This paper studies Turkey’s strategic interest in the Syrian conflict in response to the ‘Arab spring’. It examines the impact of the Syrian crisis on Turkish foreign policy at the regional level, including the impact of Turkey’s leadership, ‘Erdoğanism’, during the Arab spring, and the simultaneous shift from an ‘idealist policy’ of ‘zero problems’ in response to the outbreak of changes. Turkey’s ‘strategic depth’ and its idealistic ‘zero problems’ policy shifted with the outbreak of the Arab spring and the Syrian crisis, in particular, which posed a number of challenges both domestically and regionally. Domestic politics, history and leadership have played a significant role in shifting the tactics and techniques of Turkey’s foreign policy in terms of the Syrian crisis. I include an examination of the relationship between Turkey and non-state actors during the crisis. Despite geopolitical interaction between the two countries, Turkey’s foreign policy in Syria has failed to enable the ‘free Syrian army’ to impose a security zone in northern Syria.

The essay poses the question whether the so-called Arab spring offers the potential to complete the 1989 revolutions. It first discusses what was hoped to be achieved in 1989, and it then argues that the post-1989 arrangements failed to prevent new security challenges from emerging. The Islamist threat came to play the role that the Communist threat had played to the West or the Western threat had played to the East. The essay then turns to the question on what needs to happen if current events are to lead to something better. It argues that there is a need to overcome the legacies of the past and adapt institutions to the global present. The world must move away from nationalist and bloc thinking towards a concept of human security – a concept which came out of the Helsinki Agreements in 1975. The case of the recent intervention in Libya illustrates the need for a human security approach in practice.