Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty

The future of U.S.-Turkish relations remains in doubt after the difficult negotiations between the Turkish government and the United States over air base usage during the war with Iraq. This event marked a turning point in a pivotal geo-political alliance with a country that, to most Americans, remains largely unknown. F. Stephen Larrabee and Ian Lesser, senior political analysts at RAND, shed light on this increasingly influential country in their book, 'Turkish Foreign Policy In An Age Of Uncertainty', which describes the challenges and opportunities facing Turkey during this time of extraordinary change. Special emphasis is given to strategic and security matters, including those sparked by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent international response. The book concludes with some predictions for the country's future and their implications for Turkey's western allies.
Jen Koons


In a competent and compact survey of contemporary Turkish foreign policy that gives due emphasis to its multilateral dimensions, both domestic and foreign, Larrabee and Lesser treat separately Turkish foreign relations with the European Union, Greece and the Balkans, Eurasia, the Middle East, and the United States while managing to interrelate these separate subjects. They have taken recent studies (including their own) and effectively updated accounts of several aspects of Turkish foreign policy, including the slow and by no means assured Turkish effort to join the EU, the tentatively better relations with Greece, and the still unresolved issue of Cyprus, the on-balance slight Turkish advances into Central Asia since the end of the Cold War, Turkish-Israeli ties, the serious Turkish concern about the Kurds in Turkey and beyond, and Turkey's complex relations with the United States.
Foreign Affairs


The uncertainty of Turkish foreign policy in the 1990s and the first three years of the 21st century is even more uncertain after the 2003 U.S.- and British-led war against Iraq, especially in the five areas the authors emphasize: Europe, Greece and the Balkans, Eurasia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and the U.S.... Despite Larrabee and Lesser's failure to predict that Turkey would not participate and would only lukewarmly support the U.S.-led war against Iraq and the resultant dramatic changes in the geopolitics of the regions they analyze, this remains the best overview of the Turkey's foreign policy in the regions discussed. Highly recommended. Public libraries and upper-division undergraduate collections.
CHOICE Magazine

Temiz