Türkiye's Grand Strategy: Autonomy Through Interdependence
President Erdoğan wants Türkiye to be a G10 power and regional hegemon. Is ‘The Turkish Century’ a sufficient strategy?
A Turkish Century?
On 28th October, 2022, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the beginning of a ‘Turkish Century’ at the unveiling ceremony of the Century of Türkiye program in Ankara. Auspiciously timed for the centenary anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Turkish Century is an ambitious vision to transform Türkiye into a ‘G10 power’, with a policy framework focused on economic development, technological innovation, culture and education, and foreign policy objectives, among other things necessary for great power status.
Even before the Turkish Century vision, an increasingly assertive Türkiye under Erdoğan’s leadership has led to accusations of ‘Neo-Ottomanism’: a quest to re-imagine the Turkish Republic as a true successor state to the Ottoman Empire, which necessarily means re-exerting Turkish influence over former imperial provinces.
However, the lazy label of "Neo-Ottomanism" fundamentally misrepresents Türkiye's contemporary ambitions. The Ottoman Empire, in its classical imperial sensibility, sought direct territorial control and hierarchical suzerainty over its territories. The goals of the Turkish Century are not territorial aggrandisement against its neighbours. Instead, there is a clear theme emerging in Turkish foreign policy: the creation of a stable, interconnected periphery where aligned states benefit from Turkish investment, security cooperation, and political support, thereby enhancing Türkiye's own security and economic reach. This strategy aims to foster interdependence with Türkiye, not dependence on Türkiye.
To what end? In the increasingly multipolar geopolitical landscape, Türkiye is priming itself to become a middle power and regional hegemon. To achieve this, the country’s leadership is pursuing a dynamic but paradoxical strategy of complex interdependence in which Türkiye acquires greater room for manoeuvre. If it can achieve this, the country gains strategic autonomy, a necessary prerequisite on the path to becoming a true middle power without peers.
This is not a monolithic doctrine dictated from Ankara. It has emerged through the trials and tribulations of geopolitics: chaos in the Middle East, war in Eastern Europe, and a drive for sovereignty viewed with hostility by Western powers. Through hot and cold cycles with the European Union, to the highs and lows of the Arab Spring, and war and chaos in the Middle East, Türkiye under Erdoğan has consistently recalibrated its strategy. Yet its vision has remained the same: true sovereignty.
This strategy rests upon three pillars: leveraging geography into geoeconomic power; cultivating a ‘league of aligned states’ into an interdependent regional order; and forging an indigenous military-industrial complex that could turn Türkiye into an undisputed military power in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The ultimate objective is to position Türkiye as a sovereign arbiter capable of navigating between competing power blocs while fostering a sphere of stability and co-prosperity. If superpowers like China or America have interests in the aforementioned regions, then Türkiye aims to be the chief mediator through which political influence and economic interests run.
Türkiye's path is fraught with internal contradictions and formidable economic challenges. The Middle East is filled with peer competitors such as Iran, Israel, Egypt, and the Gulf states, all equally vying for the same level of power that Türkiye covets for itself. The EU maintains significant economic leverage even as its security relationship becomes more dependent on Türkiye. Russia, long the main antagonist to Turkish aspirations, has demonstrated its willingness to militarily assert its interests in the war in Ukraine.
Türkiye needs to sustain military capacity and deter threats to its own sovereignty, recognised through its growing military-industrial complex, and forward deployments to Libya, Syria, and Azerbaijan, among other countries. Simultaneously, Türkiye does not want to go down Iran’s path of becoming an international pariah, facing isolation and sanctions. Half of its GDP is derived from international trade, and deepening interdependence is more conducive to the developmental aspirations laid out in The Turkish Century. This has set Türkiye on its paradoxical path, at the end of which remains a vague set of goals.
This is the first report in a longer-running series exploring Türkiye’s geostrategy, domestic political economy, and burgeoning industrial-military complex. Later reports will focus on concrete case studies that provide empirical analysis to support the theory laid out in this report.
Türkiye and the West
The EU
Perhaps no relationship better encapsulates the contradictions at the heart of Türkiye’s grand strategy than its turbulent engagement with the European Union. This dynamic is characterised by cyclical rapprochement and estrangement, embodying the core tension in Ankara’s foreign policy: the pursuit of selective integration to enhance economic and security capabilities, while fiercely guarding strategic autonomy.
