For most pundits, 2013 was a bad year, if not a disaster, for Turkish foreign policy. But such apocalyptic judgments hardly substitute for the sound analysis that is needed for an accurate assessment. Those critics who proclaim the collapse of Turkish foreign policy suffer from several conceptual and analytical fallacies. Four criteria offer a more fair assessment: conceptualization of the situation; contribution to the protection or attainment of fundamental objectives of the state; flexibility in responding to contingencies; and lastly, existence of the “chips” to stay in the game. Given those criteria, Turkey’s scorecard is more balanced than what is proposed by the doomsters.
