Increasing electoral volatility domestically and a sense of disorientation in its foreign affairs characterize Turkey today. Only in part can this situation be explained by the fact that the wars of the Yugoslav succession have severed some of Turkey's trade routes to the European Union (EU); the EU's treatment of Turkey has been much more devastating than political disintegration in the Balkans. Above all, Brussels’ rejection of Ankara's application for full membership of the EU, justified by reference to Turkey's record of human rights abuses, symbolizes for Turks the defeat of a decades‐old ambition to make their country part of modern Europe. Turkey's European aspirations date back to the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of a secular Turkish republic compatible with, though not derived from, the European liberal‐democratic tradition. From Ankara's perspective, Europe's ostentatious human rights critique of Turkey conceals a cultural prejudice against a Muslim society. To the disinterested observer, the EU and its member states appear to have abandoned both the liberal spirit of religious toleration and the fundamentals of prudent diplomacy. The New Europe may have frittered away the chance to build a democratic bridgehead into the Islamic world.