The early years of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) era witnessed unprecedented alignment between then-Prime Minister Erdoğan’s new government and its emphasis on liberal reforms with European expectations. Driven by Erdoğan’s legislative overhaul, Ankara curbed military influence, expanded minority rights, and harmonised laws with the *acquis communautaire*. The Customs Union, established in 1995, became the bedrock of economic integration, anchoring Türkiye to European supply chains and making the EU its largest trading partner, accounting for 41% of Turkish exports while attracting the majority of foreign direct investment. By 2007, this alignment reached its zenith, with Türkiye supporting 97% of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy decisions while accession negotiations advanced across fifteen policy chapters. Economically, this liberalisation fuelled annual growth rates of 5-7%, lifting per capita income to $10,800 by 2013 and casting Türkiye as Europe’s great hope for a "Muslim democracy" success story.
This convergence proved fleeting when the Gezi Park protests of 2013 exposed fundamental fault lines. Ankara’s security response drew sharp condemnation from Brussels over human rights violations, signalling the beginning of a protracted period of troubled relations. The rupture deepened dramatically following the 2016 Gülenist coup attempt, which triggered mass purges of over 50,000 officials, journalists, and academics, largely associated with the Gülenist movement. The European Parliament responded by suspending accession talks in 2019, citing "continuing backsliding in democratic reforms," while policy alignment plummeted to a mere 10% by 2023.
Yet pragmatic cooperation endured in key areas like migration management, trade, and security. The 2016 EU-Türkiye migration agreement became the most emblematic example, outsourcing border control to Ankara through a €6 billion package to host 3.7 million refugees. Economically, bilateral trade surged to €230 billion annually and cemented Türkiye’s position as the EU’s fifth-largest trading partner, with European capital sustaining critical sectors from automotive manufacturing to textiles.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a recalibration, demonstrating how security imperatives override values-based objections. Facing energy shocks and defence gaps, the EU abruptly rediscovered Türkiye’s strategic importance. Ankara’s provision of Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine, its invocation of the Montreux Convention to blockade Russian warships, and its brokerage of the Black Sea Grain Initiative earned explicit praise from Brussels.
As Europe scrambled to replace Russian gas, Türkiye leveraged its Trans-Anatolian Pipeline and expanded LNG terminals to supply Balkan nations, prompting the EU to commit €10 billion to Ankara’s Middle Corridor Initiative as Europe’s preferred China trade alternative, bypassing Russia. This security-driven thaw remained strictly compartmentalised, however, with the 2023 Borell Report advocating for modernised customs arrangements and visa liberalisation while explicitly linking progress to Türkiye’s Cyprus policy and judicial reforms – conditions reiterated in the European Parliament’s 2025 assessment that accession remains frozen "under current circumstances" despite deepening security cooperation.
The Türkiye-EU relationship is perhaps the most paradoxical in Türkiye’s foreign policy. Brussels depends on Ankara for containing migration flows, diversifying energy supplies, and maintaining NATO’s second-largest army, even as it condemns Türkiye’s democratic erosion. Türkiye, for its part, deepens energy and trade enmeshment with Europe while expanding military cooperation with Russia through S-400 missile acquisitions and the Akkuyu nuclear plant – a perfect manifestation of its "360-degree" arbitrage strategy.
In this, the EU faces a dilemma: deepening defence ties offers immediate security benefits, but has opened itself up to criticism that it is legitimising democratic backsliding and encouraging Türkiye’s ‘Neo-Ottomanist’ ambitions. This uneasy bargain nonetheless has allowed Türkiye to leverage interdependence into strategic autonomy. For Brussels and Ankara alike, the partnership persists not despite its paradoxes, but precisely because of them.
NATO
The 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague marked a watershed in the Alliance’s post-Cold War trajectory and Türkiye’s thawing relations with Western powers. Against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, NATO allies unanimously committed to a defence spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035, a 150% increase from the previous 2% benchmark established in 2014.
This unprecedented pledge is a recalibration of the Euro-Atlantic security posture. Under the agreement, member states will allocate 3.5% of GDP to core defence expenditures, encompassing personnel, equipment, and operational readiness, while dedicating up to 1.5% to security-related investments, including critical infrastructure protection, cyber defences, civilian resilience programmes, and defence industrial base strengthening.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte hailed the commitment as enabling a "quantum leap" in collective defence, projecting enhanced security while generating high-value industrial employment across member economies.
The Summit’s outcomes reflect Türkiye’s distinctive influence within NATO dynamics, despite its complex positioning between Western institutions and its autonomous strategic ambitions. Ankara successfully advocated for language explicitly addressing the “removal of barriers to defence trade among allies”, a longstanding Turkish priority given recurring embargoes affecting its military modernisation.
