Is the transcontinental country of Turkey an ally or a rival to U.S. imperialists? New President Joe Biden's choice for secretary of state Antony Blinken declares Turkey is acting more like a betrayer: “The idea that a strategic, so-called strategic, partner of ours would actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in Russia is not acceptable” (Daily Sabah, 1/20).
Turkey—cozying up with Russia and China and destabilizing its solid alliance with the U.S.-aligned world order—is a house of cards. Any of these capitalist players can incite war.
We have no stake in the bosses’ bloody games for profit and power. From Istanbul to Hong Kong to New York, our liberation lies in building a mass, international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and transforming the bosses’ profit wars into class wars for communist revolution.
Inter-imperialist rivalry is the name of the game
The U.S. bosses’-led liberal world order is in utter disarray (see page 2). To understand the driving force of world events, we must grasp the inter-imperialist rivalry which is becoming sharper. This means bosses who cut the world into spheres of influence are preparing for war with each other. Their struggle is intensifying, especially as U.S. imperialist influence around the world is stumbling.
As the biggest imperialists prepare their fight, they maneuver to gain advantage over their rivals. They fight to control as many second-tier countries as possible. But the bosses of these second-tier capitalist states have ambitions of their own. That’s what’s  happening with Turkey.
Regardless of how the bosses’ alliances shift over time, the result is that under capitalism workers will always lose.
Relationship with the West unravels
Turkey has been a member of NATO (the transatlantic alliance led by U.S. bosses) since 1952. Since the Cold War, its NATO base in Incirlik has played a key role in containing the USSR (and now Russia) and helping U.S. forces launch their murderous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the Middle East. Turkey is deeply integrated into NATO’s military structure. It hosts the standing headquarters for NATO’s land forces in the city of Izmir.
When U.S. rulers tried to destabilize the Middle East with the Arab Spring, Turkey lost by backing the losing side, the Muslim Brotherhood. This isolated Turkey from the region, especially from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
The Syrian civil war was a direct result of the Arab Spring. The U.S. was incapable of achieving its objective of toppling Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, who was backed by Iran and Russia. Worse for Turkey, the U.S. allied with its enemy the YPG (Kurdish forces which Turkey categorizes as a terrorist organization). The Turkish and U.S. bosses’ relationship has only continued to unravel.
Erdogan cuts deals with Russia
These developments encouraged an attempted military coup against Turkish President Recep Erdogan in 2016. Erdogan had been in power since 2003 and had been consolidating his control while transforming Turkey into a quasi-religious fascistic state. The coup was an opportunistic attempt by the military to be the ultimate power broker in Turkey, a role that they were accustomed to.
Erdogan survived and blamed the West. It also became fed up with the unfulfilled promises of EU membership. So, Turkey, in crisis and isolated, warmed up relations with Russia.
Erdogan’s first call and foreign visit after the coup was Russia. Since then, Turkey and Russia have brokered the peace talks in Syria (Reuters, 12/16/16). Russia lifted most of the sanctions it had imposed on Turkey. They met seven times that year culminating with the sale of a Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system to Turkey (CNN, 7/13/19).
Liberal Order sanctions Turkey
This dealing with Russia has its contradictions. Russian and Turkish troops still face one another not only in Syria, but on opposite sides of the Libyan civil war, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Turkey also has refused to recognize Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula (ABC News, 10/16/20).
Turkey continues to anger the EU by sending a research ship escorted by gunboats to prospect for gas in waters internationally recognized as part of the exclusive economic zones of EU members Greece and Cyprus (BBC, 10/12/20). It has weaponized refugees by busing hundreds to the Greek border and pushing them to cross in a bid to pressure the EU and Greece.
Last month, the U.S. Congress passed a law mandating the President to impose sanctions on Turkey for buying those Russian missiles (WSJ, 12/10/20). The EU is also debating sanctions against Turkey for its incursion into its maritime zone. These imperialists are sending a clear signal to Turkey to play by their rules. Joe Biden, representing the Big Fascists, is “willing to work with "opposition leadership" in [Turkey] to topple Erdoğan in Turkey's 2023 elections” (Daily Sabah, 1/20).
U.S. at risk of losing Turkey to China?
Although China and Turkey have long been at odds over China’s racist state terror against Uighur workers, in recent years the relationship has thawed. Since 2016, they have signed at least ten bilateral agreements, and China is now only second to Russia in trade with Turkey. While the U.S. bosses have railed against Chinese tech giant Huawei as a security threat, market share of the company in Turkey has only grown (Foreign Policy, 9/16/20). Militarily and economically, the U.S. bosses are losing serious ground.
Considering everything, this hornet’s nest “risks bringing Turkey and the United States into a military confrontation, unheard of in their 70-year long alliance” (Brookings, 2/14/18). Biden’s job, as dictated by the Big Fascists, is to prepare for eventual war against the U.S.’s rivals, China and Russia.
No honor among imperialist thieves
Communists know that the world’s ruling capitalist classes are mass-murdering fascists and racists. They are only interested in maintaining their power and control over the world’s resources and workers. They have no principles. They only use religion, patriotism, nationalism, identity politics, and sexism to divide and confuse workers to kill each other for their profits.
As such, their wheeling and dealing is all opportunistic and self-serving. They have no loyalty to each other. When the bosses talk peace, workers should prepare for war. We are the wild card in the rulers’ games. These capitalist rulers are highly dynamic human actors interested in maximum profits. We need to understand their motives to prepare ourselves for battle.
This battle we’re building right now must have no borders. Reject all bosses and their ideologies—turn imperialist war into class war and communist revolution with PLP!