Turkey And The US: An Amoral Alliance?

Francis J. Ricciardone, the former US ambassador to Turkey, recently said that the Turkey-US alliance is a partnership of mutual interest rather than of shared values. Many commentators, myself included, had made similar comments well before Ricciardone's “confession.” In fact, this is not surprising. As a professor of international relations, I know from first-hand experience that the nature of international politics is interest driven. The first idea we teach in the classroom is that it is interest, and nothing else, that determines behavior in international relations. Even the actors who tout values are interest-driven.
However, there are two interrelated themes in Ricciardone's statement. First, though they do not have common values, to cooperate, states should have parallel visions. Do the US and Turkey have a shared vision about any major issue of global politics? Do they even have the same perspective on global terrorism?
Second, do the US and Turkey have any common interest in pursuing their amoral alliance? If they do, what is it? There are several other big Western states, such as the UK and France, that have continued their Middle Eastern policies successfully without Turkey's help. So what asset does Turkey have that is indispensable, in the estimate of any other state? The usual answer is “geography.” (Some key scholars are saying that Turkey has become a real estate agency, as it is only its geopolitics that it can market.)
Frankly speaking, Turkey and the US are no longer allied powers. The US, like many other big Western powers, is holding on to the traditional Cold War-Turkey paradigm. Accordingly, Turkey is a developing country with serious human rights issues. But it is better to keep it part of the group, despite the many problems it is causing. In this frame of mind, authoritarianism is shrugged off as “normal.” The average Westerner would think that the Turks, like many other nations, cannot generate an effective democracy. So this is best ignored. This Cold War-style of thinking prevails in many Western capitals today.
So, here is much the same question again: What is Turkey's last geopolitical asset for the West? Indeed, the West would be happy to cooperate with Turkey on many issues, including the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). But there is one dramatic threshold. If Turkey becomes a kind of quasi rogue state, this will be something the West will not be able to bear. Thus, Turkey's “Pakistanization” is somehow the last red line now for the whole Western system.
Turkey has been a buffer zone for the whole of Europe for many centuries. If Turkey loses this capacity, then the whole European continent will become the neighbor of ISIL-like sub-state actors. In this sense, it is the very interest of the West (including the US) to prevent Turkey from becoming an unstable country. Today, the security of Turkey's border with Syria is Europe's security, too.
All this requires that the West develop a new reading of Turkey. First, there is an institutional catastrophe in Turkey. Key institutions of Turkish statehood are going south. This damage is likely to destine Turkey to devolve into a chaotic environment in the long term. Most Turks, even most foreigners, fail to see this. But the negative outcomes of the weakening of many Turkish institutions will become apparent later.
Despite many internal problems, what distinguished Turkey from other Middle Eastern states was its relatively strong institutional capacity. This capacity is under threat today, thanks to severe authoritarian trends. Second, the Turkish social fabric, regarding the Kurdish issue, is now fragile. No one knows how the process with the Kurds will end. Its failure may quickly trigger deep social rifts in Turkey.
There is a global consensus that Turkey is a useful state for the West. But key actors, including Ricciardone, should realize that the burning issue for Turkey today is more than its geopolitical value. Today, the idea of Turkey, its long-term stability, is in question.

GÖKHAN BACIK (Cihan/Today's Zaman)