Cold Turkey No More: Security Perspectives For the Republic of Turkey in the Post Cold War Era

This thesis explores the security interests of the Republic of Turkey in the post-Cold War era. Tracing the evolution of Turkey\u27s entry into NATO and its place in the Cold War structure of containment, it argues that the aggressive approach the United States took following the end of World War II to integrate Turkey into the NATO alliance should have been mirrored in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Failure to grant Turkey full membership in current economic and security alliances such as the European Union and the Western European Union could lead to the loss of Western influence over Turkey and possibly lead to the break-down of the modern secular democratic Turkish state. Thus, the United States, as leader of the Western world, must take a new leadership role with respect to Turkey, and seek to improve both Turkey\u27s economic and foreign policy concerns through closer ties. Turkey is still of vital strategic importance to the U.S. and the West, as many of Turkey\u27s and the West\u27s security concerns continue to be convergent. Failure to include Turkey in emerging Western alliance structures simply because the Soviet threat has been diminished by the end of the Cold War, is imprudent and short-sighted