documents that year, was to restore a "spiritually oriented" political regime, based on a culturally Muslim but at the same time socially and economically highly developed society, whose ideological and geopolitical orientations had been lost during the years of secularism and movement towards the West.
Combining elements of the Kemalist agreement (the “National Vow”) familiar to all Turks, as well as moderate Islamist and purely pragmatic views, Turkey began consistent work on the formation of a new geopolitical and geo-economic order in the region.
Its foundations were carefully worked out in his work “Strategic Depth” (2001) by the leading ideologist of the AKP, Professor Ahmet Davutoğlu, who later became the Minister of Foreign Affairs and then Prime Minister under President Erdoğan.
The first geopolitical doctrine, which formed the basis of modern Turkish policy, was called “Strategic Depth”. At the same time, most aspects of this geopolitical concept are relevant for Turkey to this day, “Blue Homeland” in its provisions is a part of it, which arose from the direction that spoke about bringing Turkey to the “front lines” of the Black Sea and Mediterranean basins, and subsequently to more distant waters.
Davutoglu believed that Turkey should stop aligning its foreign policy with NATO interests. In his opinion, Brussels assigned Ankara only the role of a buffer state, a “defender of NATO’s geographic perimeter” and an “executor” of the alliance’s regional objectives. This prevented Turkey from realizing the potential of its geostrategic position and deprived it of that very “strategic depth.”
Turkey's new strategy in the 21st century envisaged the use of potential in the East, the development of the Middle Eastern and Islamic vector of Turkey's foreign policy. At the same time, NATO membership would also be preserved, as would Ankara's ties with the West. Together, this was intended to ensure its interests in Europe and the Balkans, as well as in the Middle East and the Islamic world as a whole.
That is, now it was not Turkey that was supposed to become a “buffer” and “military frontier” for NATO and Europe, but the opposite: Brussels and NATO would be used by Ankara as a reliable European rear in the consistent advancement of Turkish national interests in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, where all funds and resources were supposed to be thrown.
It should be noted that observations of Ankara’s actions in the international arena indicate that much of what was laid down in this concept has been successfully implemented.
Among the first practical steps taken by Turkey to implement this doctrine, in particular, we can recall the refusal to provide its territory for the US and British operation against Iraq in 2003. At that time, the role of an outpost of the West already contradicted Ankara's interests. Therefore, Turkey did not interfere in the conflict with Saddam Hussein and continued to solve its own, rather than American-British, problems in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The next stage of the implementation of the “Strategic Depth” was the concept of “Zero Problems with Neighbors”. The actions in this direction were summarized in May 2010 on the pages of the presidential magazine “Foreign Policy” in the article “Turkey’s Problem-Free Foreign Policy” authored by the same Davutoglu, who was already the Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time.
In fact, it was within its framework that the very same “family friendship” between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan was established, and the first attempt to reconcile with Armenia was made within the framework of the so-called “football diplomacy”, when Turkish President Abdullah Gul (the real head of the executive power at that time was Prime Minister Erdogan) first visited this country in 2008.
Finally, an important aspect of “Strategic Depth” is the so-called “rhythmic diplomacy”, that is, Turkey’s entry into all sorts of organizations – from the G20 to the application to the SCO, first announced in 2013, and to BRICS in 2024, as well as the formation of the Organization of Turkic States on the basis of the Turkic Council.
And those very “chairs” on which, according to a number of Russian Turkologists, Turkey should have been sitting uncomfortably all this time, appeared precisely in the doctrine of “strategic depth” called “multi-vectorism.” Ankara has been comfortably seated on them since 2002.
This multi-vector approach was manifested, for example, in the fact that Turkey’s relations with the United States, which were seen primarily through NATO membership, should not conflict with the development of partnership ties and good-neighborliness with Russia.
Also, the process of Turkey's integration into the EU, which was still considered achievable at that time, could have been balanced by the creation of its own or participation in existing integration initiatives with states in the Middle East and Eurasia. This also concerned military ties with NATO, which should not have prevented Ankara from creating its own alliances without the participation of the West.
In particular, the plan to create an Islamic military coalition to fight terrorism as a military alliance of Muslim states originally belonged to Erdogan.
However, the deterioration of relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia led to Riyadh intercepting and announcing this initiative in 2015, but it was never able to bring it to completion. To this day, it remains largely “on paper.”
NEW STRATEGIC MEANINGS
Of course, the "Arab Spring" forced Turkey to violate many of the principles of the "Strategic Depth" doctrine. It had to abandon "zero problems with neighbors" in favor of confrontation and interference in their internal affairs. This also led to Davutoglu's promotion of more offensive initiatives, which, among other things, cost him his own resignation.
At the same time, during the “Arab Spring” in 2013, a new geopolitical aspect appeared in Turkish geostrategy, which was voiced by Ibrahim Kalin, at that time the chief adviser to the Prime Minister of Turkey (then Erdogan held this position), namely “Precious Solitude”.
This thesis replaced the “zero problems with neighbors,” with which Ankara began to sever relations after it supported the “Arab Spring” processes. First of all, this concerns Syria – the break with it occurred after the start of the civil war there – and Egypt, where Turkey’s ally President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by the military, and Ankara severed relations with Cairo.
