Turkey's 'Strategic Depth' Foreign Policy

There are some books which inspired the masses, or influenced small but powerful elites, and changed the world by causing shifts in mindsets and paradigms. For instance, even the modern military doctrines of the 2000s still refer to Vom Kriege (On War) by Clausewitz, and use the unique terminology of the book, such as “fog of war.” Like those, which changed the world drastically, there are also books that help us understand these drastic changes. For example, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities might give us a clearer idea of the radical differences that can exist between the goals of a revolution and its actual outcomes. Thus, Dickens’ work casts light on the “great expectations” of Tahrir Square’s libertarian youth, and how the social momentum they generated was hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood.

In recent years, a book in the Turkish international relations literature, the Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth) of Foreign Minister Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu, has found a place somewhere between the first and second categories.