Faking It: Europe-Turkey Relations

By Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington. Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran, and diplomacy. Rubin instructs senior military officers deploying to the Middle East and Afghanistan on regional politics and teaches classes regarding Iran, terrorism, and Arab politics on board deploying U.S. aircraft carriers. Rubin has lived in post-revolutionary Iran, Yemen, both pre- and post-war Iraq; he spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. His newest book, "Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes," examines a half-century of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups.

Relations between Europe and Turkey are tense. In the past weeks, Turkey has called the Netherlands “the capital of fascism” and accused Germany of “fascist actions” reminiscent of the Nazi period, after Germany cancelled political rallies aimed at gathering support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his referendum on presidential powers next month. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder talked with Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who focused on Turkey and the Middle East, about the relationship. Rubin, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, says the fraught relationship between Turkey and Europe actually goes back many years.

TCB: Do the latest political rifts in Turkey’s relations with major European countries – notably, Germany and the Netherlands – over the upcoming Turkish referendum on presidential powers threaten the Turkey-Europe relationship as a whole? How? That is, what are the implications for the Turkey-Europe relationship of Erdogan holding this referendum?

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