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“Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”
Although this famous quote from the 19th century British statesman Lord Palmerston is as true now as it was then, demonstrated by its repetition in shattered form by many statesmen of the 20th and 21st centuries, it is living men and women who formulate and implement policies. in the interest of your nation. We now know that, on the American side of Turkish-American relations, those formulators and implementers, in addition to Joe Biden, will be led by Antony Blinken as secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser.
Both men have extensive experience in the American foreign policy community, sometimes referred to as the Blob. A highly regarded commentator called his selection a victory for the Blob over the Squad, the latter being the four female Representatives aligned with the socialist or socialist-leaning elements of the Democratic Party. In addition to these two US foreign policy chiefs, the other people Biden has announced or whose names have been leaked into his administration are considered centrists or Democratic Party moderates. This should give some comfort to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turks in general, if only for the relative predictability that lies ahead after four years of personalized US foreign policy.
Although Blinken and Sullivan were part of the Obama administration’s foreign policy team, it would be foolish to see their potential nominations point to a continuation of the Obama years. That would have been the case if Susan Rice and Samantha Powers had been appointed respectively to the Blinken and Sullivan positions. So those who feared or hoped for a full return to Obama’s foreign policy can breathe a sigh of relief or sadness and start looking at the writings and interviews with Blinken and Sullivan to see Team Biden’s foreign policy outline, to include towards Turkey.
In a July 9 interview with W. Russell Mead of the Hudson Institute, Blinken revealed that he has a solid base of knowledge and understanding about Turkey and its foreign relations. He does not go into detail, but acknowledges that there are significant areas of disagreement, although he suggests that areas of agreement can serve to foster a more positive relationship. He also alludes to President Erdogan and future President Biden for having a personal relationship, and that will be used for some very direct conversations (in this context ‘direct conversations’ means direct and brutally frank verbal exchanges).
All this to say that once president, Biden and his team will treat President Erdoğan with respect, but will not pretend that everything is fine, nor will they reduce him to a foreign policy relationship solely between president and president, as happened with Presidents Donald Trump. and Erdoğan. Even those who acknowledge that relations between Turkey and the United States were never reduced solely to the interactions of two like-minded personalities, relationships based on shared or common interests are preferable to those largely made up of two leaders who get along personally. .
But, there was a subtle but sharp edge to Blinken’s comments. Turkish foreign policy officials should heed his comment that a more positive relationship “requires the Turkish government itself to want the same.” The message is strong and clear: if Turkey is willing to work with the United States, the relationship can become more positive and productive; If not, don’t blame the US government for the negative consequences.
Sullivan did not discuss Turkey in his May 11 interview with Mead, but it is worth reading to get a general idea of his view of the national security issues facing the United States. Like many in the US foreign affairs community, he sees an inescapable shift in the center of global political gravity from Europe to the East Asia Pacific region. In a sense, this means that Turkey will move from the periphery of the center of US geopolitical concerns to regions distant from US concerns. Managing that will require greater coordination between the United States and Europe to shore up and strengthen their ability to have joint influence in the face of China’s growing economic power. It implies, although it is not certain, that Sullivan would have little time for European leaders, or those with claims to be a European leader, interrupting the building of consensus within the European space.
And then there’s John Kerry, another septuagenarian, a former secretary of state, a United States senator for many years, and, like Biden, until this year, a failed candidate for president. One wonders why he was appointed to the National Security Council as the senior adviser on climate change. Was it to send the signal that climate change policy will be at the forefront of US national security, to appease the aforementioned Squad, sponsors of the Green New Deal? Was it to get a Nobel Prize nomination that Kerry has (reportedly) wanted for years? Whatever the reason for which he was appointed, Turkish politicians would do well to include reports on the progress of climate change in their information books for meetings between US and Turkish officials.
There is no doubt that Biden’s team is committed to what they see as the national interest of the United States, just as Erdogan and his subordinates are committed to what he sees as the national interests of Turkey. Whether areas of agreement can be leveraged to overcome areas of disagreement – Syria, S400, Iraq, Kurds, human rights, freedom of the press, NATO involvement, Libya, etc. – will largely depend, as Blinken indicated, on whether Erdogan wants positive relationships. or not.
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