This is CBS I on the World with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

I welcome Gregory Coppley, editor and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

He takes us to South of his mere, a Turkish military joint exercise,

largest I can imagine in the final phase

involved several warships and a great deal of command and control the

Turkish armed forces. This is Asia Minor. This is Turkey emerging as a power in the region

given the ongoing and unending conflict in and around Israel and across the Middle East.

Gregory, a very good evening to you.

What is Erdogan's mission in demonstrating his military hardware?

Good evening to you.

Good evening, John.

Well, it is literally about showing his strength and to show his success or his alleged success.

It's basically about building up the prestige and reputation of

Turkey, which is ironically occurring at the height or the depth of Turkey's economic downfall.

Turkey is in dangerous economic instability at the moment

and in the midst of this he has been trying to beat his chest in the public forum

and show how strong Turkey is because he does have those pretensions for the restoration

of the Ottoman Empire which seems a long way from their present capability.

You write that Erdogan is using the Turkish forces to show that Turkey is moving away from the west. How so? Where's he going?

Well, he's going to the restoration of Turkey's own imperial ambitions, which is to of the

Turkish own imperial ambitions, which is to mirror the Ottoman Empire

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