As ever, the ancient Greeks had it right about how humans can go very wrong, very quickly. As the great dramatist, Euripides, put it, “He who overreaches will, in his overreaching, lose what he possesses.” When I recently came across this wise adage, embattled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately came to mind.

For Ankara’s present regional overreaching in the Caucasus, the eastern Mediterranean, Syria, and Libya is sure to end in tears. At the same time Erdogan has launched his aggressive neo-Ottoman foreign policy, the walls are closing in on him, both economically and strategically, as new President-elect Joe Biden is likely to have far less patience with his antics than did his old friend, Donald Trump.

But even beyond geopolitics, Turkey’s ambitious foreign policy is doomed to fail for the simple reason that an expansionistic strategic policy cannot be run on the cheap. For years now, domestic economics has been Erdogan’s Achilles heel, amounting to his greatest weakness in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.

Earlier this month, the Turkish president seemed to have been caught unawares, as his son-in-law and closest political confidant, Bert Albayrak, abruptly quit his job as Turkey’s economy minister, and de facto, second most important leader in the country. This signaled chaos inside the presidential palace, as well as calling unwelcome attention to Turkey’s endemic economic woes.

Albayrak, 42, has spent two years futilely trying to turn around the country’s economy. During his tenure the Turkish lira has lost fully 45 percent of its value against the dollar. At the same time, due to both the pandemic crisis and a longstanding lack of Turkish economic reform, growth remains elusive, while inflation — the scourge of the poor — remains a high 11.9 percent this month.

Albayrak’s departure, coming the same week his father-in-law fired the governor of Turkey’s Central Bank, Murat Uysal, illustrating that the chickens are coming home to roost for the long-serving Erdogan government, bereft of positive economic ideas as it is, and looking for scapegoats. Given these economic realities, and no sign of improvement on the horizon, it is hard to see how Turkey’s expansive neo-Ottoman foreign policy can be sustained into the medium term.

It is hard to see how Turkey’s expansive neo-Ottoman foreign policy can be sustained into the medium term.

Dr. John C. Hulsman

If economics are beginning to limit the Turkish president’s freedom of maneuver on the international stage, worsening relations with the US are about to dramatically exacerbate Turkey’s economic and strategic problems. Shorn of Erdogan’s personal rapport with the outgoing American president, Ankara is in for a very bumpy ride.

It was Trump alone, in defiance of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, who held back sanctions being imposed on Ankara, over two different matters. First, Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system is viewed in Washington as a brazen betrayal of NATO itself, as Ankara is opting to buy major weapons systems from the alliance's putative enemy. Erdogan knew all about the congressional outrage, and chose to inflame it, counting on Trump to deflect any serious damage.

With Trump on his way out, and with a Biden administration far more interested in reinvigorating the NATO alliance, this amounts to a major political miscalculation.

Secondly, American securities regulators have determined that Halkbank, a Turkish public bank viewed as close to the Erdogan government, is alleged to have aided Iran in evading US sanctions. Trump held up the ongoing investigation in the name of national security interests. Again, it is unlikely that a far less sympathetic Biden White House will shield Ankara from its folly.

In both cases, American sanctions are expected to hit Ankara hard and fast in the early days of the new Biden government. The timing of this economic hit literally could not be worse for the Erdogan government, already on its knees from the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, as well as its longstanding aversion to reform.

In such circumstances, increasingly cornered by these dual political risk realities, it is hard to see how Turkey’s expansionistic foreign policy can be sustained with endemic economic crisis setting in, and with America — still the most important player in the world — increasingly turning against its erstwhile ally. Erdogan’s grandiose dream of Turkey emerging as the dominant regional power in the Middle East seems doomed to failure as the country’s underlying power realities simply do not justify such a lofty, unattainable dream.

But, as Euripides pointed out, the cost of overreaching is not just the failure to attain the unattainable dream, such a fevered delusion historically tends to lead to the loss of what the utopian dreamer had in the first place. For the better part of a generation, since 2003, Erdogan has towered over the Turkish political scene, dominating everyone and everything in his path. Initially sustained by decades-old economic reforms — instituted by his ally-turned-rival former Turkish President Abdullah Gul — and close ties with a supportive America, Erdogan thrived in this very specific context.

Now that context — an economic revival and close ties to its superpower ally — have dramatically shifted. In wanting too much, as Euripides wisely foretold — Erdogan now stands in danger of losing all he has.

  • Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via chartwellspeakers.com.