Türkiye’s Strategic Autonomy: Foreign Policy Practice and Future Prospects

The influence of Türkiye’s foreign strategy far exceeds what its national size would normally predict, making it a particularly notable manifestation of strategic autonomy in twenty-first-century international politics. Türkiye has put this strategic autonomy into practice in several ways: by pursuing transactional diplomacy to recalibrate relations with its traditional Western allies; applying realist approaches to deepen its involvement in the Syrian crisis; engaging in parallel strategic bargaining with the USA, Europe, and Russia in the Black Sea region; and projecting both hard and soft power beyond the Western world. This paper argues that as the structural factors and systemic environment shaping Türkiye’s practice of strategic autonomy undergo accelerated change, its foreign strategy will further illuminate how middle powers influence global governance and international politics. More broadly, it points towards a longer-term trajectory marked by the decentralisation of power both internationally and regionally, together with a renewed prominence of realism.