Russia and Turkey are typically erroneously cast as allies. Their active rivalry in some of Eurasia’s greatest zones of conflict is only likely to grow as Ankara looks for a seat at the Huge Table.
By Yeghia TASHJIAN
Under Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, foreign policymaking in both nations has become a highly tailored and centralized affair.
Given the weak point of institutional firm in existing Russian-Turkish relations, it is unclear in which direction these relations would divert in a post-Putin/Erdogan age. Although there are some strategic consistencies, this is still a relationship that is being formed by occasions in the field.
The near-term objective for both leaders is an easy one: to maintain a manageable relationship regardless of numerous crises and difficulties.
According to Arif Asalioglu, General Director of the International Institute of the Advancement of Science Cooperation (MIRNAS), Russia and Turkey have actually developed a ‘imaginative cooperation’ design, where they constructively separate their relations so as not to permit difficulties to block their shared gains.
To put it simply, “things that go wrong in one area would not adversely impact good relationships in the other compartment where the relationships are successfully taking place,” describes Asalioglu. It’s a model that has actually worked, up until now.
However, a major concern in this relationship is the thin line between its asymmetric and hierarchical nature, where in the meantime, Ankara geopolitically and financially (primarily energy security) depends on Moscow.
At the moment, Russia and Turkey see one another as essential partners in managing conflicts in Eurasia. They have the ability to maximize shared interests while keeping conflicts in check. Regardless of the mutually useful nature of this relation, the future might bring disruptive modification as any change of management in either nationwould bring a high degree of unpredictability into the bilateral relations.
To describe this ‘cooperative rivalry,’ one requires only to look at Libya, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh where the ‘frenemies’ have actually had the ability to handle their conflicts.
Libya: From conflict to ceasefire
Turkey and Russia supported opposite sides in the Libyan conflict. Ankara supported the Tripoli-based Federal government of National Accord (GNA), while Russia, together with France, the UAE, and Egypt supported the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Turkey viewed the Libyan conflict as part of a more comprehensive power play and geopolitical rivalry in the eastern Mediterranean.
In April 2019, Haftar released an offensive to record Tripoli and fall the GNA. Ankara, fearing it might lose Tripoli and its interests in the eastern Mediterranean, directly intervened in the dispute and released its Bayraktar TB2 dronesagainst the Russian defense structures. As Turkey actioned in, the balance of power on the ground moved in its favor. Moscow, fearing Haftar’s total defeat, staged a diplomatic intervention with Turkey and agreed on a ceasefire agreementbetween the GNA and LNA, which has held to date.
However, the outcome of Libya’s 24 December governmental elections will determine the nation’s instructions and whether Turkey and Russia will continue complying or clashing in Libya.
Conflict management in Syria
Syria is main to the existing shaping of Turkish-Russian relations. The Syrian case is special as it is a model of partnership and dispute management in which the interests of both nations compete.
With the 2015 Russian direct military intervention in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad, the military tide on the ground changed in favor of the state. In December 2019, the Syrian army and its regional, local, and global allies released the northwestern offensive to retake Idlib. This operation was only partially successful as the Turkish side as soon as again released its Bayraktar TB2 drones.
In late February 2020, after periodic fatal clashes in between Turkish and Syrian forces, Ankara formally intervened in the offensive and revealed the beginning of Operation Spring Shield, intended to push Syrian government forces back to pre-offensive frontlines.
To halt additional Syrian losses and avoid Turkish advancement, on 6 March 2020, Moscow brokered a ceasefire with Ankara. The ceasefire called for joint Turkish– Russian patrols along the strategic Syrian M4 highway. Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent the Russian side from bombing the pro-Turkey militias around the Turkish-occupied zones.
In time, the Syrian crisis became a model for the 2 states to both work together and face their primary challengers. For now, Turkey has obtained some of its major goals, especially vis-à-vis the Syrian Kurds, and Russia has become the primary power broker in Syria.
This cooperative competition helped both sides to achieve some of their goals. Viewed from Moscow, Turkey’s participation in the Russian-led diplomatic and military efforts in Syria has actually raised some of the diplomatic burdens and military costs of the Syrian war from Moscow’s shoulders. However the primary question now is to what degree the status of Idlib will be frozen, while both Moscow and Ankara work to expel Americans from their profession of northeastern Syria.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Provoking Russia in its yard
While both countries ‘understand’ each other in Libya and Syria, Turkey’s aspiration to play a higher function in the South Caucasus has really put this relationship to test. With the break out of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, Turkey saw a historical opportunity to apply its influence in Russia’s backyard and recalibrate that relationship in Ankara’s favor. To challenge Russia, Turkey actively supplied military and diplomatic support for Azerbaijan in its war against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkey’s direct military assistance in the war captured many celebrations off guard. Not only did Ankara release its Bayraktar TB2 drones, but also its F-16 warplanes stationed in Hashish, while moving hundreds of Syrian mercenaries to eliminate along with the Azerbaijani army. These two elements were a threat to Russia’s nationwide security in the area.
