Turkey-United States Relations

Abstract

Since the 1780s, the geographical, historical, cultural, and ideational chasm between Turkey and the United States has remained wide. The presence of US merchants, missionaries, and educators in Ottoman territories, the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman subjects to the United States, the tens of thousands of US military personnel stationed in Turkey during the Cold War, and the thousands of Turkish citizens who continue to attend US universities every year have not been able to bridge that gap. Aside from the cultural and geographical gap, much of the disconnect between Turkey and the United States came from Turkish and American leaders’ ignorance of the other side. From the 19th century onward, Ottoman and Turkish leaders hoped to use the United States as a counterweight in Europe’s great power games despite Washington’s lack of interest in such an outlook until 1945. Likewise, most US administrations after 1945 thought that Turkey’s national interests could be easily reconciled with US global security priorities.