“We should be in the field in order to be at the table.” So goes the motto that has underlain Turkey’s foreign interventions in recent years. The policy, which upholds Turkey’s involvement in conflicts beyond its borders to boost its diplomatic say in the region, has achieved partial success in Syria but is failing to bear fruit in Libya and the Caucasus. 

The roots of this thinking can be traced back to the 1990s, when then-President Turgut Ozal hoped to “put one and take three” by opening a northern front on Iraq in support of the United States in the Gulf War — an ambition he failed to realize due to stiff opposition from military and government seniors, some of whom resigned in defiance.

In March 2003, only five months after it came to power, the Justice and Development Party government sought parliamentary approval to team up with the United States in the invasion of Iraq, but it was rejected. Thirteen years later, however, the parliament greenlit Operation Euphrates Shield to curb Kurdish advances in Syria in what became the prelude to other Turkish military campaigns in Syria and beyond. “Being in the field” in Syria put Turkey “at the table” in the Astana process with Russia and Iran, though its military presence has not always meant diplomatic achievement.

In more recent crises, however, Turkey’s arm-twisting policy has made it a party to the conflicts, resulting in its exclusion from settlement platforms. The dialogue process that followed the fighting in Libya earlier this year and the efforts to end the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia since late September are cases in point.