Throughout the Cold War, for almost 50 years, the United States and Turkey were close allies. The backbone of the alliance was military cooperation. Shared values of democracy between the two members of the “free world” was secondary to their attachment to the collective security and strategic interests.

The pillars of the ties had been the Pentagon in the United States, and the Turkish army in Turkey. Back then, the chief-of-staff of the Turkish army outranked the minister of defense.

 With the end of the Cold War, this bilateral relationship began to transform, and with the 2003 Iraq war, mistrust between the two allies reached a peak. In 2003, American troops stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan arrested a group of Turkish soldiers in Sulaimaniyah, outraging the Turkish public. The distance between the two countries grew further by Ankara’s policy choices that led Turkey to drift away from the Western security bloc. 

The election of President Donald Trump has marked a new era for the United States and Turkey. The personal ties between Erdogan and Trump have upstaged the institutional ties in the bilateral relations, as the two leaders have many similarities.