Turkey is an Imperialist State

Erdogan’s depiction of Turkey as a bastion of anti-imperialism is not new — though it is an increasingly common theme of Turkish propaganda. Consider Ankara’s justification of its deployment to Somalia.

Turkey today is the world’s leading imperialist state. Russia and China might seek to gobble up areas alongside their borders, but Turkey goes further. More than a century ago, Turkish nationalist forces systematically forced out or exterminated eastern Anatolia’s Armenian population. Perhaps one reason Turkish nationalists and Islamists refuse to recognize that genocide is that it would condemn their playbook today.