On a diplomatic level, Turkey tried to release an ‘Astana-style’ diplomatic track to get primacy over the OSCE Minsk Group whose objective was to motivate a tranquil, negotiated resolution to the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This procedure was welcomed by Ankara’s allies in Baku, who were dismayed by the failings of the standard diplomatic track advanced by the OSCE.
Naturally, an ascendent Russia– well beyond its post-Soviet depression– was not thinking about opening up a bilateral track giving Turkey equivalent status in managing a conflict in Russia’s own backyard. An Astana-style circumstance would have legitimized Turkey’s intervention and existence because geographical area. Rather, Moscow stepped into the fray as ‘big bro,’ and threw its weight into brokering a ceasefire on its own terms.
For Turkey, the result of the war was not acceptable. Ankara had looked for a total Azerbaijani success, pressing Russia out of the area by instigating enmity in between Yerevan and Moscow– or at least deploying Turkish ‘peacekeepers’ in Nagorno-Karabakh together with Russian forces.
Turkey did leave its mark, however. Regardless of Moscow’s inconvenience with Turkish intervention in its traditional sphere of impact and the breach of some Russian ‘red lines,’ Moscow has had to acknowledge Turkey as a junior player in the area. This does not imply, however, that it will quickly share parity in the post-conflict regional order.
In other words, the Russian-Turkish relationship in South Caucasus has actually been hierarchical. The one mutual gain was to sideline western impact, particularly American and French (co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group together with Russia) clout, from the region’s diplomatic process.
It is worth keeping in mind that the future of Turkish-Russian relations is impacted by Moscow’s relations with the west: the more tense those ties, the more Moscow will need Ankara to contain western impact. This dynamic might be increasing Turkey’s regional status, but it also increases its dependence on Russia.
Where lies the future?
Despite the growing areas of cooperation and conflict management in between the Russians and Turks, whenever an argument has emerged, Moscow has been able to effectively secure its interests and roll back Turkey.
While numerous, especially western, observers mistakenly highlight the two states’ increasing areas of cooperation and diplomacy as signs of a diplomacy realignment by Ankara, Russian-Turkish relations are really more precisely identified by mistrust and geopolitical competitions.
What makes this relationship special is that the two have actually attempted to reduce western influence in their regions, which Putin has actually discovered in Erdogan an opportunistic however practical outright authority who can rapidly adapt to developments in the field.
For now, this unbalanced relationship offers Russia a clear benefit, even in their business relations: While Turkey exports veggies, fabrics, and other exchangeable products to Russia, Moscow offers Ankara with natural gas, oil, nuclear reactors, military devices, and countless travelers. In case of a breakdown in relations, Turkey is much more quickly changed by Russia than the other method around.
Moscow has used its energy policy to win leverage over Turkey. In December 2014, six months after the start of the war in eastern Ukraine, Russia announced its new Turkstream pipeline offer to provide gas from Russia to the Balkans through Turkey, bypassing the pre-existing pipelines that flowed through Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland to Central Europe. The pipeline provided Turkey and Russia greater impact over Europe.
But Turkey then took actions to diversify its energy resources. During the first half of 2020, Turkey’s natural gas importsto Russia declined by 41.5 percent, compared to the very same period in 2019. In contrast, Azerbaijan’s gas exports to Turkey increased by 23.4 percent throughout the very same duration. Azerbaijan now inhabits the biggest share of Turkey’s natural gas market.
This provides Turkey with a much better negotiating position on gas prices than in the past. It also means that Turkey’s decrease of dependence on Russia might have implications for the future of Russian-Turkish relations.
For this factor, Russia is trying its finest to increase its influence on Turkey and bring Ankara more detailed into its orbit. Russia’s sale of the S-400 missile systemand Russian talks with Turkey to create its fifth-generation fighter jetsought to be seen within this context. From Moscow’s perspective, these arms sales would deepen divides between Turkey and its NATO allies and deteriorate the internal cohesion of the alliance. For Moscow, these trades increase Turkish reliance and supply Russia with extra leverage.
In sum, the Turkish-Russian relations, both financially and geopolitically are asymmetric in favor of Moscow. Mindful of this imbalance, Ankara is attempting to reduce its reliance on Moscow and challenge it thoroughly where chances arise.
As Russia wishes to maintain the political status quo in the area and prevent Ankara from taking any revisionist actions, the interest of both nations may clash again.
However, unlike in 2015 after a Turkish rocket downed a Russian jet over Syrian skies, a future confrontation in between both states may not take a direct type, but rather an indirect one and in the kind of proxy wars, as both sides have ample experience in including such disputes.