Though the final text stopped short of mandating concrete timelines for an action plan, it marked NATO’s first unambiguous recognition that intra-bloc export restrictions undermine collective readiness. Similarly, provisions urging members to "leverage partnerships to promote defence industry cooperation" aligned with Türkiye’s campaign for deeper integration of non-EU defence industrial bases, particularly its own burgeoning aerospace and drone sectors.
Rutte has underscored this point, stressing the need to ensure the "Turkish defence industrial base is as closely linked as possible with UK, Norway and EU" supply chains, an acknowledgement of Ankara’s growing industrial advantage.
There have been further breakthroughs in Türkiye’s defence procurement landscape. US Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack recently commented on the possibility of the US Congress reversing Türkiye’s expulsion from the F-35 programme over its acquisition of Russian S-400 missile systems “by the end of the year”. Simultaneously, Germany recently broke years of political deadlock and finally approved the sale of 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Ankara, circumventing political objections from some EU members through NATO’s new defence trade flexibility provisions.
Recent developments demonstrate how Türkiye is using interdependence to advance its own interests. Turkish defence giant Baykar's acquisition of Italian aerospace firm Piaggio Aero in December 2024 aims to circumvent Western technology embargoes, while the June 2025 joint venture deal to form "LBA Systems" with another Italian company, Leonardo, signals Türkiye's intent to embed itself deeper into NATO's industrial base.
Türkiye’s parallel development of the indigenous KAAN stealth fighter and deepening defence ties with non-NATO partners such as Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Indonesia show that Türkiye is not seeking to re-orient itself to the West, but rather develop a 360-degree vantage point with Ankara at the centre. As Rutte acknowledged, the Alliance’s southern flank hinges on Turkish cooperation for migration containment, energy corridor security, and regional stabilisation, granting Ankara unique leverage to reshape alliance mechanics from within.
This, ultimately, is what is meant by strategic autonomy: options and leverage. Should commitments (in word or on paper) fail, as they have many times before, then Türkiye has alternative alliances of convenience to lean on – if not its own hard power in the form of a powerful defence industry to act as the backstop for deterrence.
Türkiye and the Rest
Türkiye’s statecraft across the ‘Middle Belt’ reflects a deliberate strategy to build a resilient periphery through flexible partnerships rather than rigid alliances or proxy networks. This approach is distinct from NATO’s collective defence or Iran’s militia-centric model and focuses on mutual interests, capacity building, and conflict mediation to foster a ring of stable, cooperative states aligned with Ankara’s security and economic objectives.
In Libya, Türkiye’s intervention decisively tilted the civil war in favour of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. Beyond deploying troops and Bayraktar drones to counter Khalifa Haftar’s offensive in 2019, Ankara secured a lasting strategic foothold through the 2019 maritime boundary agreement to strengthen Türkiye’s energy exploration efforts and hydrocarbon claims in the Eastern Mediterranean against rivals like Greece and Egypt. In a sign of Türkiye’s growing regional clout and pragmatic politics, Ankara has successfully made overtures to the Benghazi-based government in eastern Libya under Haftar for the ratification of the maritime border agreement between Libya and Türkiye.
Further east, Türkiye’s growing relationship with Somalia is a mix of humanitarian aid, military training, and economic investment. Following President Erdoğan’s landmark 2011 famine visit, Turkish-Somali relations have accelerated. Ankara built Camp TURKSOM in 2017, its largest overseas base, where it trains Somali armed forces, and seeks to project power into East Africa and the Indian Ocean. This security partnership has also expanded into resource access: a 2024 agreement granted Türkiye rights to explore untapped offshore oil and gas reserves, as well as up to 30% of revenues from “oil and gas extracted in Somali waters in proportion to the projects it contributes to”. Türkiye’s branding of hospitals, schools, and even garbage collection services as "Turkish" has made "Istanbul" a popular Somali girl’s name, embedding soft power deeper than Western aid projects. Turkiye has even made space exploration a pillar of this relationship, having commenced work on a spaceport in Somalia projected to cost up to $350 million, from where civilian-use satellites can be launched, and military-use rockets can be tested.
The Azerbaijan partnership remains Türkiye’s most consequential, pithily summarised by the statement, “two states, one nation”. Ankara’s military support, including drone technology and Syrian mercenaries, proved decisive in Baku’s 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh victory. This has accelerated Turkiye’s quest for energy interdependence, predominantly via the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP). Ankara capitalised on Azerbaijan’s 2020 victory to push Yerevan towards a broader agreement on normalisation of ties with both Türkiye and Azerbaijan, seeking not a war of conquest but the creation of a new regional order focused on trade and regional integration. Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan’s June 2025 "working visit" to Istanbul, the first by an Armenian leader, signalled Armenia’s acceptance of Türkiye’s regional ascendancy and desires for guarantees against any future conflict.
