Is America’s Alliance with Turkey Doomed?

Authored by Sukru Hanioglu via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The historic breakdown in Anglo-Ottoman relations is a useful model for evaluating today’s troubled alliance between the United States and Turkey
SHORTLY BEFORE his death in 1869, the pro-Western former Ottoman grand vizier and foreign minister Keecizde Mehmed Fuad Pasha commented, ‘It appeared preferable that . . . we should relinquish several of our provinces rather than see England abandon us.’ In response to this commitment, the British made the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire against Russian aggression a key pillar of their foreign policy.
Yet, in spite of the significance that Istanbul and London attached to their alliance in the 1850s, both sides were determined to eradicate each other by 1914. As Prime Minister Herbert Asquith put it, Britain was ‘determined to ring the death-knell of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe, but in Asia as well.’ In response, the Ottoman government described the British as ‘the greatest enemy’ of not only the sultan’s empire but also of Islam itself.
The startling breakdown in Anglo-Ottoman relations might serve as a useful model for policymakers to evaluate the troubled alliance between the United States and Turkey. The sixty-year period between the Crimean War of 1853 – 56 and the July Crisis of 1914 resembles the era that opened with the admission of Turkey into NATO in 1952 and appears to be ending today. As the Anglo-Ottoman case warns, alliances formed in response to an external threat between powers that view each other as cultural ‘others’ may deteriorate after the threat diminishes. Suffering from such alliance fatigue, erstwhile partners become clashing rivals.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Apr 18, 2017.