Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment – A Eurasianist Odyssey by Cengiz Çandar

By Levent Ağaoğlu

30/08/2021

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by Cengiz Çandar
Published: 25 August 2021 [Policy Series: 10]

Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-80135-044-0 Buy from Amazon | Buy from Lulu | Talebe.com’dan al
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Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment, A Eurasianist Odyssey, is the most comprehensive account to date of the transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy related to its regime change. With first-hand knowledge, Cengiz Çandar tells the story of the emergence of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s revisionist Turkey in global affairs. References from almost 90 different names from around 20 countries, he also reflects how the international expertise on Turkey viewed Turkey.

“Cengiz Çandar has written a thought provoking and tremendously insightful book on contemporary Turkish foreign policy rooted in a deep understanding of Turkish history and politics. Çandar’s insights are grounded in experiences as a journalist and foreign policy advisor. This book goes a long way to explain Turkey’s strident foreign policy today. It is a wonderfully informative and enjoyable read!”

– Lenore G. Martin, Co-Chair of the Study Group on Modern Turkey, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, USA

“No one better understands and explains “Neo-Ottomanism” than Cengiz Çandar, who coined the term almost 30 years ago, long before it became a fashionable concept capturing the evolution of Turkish foreign policy. And very few writers can so beautifully weave professional insights, objective analysis and anecdotal flair. By transcending easy clichés and lazy analogies, Çandar has produced a definitive account. If you could only read one book on Turkish foreign policy , this is it.”

– Ömer Taşpınar, ProfessorNational War College and The Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), USA

“In his new book, Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment: A Eurasianist Odyssey, Cengiz Çandar, a veteran foreign policy analyst, advances a lucid explanation of his country’s increasingly assertive behavior. His seemingly paradoxical conclusion is aptly encapsulated in the book’s title. Çandar’s book is an intellectual tour de force and a must-read for anyone interested in the intertwined problem of contemporary Turkey’s identity and foreign policy.”

– Igor Torbakov, Historian, former research scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

CONTENTS

Preface
A Revisionist Power on the International Stage
The World’s Pandemic Year, Turkey’s Year of Belligerence
Turkey: The Country to Watch
Neo-Ottomanism: A Controversy
A Kaleidoscope of Hostility
Contestation
Nostalgia or Restoring Imperial Glory
Neo-Ottomanism: A Metamorphosis (From Özal to Erdoğan via Davutoğlu)
Genesis of Neo-Ottomanism
The Contours of Özalian Neo-Ottomanism
Davutoğlu: Neo-Ottomanist or Not?
Turkey-Centred Islamism or Arab Revenge on Turkey
Davutoğlu versus Özal: Prelude to Erdoğan
From Obscure Islamist Scholar to High-Profile Strategist
“Shamgen” versus Schengen
Neo-Ottomans versus Neo-Safavids
Arab Spring, the Game Changer
From Zero Problems with Neighbours to No Neighbours without Problems
Sunni-Sectarian and Anti-Kurdish Impulses
Turkey in Syria, Eurasianism in Action
Erdoğanist Neo-Ottomanism in Play
The Eurasianist Diversion: Turkey Marches to Syria
Syria: The First Move on the Neo-Ottomanist Chessboard
Blue Homeland: Turkish Mare Nostrum (Reaching North Africa, Gunboat Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean)
Expanding to Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean
Interconnection
Turkey and Greece: Dispute on Maritime Delimitation and EEZ’s
Greek Resentment, German “Appeasement”
Reasonable Propositions for Maritime Delimitation
Blue Homeland: Turkish Maritime Claims Larger than Sweden
Blue Homeland: “Eurasianism versus the Imperialist Powers of the West and Greece”
In Russia’s Backyard: Turkey in the South Caucasus
Turkey’s Entry into Russia’s “Near Abroad”
Timid Turkey 1992: Assertive Turkey 2020–2021
Dual Corridor or the Road to Central Asia and China
Competitive Cooperation or Adverserial Collaboration with Russia
Erdoğan and Putin: Observing Realpolitik
First Turkish Military Presence in Caucasus in over a Century
Neo-Ottomanist Turkey: For How Long?
Wars Cost Money
Turkey: A “Sick Man” That Never Was
Overturning Conventional History
The Reckoning
Searching for New Geopolitical Axes in a Multipolar World
Turkey’s Hostile Dance with the West
Differing Views on China and Russia
The Old Overlord in the New Middle East
Great Power Rivalries of the “Second Cold War”
The Black Sea Dilemma
The Uyghur Case: Moral Bankruptcy of Turkish Nationalism and Eurasianism

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cengiz Çandar, scholar and journalist, is the leading expert on Turkish foreign policy, the main architect of the Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement as President Turgut Özal’s advisor in the 1990s. Author and contributor of several publications in Turkish and English on Turkey, the Middle East and international relations, a co-author Turkey’s Transformation and American Policy, New York, 2000 and The United States and Turkey – Allies in Need, New York, 2003, both are Century Foundation publications and The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, MIT Press, 2004. His Turkey’s Mission Impossible, War and Peace with the Kurds published in the U.S. in 2020. Çandar is Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS) and Senior Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI).

CREDITS: Cover design by Nihal Yazgan