United States–Turkey relations

United States–Turkey relations are presented as a pointed example of how the post-September 11 counterterrorism coalition joined military cooperation to an earlier record of U.S. support for Turkish repression of Kurdish people. The book argues that Turkey’s offer of troops was explicitly tied by its prime minister to American assistance during that campaign, exposing the tension between the coalition’s stated purpose and the conduct of some of its partners.

Earlier Cooperation and Repression

The relationship’s context is the Turkish state’s campaign against its Kurdish population in the 1990s. The book describes the campaign as exceptionally violent and says that substantial quantities of U.S. weapons had been decisive to Turkey’s capacity to carry it out. It also notes that Turkey had received warm praise for what the author characterizes as state terror, even as the campaign produced some of the decade’s worst atrocities.

This account makes U.S. support more than a background detail: arms and diplomatic and ideological assistance are presented as enabling conditions for the campaign. The later partnership therefore does not begin with September 11. The crisis brings a prior relationship of military assistance and political approval into a new counterterrorism framework.

Turkey Joins the Counterterrorism Campaign

Turkey was the first country to offer troops for the new phase of the U.S. “war on terrorism.” According to the book, the Turkish prime minister explained the offer as recognition of the American contribution to Turkey’s campaign against its Kurdish population. The sequence is consequential: a government associated in the text with severe domestic repression presented its cooperation as repayment for U.S. support, then became a partner in a campaign framed as protection against terrorism.

The book highlights the contrast between Turkey’s recent record and its new role. Turkey was recognized as a guarantor of authority for protecting Kabul from terrorism, while the same superpower supplying that role had also furnished the military means and diplomatic and ideological support that, in the author’s account, helped Turkey commit its recent crimes. The contradiction lies not simply in Turkey’s participation, but in the reversal by which a state praised and armed during repression could be cast as an authority against terror.

The Wider Counterterrorism Framework

The discussion places the Turkish case within a broader pattern: after the attacks, governments including Russia and China used the counterterrorism coalition as an opportunity to intensify restrictive policies, while Israel said it could repress Palestinians more harshly with stronger U.S. support. Turkey’s troop offer thus appears as part of a reciprocal political alignment, not an isolated military gesture. The book’s focus remains on how counterterrorism language could accommodate states pursuing their own established campaigns.

The author also warns that a massive retaliatory assault causing civilian deaths would fulfill the aims of Osama bin Laden and his associates by provoking further anger and recruiting support for their cause. In a later account of the administration’s deliberations, the argument is that NATO leaders, regional specialists, and intelligence agencies warned against such an assault; if Osama bin Laden were killed without credible evidence first being provided, he could be regarded as a martyr by many Muslims who condemned the September 11 crimes. This warning complements the Turkish example: policies adopted in the name of security might strengthen the forces they were intended to defeat.

Strategic Reach and Significance

The relationship also sits within the book’s account of expanding U.S. military reach. It says the United States established major bases in Central Asia for the first time, connecting them to access to regional resources, the contemporary “Great Game,” and the wider network directed toward the Persian Gulf. The author argues that the new deployment improved the position from which the United States could intervene. In this strategic setting, Turkey’s contribution of troops and its established military relationship with the United States exemplify the coalition’s practical reach as well as its political contradictions.

The book’s account is a critical interpretation rather than a neutral inventory of bilateral policy. It distinguishes the declared counterterrorism rationale from the conduct and strategic consequences it associates with U.S. support for Turkey, and presents the alliance as evidence that the post-September 11 framework could validate or extend existing state power. Its central concern is the cycle of violence: repression and retaliation can produce further grievance and mobilization, while a coalition assembled to combat terror may include governments whose own coercive policies help sustain that cycle.