Azerbaijan’s geography is crucial for Türkiye as it lacks a land or sea border with the wider Turkic world. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan form a critical economic hinterland with an economic and demographic boom, and increasing importance at the crossroads of Eurasian trade, turning the region from a backwater into a new crossroads. Through the Organisation of Turkic States, Turkiye aims to facilitate trade corridors bypassing Russia and Iran. The Middle Corridor Initiative, vital for China-Europe freight, relies on rail networks through Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
In post-Assad Syria, Ankara has quickly become one of Damascus’ closest partners across a range of fields, including defence, diplomacy, energy, transport and communications infrastructure, and general issues related to the economy and post-war reconstruction. Contrary to popular perceptions, Türkiye has not sought hegemonic control over Syria, in a bid to avoid overreach and the reaction of other regional powers. Previous Vizier reports have explored this relationship.
Further afield, Erdoğan conducted a three-day South Asia trip in February, visiting Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, respectively, in a bid to bolster ties across the Middle Belt, with a particular emphasis on defence cooperation. Pakistan and Turkiye are set to establish a joint factory for the production of KAAN stealth fighter jets. In June, Indonesia signed a 10-year deal with Turkiye to acquire 48 KAAN jets, at a price tag of $10 billion, representing both Türkiye’s first export commitment and Indonesia’s largest ever defence purchase. Some level of technology-sharing is expected in these deals and relationships as Erdogan hopes to build a league of aligned Muslim powers across the Middle Belt, with the primary incentive being joint-defence development projects. Türkiye also hopes that closer relationships with Malaysia and Indonesia, in particular, will deliver relationships with ASEAN at large and gain more access and influence within the Southeast Asian trading bloc.
There are limits to Türkiye’s influence and power projection. The Middle East is particularly tumultuous, with several peer competitors vying for their own spheres of dominance. The primary competition for political influence has come from the Gulf states, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have vied with Ankara for political influence across the Arab world, most successfully in the counterrevolutions that took place in the Arab Spring.
The competition for military dominance has come from Iran and Israel. However, the ‘12-Day War’ in June has shown Israel’s decisive edge over Iran. Erdoğan’s statements against Israel over the Gaza genocide, and threats being made by Israeli analysts, pundits, and politicians about the need to “neuter” Türkiye next to secure Israel’s regional hegemony, suggest that Türkiye is going to face even more intense competition in the near future. Signs show that Ankara has acknowledged this reality and is now working on accelerating its timelines for ‘The Turkish Century’.
Is There a Grand Strategy?
Türkiye under Erdoğan has crafted a strategy that defies easy categorisation, going beyond Neo-Ottoman imperialism or Kemalist isolationism. It is the pursuit of strategic autonomy through interdependence, a paradoxical endeavour that requires embedding Türkiye deeply within global and regional networks (economic, security, diplomatic) precisely to maximise its freedom of manoeuvre. This "third way" leverages geography to become an indispensable corridor, cultivates a league of aligned states to secure its periphery and extend influence, and builds a formidable indigenous defence industry to reduce dependence and to project power.
However, this strategy is fraught with significant internal contradictions: deepening economic interdependence (especially with the EU) while asserting political independence; seeking regional leadership amidst fiercely independent peer competitors; and centralising domestic power to enable decisive foreign policy while grappling with factionalism and unresolved succession. Most critically, the unsolved political economy, dominated by the cycles of inflation, external deficits, and reliance on volatile capital inflows, threatens to undermine the entire edifice.
Far from being a monolithic front, Türkiye’s political landscape is an ever-shifting battleground of competing and often violently confrontational factional agendas. Erdoğan’s chief political skill is his ability to play to any of these factions at a given time, in pursuit of vague ambitions for Turkish glory, power, and sovereignty. Yet questions of succession now loom with Erdoğan visibly frailer with every passing year, and election margins getting tighter. Whether Türkiye can maintain the vision of the Turkish Century through political succession and institutional resilience remains the defining question of its future.
In the end, the idea of a ‘grand strategy’ is a bit of a misnomer. The actual vision remains vague, but progress on the path to sovereignty will reveal new opportunities – and challenges – that will bring Türkiye’s destiny into relief. Perhaps the grand strategy may be the friends (and enemies) Türkiye makes along the way.