Turkish Foreign Policy During The Second World War

An assessment of Turkey's wartime diplomacy and its role in preserving the nascent Turkish state.

With the end of Cold War discipline the world has entered a new era. Parameters have changed; new handicaps as well as new opportunities have been created for countries. Turkey as a neighbor of former USSR, a member of NATO and located at the center of a sensitive region covered by Caucasus, Balkans and Middle East, has been affected by the end of Cold War radically. Turkey has lost some of her bargaining cards in the new era and therefore has needed new arguments. This need encouraged Turkey to take active steps in Post Cold War era. This book analyzes Turkey s relations with US, EU, Balkans, Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, China and Japan. At the same time, effects of economic crises and domestic developments on foreign policy, Turkish model in Turkish foreign policy, water conflict and Kurdish problem are analyzed as well. To conclude, it is possible to argue that although Turkey lost some of her bargaining cards in Post Cold War era, new developments pushed Turkey to the center of world politics rather then to periphery. Contributors: Meliha Benli Altunisik, Deniz Ülke Aribogan, Hüseyin Bagci, Idris Bal, Zeyno Baran, Fulya Kip Barnard, Erol Bulut, Ibrahim S. Canbolat, Saziye Gazioglu, Ramazan Gözen, Saban Kardas, H. Bülent Olcay, Cengiz Okman, Henry E. Paniev, Victor Panin, Dirk Rochtus, Faruk Sönmezoglu, Gül Turan, Ilter Turan, Mustafa Türkes, Nasuh Uslu.

As it became evident that the Allies were winning World War II, Turkish policy-makers struggled to achieve their objectives in the shifting circumstances of wartime diplomacy. Edward Weisband's detailed description of Turkish foreign policy from 1943 to 1945 reveals that it was complicated by the fact that its two principal aims dictated contradictory positions. The first aim was the priority of peace over expansionism—this implied a noninterventionist policy. On the other hand, the belief that the Soviet Union represented the primary threat to the security of the Republic often made intervention to contain Russia seem necessary for national defense. Turkish officials became determined to influence the postwar settlement towards an equilibrium among the great powers that would limit Soviet expansionism, which the Turks assumed they could not do alone. Consequently, they were among the first to envision the contours of the Cold War. After outlining the historical origins of the ideology that lay behind Turkish diplomacy, the first part of the book concentrates on the policy-making process in Ankara and assesses the relative influence of individual leaders and institutions. The second part analyzes both Turkey's responses to the exigencies of war and the general nature of small state diplomacy. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Based on newly accessible Turkish archival documents, Onur Isci's study details the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union during World War II. Turkish-Russian relations have a long history of conflict. Under Ataturk relations improved – he was a master 'balancer' of the great powers. During the Second World War, however, relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union plunged to several degrees below zero, as Ottoman-era Russophobia began to take hold in Turkish elite circles. For the Russians, hostility was based on long-term apathy stemming from the enormous German investment in the Ottoman Empire; for the Turks, on the fear of Russian territorial ambitions. This book offers a new interpretation of how Russian foreign policy drove Turkey into a peculiar neutrality in the Second World War, and eventually into NATO. Onur Isci argues that this was a great reversal of Ataturk-era policies, and that it was the burden of history, not realpolitik, that caused the move to the west during the Second World War.

Since the cold war ended, it has become an international field of study, with new material from China, the former Soviet Union and Europe. This volume takes stock of where these new materials have taken us in our understanding of what the cold war was about and how we should study it.

Rich in its spatial scope, this edited collection provides an extensive and detailed overview of contemporary Turkish foreign policy. From the founding principles of foreign policy in the early republic to changing patterns during the second half of the 20th century, this text not only charts underexplored periods in Turkish foreign policy history, but also offers a fresh analysis of recent events, with new challenges ever-emerging in this region. This volume is essential reading for students, scholars and professionals of International Relations, foreign policy and international law who would like to study Turkish foreign policy.

A comparison of Turkey's and Egypt's diverging foreign policies during the Cold War in light of their leaderships' nation making projects.