Toward a Turkish-Russian axis? Conflicts in Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, and cooperation over nuclear energy.

• Author: Akturk, Sener
• Position: COMMENTARY - Essay

Russia is the most important and the most powerful state in Turkey's immediate neighborhood today, as it has been for several centuries. Turkey's "strategic significance" is mainly due to its role as one of the few critical states that can slow, obstruct, and stop the southern expansion of Russian influence. It is indisputable that for the previous three hundred years, from roughly 1700 until 1991, Russia (and subsequently the Soviet Union) was the most immediate security threat for and the archenemy of the Ottoman Empire and post-Ottoman Turkey. The most devastating defeats the Ottoman army ever suffered were almost all against the Russian Empire, culminating in the disastrous treaties of Kucuk Kaynarca (1774), Edirne (1829), San Stefano and Berlin (1878). Suffice it to remember that almost every Balkan state, including Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, won its independence as a result of direct Russian military intervention against the Ottoman Empire in support of secessionist rebellions among some Christians in the Balkans. Even in World War I, Russia decisively defeated the Ottoman army, occupying most of Eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea region, as far as Tirebolu and Erzincan in the west, and Bitlis and Mu? in the south. More than a dozen present-day Turkish provinces returned to Turkish control, thanks to the withdrawal of the Russian army following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. After a significant interlude of remarkably good Turkish-Soviet relations during the interwar years (1921-1936), relations began to deteriorate in the late 1930s and returned to the previous pattern of intense conflict and heightened insecurity during the Cold War. Given three centuries of almost uninterrupted enmity and conflict briefly summarized above, the high level of Russian-Turkish cooperation achieved as of 2014 becomes an even more significant puzzle and begs for a convincing "social-scientific" explanation.

Despite centuries of bitter conflict and enmity, what explains the unprecedented rise in Turkish-Russian cooperation in the last two decades? Analysis and diagnosis of the causes of Turkish-Russian cooperation will allow for predicting the future course of bilateral relations. Can one talk about the emergence of a Turkish-Russian "axis"? Although Turkish-Russian relations are incomparably better today than throughout most of history, and far better than one would expect given the many zones of Turkish-Russian competition and conflict, it would be premature and misleading to suggest that the two countries are headed for a strategic alliance or a Russian-Turkish "axis."

The Causes of Increasing Turkish-Russian Cooperation: A Neorealist Perspective

The unprecedented rise in Turkish-Russian cooperation can be explained primarily by the tremendous change in the balance of power between the two states, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the significant decline of the Russian threat to Turkey that accompanied this change. (1) This essentially Neorealist logic still explains the fluctuations in Turkish-Russian relations until the present day. In short, although Russia was the most significant and immediate security threat for Turkey in the previous three centuries, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia, and Turkey did not even share a border, and Russia ceased to be Turkey's most important and immediate national security threat. Diminution of the Russian threat opened up the possibility of increasing Turkish-Russian cooperation, but did not necessitate it. In other words, the reduction of the Russian threat was a necessary but not a sufficient cause for increasing bilateral cooperation, let alone a strategic partnership or a Turkish-Russian "axis."

The two countries' relations, in the first few years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, were not necessarily amicable but rather prone to conflict. In the early 1990s, Turkey pursued an unusually self-confident and assertive policy with an explicitly Pan-Turkic discourse, encapsulated in the then-famous phrase officially describing the new "Turkish world" as expanding "from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China." This new assertiveness was certainly noted by Western observers. (2) Turkish and Russian interests clashed across Central Asia but especially in the Caucasus. This was manifest, for example, in Turkish support and Russian hostility toward Azerbaijan's first popularly elected and brazenly pro-Turkish, pro-Western president, Ebulfez Elcibey, who was overthrown by a military coup in June 1993. Russia's hard and soft power, including tremendous Russian military, economic, and cultural influence in these regions, was one that Turkey could not rival. Turkey gradually realized its relative weakness vis-a-vis Russia in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and abandoned its Pan-Turkic discourse and initiatives by the late 1990s.

However, the Russian economy, population, and military continued to decline relative to the Turkish economy, population, and military thoughout the...