How Turkiye is brokering a new arc of influence

For much of the 20th century, Turkiye’s foreign policy was defined by its orientation toward the West, its role as a NATO ally and its strategic distance from the volatile dynamics of the Middle East. This focus can be traced back to the aftermath of the First World War, when Turkiye, having lost the war, chose to prioritize internal development. As a secular republic by design, Turkiye kept the region at arm’s length, focusing inward and consolidating its position as a bridge between East and West.

However, following the so-called Arab Spring, and particularly since 2022, Ankara has transformed into a potent military and diplomatic actor, reshaping itself as an indispensable Sunni middle power. From the battlefields of Syria to the Horn of Africa and the edges of the Sahel, Turkiye is actively asserting its influence, employing a blend of military intervention, strategic arms deals and diplomatic mediation.

But the real shift lies in Turkiye’s increased activity and its creation of an intricate influence network — one that makes regional crises impossible to navigate without its involvement.

The architecture of this strategy rests on three interlocking pillars. The first is operational. Turkiye has demonstrated a consistent willingness to use force or credible military pressure to shape political outcomes, most visibly in northern Syria and Libya.

The real shift lies in Turkiye’s increased activity and its creation of an intricate influence network

Zaid M. Belbagi

The second is industrial. The export of Turkish drone technology, namely the Bayraktar TB2 and the more advanced Akinci platform, has given Ankara leverage in security markets that Western suppliers have vacated or that Gulf states have been unable to fill.

The third is diplomatic. Turkiye has cultivated a reputation as a credible mediator, one that maintains channels across rival factions and competing great powers alike.

Syria remains the theater where Turkiye’s posture is sharpest and most contested. Ankara has maintained sustained cross-border military pressure against Kurdish-linked militant groups in northern Syria and Iraq, conducting major strike campaigns in January and October 2024 that destroyed dozens of targets and killed scores of fighters. These are part of a persistent-pressure doctrine designed to shape the political environment and ensure that any postconflict security arrangements in Syria run through Ankara.

In May last year, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan made this logic explicit when he announced that Ankara expected Syrian Kurdish forces to comply with a March 2025 arrangement linking their integration into the Syrian national armed forces to the transfer of crossings and energy infrastructure to Damascus. Military posture, in Turkiye’s calculus, is always tied to a political end-state — in this case, empowering the closely allied government in Damascus.

In Somalia, which has become Ankara’s strategic template for what sustained engagement can produce, Turkiye opened its largest overseas military base near Mogadishu in September 2017, designed to train more than 10,000 Somali soldiers for $50 million.

The December 2024 Ankara Declaration, in which Turkiye brokered a fragile rapprochement between Ethiopia and Somalia following a year of dangerous tensions over Somaliland, illustrated a different dimension of the same strategy.

Mediation is central to what analysts call “middle power diplomacy” — and Turkiye has practiced it very well: between Syria and Israel, between Russia and Ukraine and between warring factions in Libya. The Horn of Africa declaration showed that Ankara could find a workable balance between two of its allies in a region where Western governments and African institutions had all tried and fallen short.

This was rewarded five months later, when Turkiye and Somalia signed a new hydrocarbon exploration agreement covering 16,000 sq. km of onshore territory. As such, diplomacy and economics are inseparable in Ankara’s Africa strategy.

Across the Sahel, as France withdrew from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, it left behind security vacuums that Russia’s Wagner Group, later the Africa Corps, was quick to fill. Turkiye has moved into adjacent spaces with a distinct offering, which includes capable drone platforms, training programs and maintenance agreements unencumbered by the governance conditionality that constrains Western engagement.

Niger received Bayraktar TB2 drones beginning in 2022, complemented by a military training agreement in 2020 and a cooperation agreement signed in Istanbul last year. Mali acquired the more advanced Akinci system by late 2024, representing a significant capability step-up. Baykar, the Turkish drone manufacturer, reported export revenues of $1.8 billion in 2024, with approximately 90 percent of its revenue coming from foreign sales, transforming what began as a prestige project into a structural instrument of Turkish foreign policy.

In Sudan, Turkiye has positioned itself as a potential mediator in the civil war, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan telling Sudan’s military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan in December 2024 that Ankara could help resolve tensions with the UAE. The offer was diplomatically intelligent. In fact, Turkiye maintains channels to multiple parties inserting itself as a mediator would deepen its presence in a country whose Red Sea access is strategically vital.

But the Sudan case also illustrates the reputational risks embedded in Turkiye’s model. A Washington Post investigation last March raised allegations of Turkish-linked private sector arms flows to Sudan, complicating the mediator narrative. Drone warfare, moreover, generates civilian casualties and there have been reports of harm linked to Turkish-origin systems in Mali, Somalia and Sudan, as documented by organizations including Drone Wars UK. This represents a growing tension between Ankara’s diplomacy and the realities of its military footprint.

This effort has become known as the “Erdogan doctrine,” which guides Turkiye’s evolving foreign policy and is often described as pragmatic and flexible, balancing between competing interests in a region defined by uncertainty. While critics may label it as transactional, citing its opportunistic nature and the use of Ottoman-era nostalgia and Islamist imagery for domestic appeal, this perspective overlooks the broader strategy at play. Indeed, Turkiye’s foreign policy is reactive at times, shaped by real-time opportunities and shifting alliances. It also reflects a calculated and nuanced approach to geopolitics.

The ‘Erdogan doctrine’ guides Turkiye’s evolving foreign policy and is often described as pragmatic and flexible

Zaid M. Belbagi

Turkiye’s seemingly dual stance — such as its NATO membership alongside the purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system and its opposition to Iranian influence in Syria coupled with economic ties to Tehran — points to a pragmatic flexibility. These decisions highlight Turkiye’s ability to engage on multiple fronts, maneuvering through complex international dynamics.

Despite the risks posed by its multi-theater engagement, Turkiye is building an influence ecosystem that stretches across the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel. This approach blurs the line between domestic and foreign policy, with military interventions sometimes serving internal political goals as much as regional ones.

These critiques often overlook the substantial foundations Turkiye has built in recent years. The trade numbers offer a glimpse into its growing influence. In 2024, African countries imported $21.5 billion of goods from Turkiye, with total trade between Ankara and the continent exceeding $37 billion. Turkish Airlines now serves 64 destinations across Africa, while Turkiye has military attaches stationed in 19 African nations and security cooperation agreements with at least 30.

In the Middle East, between January and August 2024, exports to the region reached $27.7 billion, a 3.6 percent increase from the previous year. These figures clearly reflect the geopolitical power of Ankara in the region.

What distinguishes Ankara’s posture from that of other regional actors is precisely what makes it difficult to dismiss. Turkiye is not a Gulf state with financial leverage but limited military reach. It is not a Western power constrained by democratic accountability and alliance commitments. It is not Russia, whose African model is increasingly contested.

Turkiye offers something that none of these actors can replicate: the combination of a functional state military, a competitive domestic defense industry and a Muslim-majority identity that resonates in the societies it engages. It increasingly wields this alongside a foreign policy that is sufficiently flexible to maintain relationships with different parties. In an era of multipolarity, that combination has proven to be a genuine comparative advantage.

• Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council. X: @Moulay_Zaid