As Kalyn stated, sometimes “you have to stand alone to defend the values you believe are right,” and if that stance could be described as loneliness, it would be “precious loneliness.”
This position also reflected not only the sharp deterioration of relations with many states in the Islamic world and the Middle East – primarily with the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Israel – but also with most NATO allies who did not share Ankara’s ambitions during the Arab Spring and refused to support them.
On the other hand, after Davutoglu went into opposition, the AKP's Islamic-oriented foreign policy of the Arab Spring period was complemented by the nationalist, strongly anti-Western views of the secular nationalists with whom Erdogan entered into an alliance.
Both the AKP's Islamists and nationalists have united to support policies driven by Turkey's foreign policy ambitions, announced in 2002, to become a new global power.
The Blue Homeland doctrine, developed by secular nationalist officers, was taken as the basis of Turkish geostrategy. It justified Erdogan’s previous policies in the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya. Afterwards, it also became the justification for “breaking” the attempts to “encircle” Turkey by a number of Eastern Mediterranean countries with which Ankara had various territorial or ideological disputes.
Instead of the steps to support various Islamic forces in the Middle East in their quest to come to power, which had no continuation, Turkey began to be more concerned about the consequences of the "Arab Spring" itself. As well as the anti-Turkish steps of the states of the region and their desire to unite against Turkey itself, depriving it of that very "strategic depth".
Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and to a certain extent Lebanon, all joined forces with the support of France to confront Turkey. The main goal is to prevent it from accessing the rich resources of the Eastern Mediterranean, which, according to the Turkish side, they decided to divide among themselves, thereby “trampling on its legitimate interests.”
Certainly, the growing importance of the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy reserves and the competition to exploit them have added a new dimension to the already tense relations between Turkey and Egypt, and through it with Greece. Athens has taken advantage of Ankara’s isolation in the region to forge close, anti-Turkish relations with Cairo, the Gulf states, and Israel, as well as with France and the United States.
Thus, despite the unconditional presence of elements of the “Strategic Depth” doctrine in Turkey’s foreign policy, the “Blue Homeland” doctrine began to crystallize out of it. It envisaged Turkey’s closer attention to the Eastern Mediterranean, primarily the Aegean, but also the Black Sea and the establishment of Turkish dominance there.
"The Blue Homeland" is a collection of various works by Turkish naval officers, but the most famous of the authors was Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, who outlined it back in 2006.
In fact, Turkey's active participation in the Libyan conflict in 2019-2020 was the first step in implementing this concept. Then Ankara created its foothold in this North African country and began to extend its maritime borders from there to Anatolia, cutting off the gas fields of the Eastern Mediterranean from Greece and the EU. Hence the escalation around the Aegean Islands, on whose demilitarized status Ankara insists.
Finally, the leading role of Turkey in the Black Sea basin was also confirmed by the "grain deal". By closing the straits to NATO and Russian ships, it turned Turkey into the only guarantor of the security of Ukrainian grain transportation in the Black Sea. And that is why it insisted so much on prolonging the deal. It must be said that Moscow also tried to play along with the Turkish leadership for a certain time, not leaving the "grain deal", despite the fact that it was obvious: it was not working.
TURKISH DOCTRINES AND RUSSIA
If we pay attention to Turkish foreign policy doctrines, it becomes obvious that the post-Soviet space occupies a far from priority place in them.
And the Organization of Turkic States, which is often considered almost as the first step towards the creation of a “Turkic NATO” and the “Army of Turan” against Russia, is merely a manifestation of what is called “rhythmic diplomacy,” that is, Turkey’s participation in any organization that is possible in the Eurasian space.
Probably, the point of intersection of interests of Russia and Turkey is primarily the Black Sea, since it is here that Ankara intends to increase its efforts within the framework of the implementation of the “Blue Homeland” concept.
In this regard, it cannot be ruled out that Ankara will block the Black Sea straits for Russian Navy ships for a long time, using the current situation to its advantage. That is, Turkey will seek to secure the status of the only "open sea" force in the Black Sea basin, whose fleet will have no competitors there.
Turkey may also likely seek to secure for itself the status of guarantor of Ukraine's maritime security after possible peace agreements that would end the fighting and oblige Kyiv to reduce its armed forces.
This will suit Ankara, which will undertake to ensure the security of the Ukrainian coast itself, without being interested in the restoration of the Ukrainian Navy. And if they are restored in one form or another, it will be at Turkey's expense: whether or not to transfer the Ukrainian corvettes built at Turkish shipyards to the customer will be decided by Ankara.
On the other hand, following this logic, Turkey is still not interested in any appearance of NATO ships in the Black Sea, including under the pretext of supporting Ukraine. Therefore, the closure of the straits will also affect the fleets of NATO countries, as is currently the case. Ankara will keep them locked up as long as possible.
Thus, Turkey intends to ensure its dominance both in the Black Sea and in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Turkish naval construction programs must reflect the task of the superiority of the Turkish Navy over the Russian Black Sea Fleet, over the Greek Navy in the Aegean Sea, as well as over the fleets of Egypt and Israel.
And all this is being done by Ankara for the sake of its own national interests and so that Turkey becomes an increasingly significant player in international affairs.