Asia & the Pacific

"Husbanding resources is simply sensible. In the competitive game of power politics, states must unsentimentally realign means with ends or be punished for their profligacy. Attempts to maintain policies advanced when U.S. relative power was greater are outdated, unfounded, and imprudent. Retrenchment policies—greater burden sharing with allies, less military spending, and less involvement in militarized disputes—hold the most promise for arresting and reversing decline."

Given the headline-grabbing actions of Turkey this summer with regard to both Israel and Iran, a powerful narrative has emerged in which the West has "lost" Turkey. In this Brief, Dr. Joshua W. Walker argues that this narrative ignores the process of democratization in Turkey and the domestic pressures facing a populist Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. To this end, this Brief evaluates US-Turkish relations by placing the recent tensions in a larger historical context and assesses various points of convergence and divergence in this relationship today.

"...[M]ilitary analysts trying to understand counter-insurgency have rediscovered the importance of struggles over soft power. In the words of General David Patreus, "we did reaffirm in Iraq the recognition that you don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency." More recently he warned against expedient measures that damage our reputation. "We end us paying a price for it ultimately. Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are non-biodegradable. They don't go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick."  In Afghanistan, the Taliban have embarked on a sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some old-fashioned one, to soften their image and win favor with local Afghans as they try to counter the Americans' new campaign to win Afghan hearts and minds.