100 Years of the Republic of Turkey: Turkey’s Standing in the International System

The 20th century did not start off well for the Ottoman Empire. The expansionist states of the period saw the Ottoman Empire, which they described as the “Sick Man of Europe,” as a country whose resources and territory were to be shared.

In 1923, Turkey had won the War of Independence on the military front, but it was vulnerable to new threats from outside as it was not among the economically and militarily powerful actors in the international political system established after World War I. In addition, the Ottoman Empire was among the war’s defeated states and suffered great territorial losses, forced to give up many regions with rich economic resources, notably energy.

The newly established Republic had a population of 12.5 million, a GDP of $561.4 million, exports of $51 million, and imports of $87 million. (Table 1) With these indicators, the new Republic, whose share in the world was insignificant, directly neighbored Britain and France, the major power centers of the period, via Iraq and Syria, which were under their tutelage.

Via the Dodecanese, Turkey neighbored Italy, which had declared fascist rule with Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922 and did not hide its expansionist ambitions by calling the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum” (Our Sea). Turkey was also neighbors with the Soviet Union, another important state of the time, via the Caucasus. Under these circumstances, Turkey, surrounded by threats on all four sides, had to increase its economic and military capacity rapidly while pursuing a policy of balance through successful diplomacy in order to eliminate the risks of its relative weakness.