The nationalism in Europe and United States start growing. And it is almost sure that the Middle East has been defined by the power vacuum that dominated the region since World War I. But, President Erdogan has seen a window to change it.
It is not an exaggeration to assert that as a result of coronavirus, there would be a change in Middle East. There are three regional powers in Middle East historically, these are Turkey, Iran and Egypt. But they have not been strongly enough to avoid military and economic influence of global powers. Iran has already been shut down by US embargo, although economy recovers in oil&gas industry in Egypt, it is not enough to support whole nation and Turkey is threated economically by this virus since it has just started to recover 2018 economic crisis.
These times unsurprisingly brings, imbalances between military – civil relations whereas it also has the weight increasing executive power at the expense of legislature and civil society. While President Erdogan has secured his authority on military elites, he might find it to establish full control on economy since Turkey is majorly exposed to economic influence of global powers. However, President Erdogan will not hesitate to use all its resources, whatever is left, to surpass the negative of this virus on economy.
Corona virus compels foreign nation military forces to withdraw from the region. Moreover, the power vacuum needs to be filled. It will be ideally Iran or Turkey to fill this power vacuum. By looking at the health system, economy and military capability, Turkey seems to be a head of Iran at this moment.
In Libya, Turkey has conducted a military drill including all navy and air forces. The half of fueling squadron was on air nearby the shore of Libya fueling F-16s. Turkey has downed three Russian helicopter and a Chinese made UAV in Libya last week. Turkey has silently declared no fly zone between Tripoli and Tunisia. Moreover, it has started increasing its military presence in northern Iraq and Syria.
All these emphasize that Turkey will silently increase its presence in the region silently as much as it can while the global powers will withdraw.
Maybe some might see Turkey will remain same under the highlights of historical strengths of Western and Russian powers. However, President Erdogan sees this differently. And history is full of examples with wrong strategies.
The question is; who is wrong?
