Disintegration of the “strategic depth” doctrine and Turkey’s troubles in the Middle East

Abstract

By way of tracing a number of important developments in the last decade, this paper examines Turkey’s foreign policy under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party, with specific emphasis on the “strategic depth” doctrine. More specifically, after providing a very brief overview of Turkey’s foreign policy orientation between 1923 and 2002, the paper first discusses the basic principles of the “strategic depth” doctrine and then analyzes how three main issues – Islamization of Turkish foreign policy, the Arab Spring, and the increasing discrepancy between Turkey’s domestic politics and the image Turkey’s leaders wanted to present to the outside world – led to the disintegration of this doctrine.