Suits and Uniforms: Turkish Foreign Policy
since the Cold War

Philip Robins
Seattle: Washington University Press, 2003. 352 pages.

Philip Robins contends that Turkish foreign policy has faced four chal-
lenges in four distinct periods of its history: (1) consolidating the emer-
gent Turkish Republic through external recognition (1930s), (2) remain-
ing neutral during the Second World War (1940s), (3) confronting the
challenge of Soviet expansionism (the cold war era), and (4) responding
to the end of bipolarity (post-cold war era). Robins examines these for-
eign policy issues in the last period. 

The main thesis of this work is threefold: First, Turkey is a status quo
power in the way that its foreign policy elites have fastened their think-
ing and practice to the framework of “the sanctity of borders, of states, of
multilateral institutions and of norms of conduct, even when it became
clear that systemic changes had rendered some of these continuities no
longer tenable” (p. 6). Second, Turkey continues to be firmly oriented
westwards in terms of its foreign relations, which are characterized by its
strong commitment to NATO as well as its desire to join the European
Union (EU). Finally, Turkish foreign policy has been characterized more
by “caution than daring,” quoting Malik Mufti. Despite the increase in its
power relative to its neighbors, Turkey has avoided an interventionist for-
eign policy by emphasizing the formation of multilateral frameworks for
conflict resolution. 

Robins defends these arguments by analyzing the international sys-
temic and domestic politics context in which Turkish foreign policy is

Book Reviews 119



shaped. Here he also lays out his theoretical framework, which holds that
foreign policy decisions emerge through an interplay of international and
domestic factors. International systemic changes include the end of the
cold war and, regionally, the Gulf crisis of 1991. One might expect, based
on an international systemic analysis, that Turkish foreign policy would
change as a response to changes in the international system’s distribution
of power. For example, the disappearance of the Soviet threat, which
compelled Turkey to enter into an alliance with the United States and
Western Europe in the framework of NATO, could lead to a more inde-
pendent Turkish foreign policy, as predicted by the realist school of inter-
national relations. 

However, as Robins finds out, Turkish foreign policy did not respond
adequately to opportunities offered by systemic structural changes and
regional developments. While the Gulf war crisis was perceived interna-
tionally as the first post-cold war era test for the global community’s effi-
cient conflict resolution procedures, Turkey regarded and acted toward it
from its state-centric geo-strategic perspective. As a result, it was “a missed
opportunity to bind Turkey into a new normatively-based solidarity among
allies that had been brought together in a Cold War context” (p. 19).

The author’s thesis is that the reasons for this inability to adapt to
change in the international system must be searched for domestically, par-
ticularly in the way Turkish security discourse is shaped. In the second part
of the book, the author searches for material as well as ideational factors
that informed Turkish foreign policy between 1985 and 2000. Here, he
highlights experiences of the Turkish security establishment in the 1920s as
continuously feeding what is referred to as “Sevrés complex,” or the
resounding fear that the country faces national disintegration from external
powers and their internal collaborators. He offers interesting observations
on “Turkey’s strategic culture,” but occasionally generalizes the Kemalist
culture of insecurity as a general property of the entire Turkish nation. 

Although Robins discusses different ideological groups and their for-
eign policy orientations, he occasionally fails to acknowledge how other
groups have been able to transcend these fears. Also, his account of
Kemalist foreign policy orientation appears to be superficial. For instance,
the author describes the Kemalist foreign policy goals as  “the best exam-
ples of the ideologically driven nature of Kemalist foreign policy was in its
Westpolitik, embracing as it has done a variety of different issues from
Turkey’s membership of NATO and its relationship with the United States,
to its attempts to become a member of the EU and the WEU” (p. 139). 

120 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:1



According to the author, it is rather the non-Kemalist politicians who
were responsible for “forever damaging the pursuit of the strategic
Kemalist goal of EU membership” (p. 141). Any observer of Turkish pol-
itics would acknowledge the stiff resistance to Turkey’s EU membership
mounted by the Kemalist political as well as intellectual establishment, a
resistance that is deeply rooted in their culture of insecurity shaped by his-
torical memory. The EU membership issue has reshuffled the positions of
various actors in Turkey, including the Islamists. Thus, the book appears
to be in serious need of updating so that it can tackle the question of why
traditionally western-oriented Kemalist bureaucrats and intellectuals started
opposing EU membership, an opposition that is both paradoxical and
understandable, given the Kemalist perceptions of security threats
informed by historical memory, as is the case with the Treaty of Sevrés.
The author also has to examine why the Islamists, who are presumed to
have an anti-western ideological orientation, have been enthusiastically
defending EU membership. Robins’ work does not include the period of
the AKP government’s formation, although this transformation was observ-
able much earlier. 

The last part of the book is devoted to an in-depth study of four cases:
Turkish-Israeli relations, the Turkic republics, northern Iraq, and Bosnia.
As far as Turkish-Israeli relations are concerned, the underlying theme in
Robins’ discussion again is continuity in Turkish strategic thinking. He
describes Turkey and Israel as “embattled allies in the new Middle East.”
However, since the “soft” military intervention into politics in 1997, the
alliance has lost much of its profundity as a result of Turkey’s improved
relations with Syria. The strategic thinking of the Turkish political elites
appears to have been passing through a process of revision since 1997,
particularly in the context of the Iraqi crisis. While the relationship
between Turkey and Israel remains significant, it is based less on regional
than on global power requisites. 

Students of Turkish foreign policy will certainly find Robins’ book
quite helpful for a review of an important part of recent Turkish history.
However, they will also notice that, in contrast to the author’s prediction
of continuity, Turkish foreign policy is perhaps more dynamic in respond-
ing to many recent changes in its strategic environment. 

Hasan Kösebalaban
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science

University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah

Book Reviews 121