Turkey's Political evolution, U.S. Relations and Prospects for the 21st. Century

By; PAUL B. HENZE

(with a foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski)

Description:

Turkey's Political Evolution, Turkish-US Relations and Prospects for the 21st. Century Considering the prominent role Turkey has played in Free World security strategy since 1947 and the significance of the Turkish experience for developing countries, the evolution of modern Turkey is less well understood the world than it should be. The systematic progress of the Turkish Republic toward mo- dern, democratic nationhood is in many ways unique. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey became a mentor and model for its successor states. This monograph is an attempt to tell in relatively brief form how the Turkish Republic was created, to evaluate its history, especially its close and mutually beneficial relationship with the United States, and to look ahead into the 21st century. This book recounts how the Turkish Republic came into being, primarily as a result of the vision and determination of one of the most remarkable leaders of the 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The second chapter goes back into history and traces the evolution of relations between the United States and the Ottoman Empire from the earliest period of the American Repu- blic through World War I, the Atatªrk era, and World War II. Chapter three describes the evolution to multi-party democracy and Turkey's incorporation into the Western defense system, with resultant gains, strains, frustrations, economic progress and advances in democracy into the 1970s. The fourth chapter describes the course of the crisis in Turkish-American relations that came to a head in the mid-1970s. The fifth chapter deals with the difficulties Turkey fell into as its democratic system became deadlocked while the country became the target of a massive Soviet-supported destabilization effort. The longest section of the monograph is devoted to the Ozal Era because Ozal's impact has been greater and more fundamental than that of any Turkish leader since Ataturk.