Turkey in the Focus of American Strategic Planning: Сontinuity in US Foreign Policy

In the Middle East and the Eurasian (post-Soviet) space, the US tactical interests lie within the framework of a single long-term strategy, which continuity is outside of fluctuations in the foreign policy environment. The study is aimed at examining the role of Turkey in the emerging architecture of world economy and geopolitics through the prism of US interests. The subject of the study is a set of key conceptual guidelines and officially accepted views on Turkish issues, reflected in the strategic planning documents of the United States. The relevance of the paper is determined by the need for a comprehensive analysis of the process of geopolitical transformations in the post-Soviet space, in which the role of Turkey acquires special significance. The source base includes legislative sources (regulatory and legislative acts) as well as the corpus of office documentation (documents of a normative, reporting and informational nature). US foreign policy practice as well as the intensification of US-Turkish interaction over the last years, including the development of new mechanisms and areas of cooperation, demonstrate the importance of maintaining allied relations with Turkey aiming to minimize risks and costs directly for the United States. Taking into consideration the growth of Turkish political subjectivity, foreign policy influence and its military potential, one should expect greater US involvement in the Turkish case in order to strengthen the allied US-Turkish partnership. Otherwise, US achievements in recent decades, including but not limited to the managing of East-West corridor, may be lost. In this context, US-Turkish disagreements on a number of issues are not an invincible obstacle for the US, and the United States is ready to build a new US-Turkish track based on Turkish foreign policy autonomy which does not contradict American long-term strategic interests.

Turkey, USA, NATO, Russia, strategic planning documents, National security strategy, US-Turkish relations, Middle East, Eurasian space, post-Soviet space