Hello and welcome to another episode of Realpolitik. I am your host, Firasmodad, and today the topic is going to be Turkey, understanding the geopolitics of Turkey, its ambitions now, where it is in terms of pursuing these ambitions, and what can we expect in the future. So I think a good place to start is to explain that Turkey is fundamentally the successor state of the Ottoman Empire.

You look at the map that you see on your screen, the Ottoman Empire really began in 1481 with the capture of Constantinople.

It had been there obviously before that. It took over the Byzantine Empire,

and then it expanded onwards towards Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, etc.

Pretty quickly, this state became a dominant player in the region. By 1481, it was in control of decent chunks of Europe. You can see that it

had reached Bulgaria, it had reached pretty much all of Greece, it had reached Serbia, it had an

influence in Crimea, and it controlled most of Anatolia. And as time went by, this empire really expanded further and faster.

It became the most important state in the Middle East. Obviously, it took over Lebanon and Syria and then Egypt.

It took over the holy places of Islam, Macca and Medina, and obviously

Jerusalem. It expanded further into Europe, into Hungary, into Romania. It really became one of the

most important players in European politics as well as in the politics of the Middle East.

And this is really down to the location of Turkey itself.

It occupies the central position in Asia Minor, Anatolia, whatever you want to call it,

that links up the Caucasus, Iran, the Russian

sphere and the Black Sea, Europe, and North Africa. This location gives Turkey a pretty important

role and because Anatolia is so difficult to invade,

because of its mountainous terrain, it sort of forms a base from which any state can then pursue expansionist ambitions,

finding weakness anywhere in its near abroad,

and trying to fill in the spaces there and to become a more important player in its own neighborhood.

So the Turkish Empire, the Ottoman Empire, whatever you want to call it, after decades and centuries of expansion, after becoming the most important, one of the most important global players

really fell upon hard times, starting the 1700s, 1800s, and then started losing territory.

It lost North Africa to the French and to the Italians. It then participated very unwisely in the First World War, and the result of

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