An Analysis of the 1964 Johnson Letter: Lessons for the 2003 Iraq Crisis, Turkish-American Relations, and Global Power-Regional Partner Interactions

Abstract

The dynamics in U.S.-Turkey relations in both 1964 and 2003 continued to be between a large global power and a medium regional power in the framework of a global threat that required regional cooperation. In both cases the priority of the global power was the fight against the global threat and this created expectations from the medium power ally in the region, who in both cases- had its own reservations about the issue, considering its own national interests. The analysis of the 1964 Crisis shows that both U.S. and Turkey would have five main sources of influence over their foreign policy decisions leading to disagreement in 1964: the dynamics in the U.S. Turkish relations as one between a global power and a regional partner; domestic concerns of both countries; unaligned goals of the two parties; the international circumstances; and the influence of signaling failures and previous interactions. When we analyze the 2003 Crisis in light of these findings we see that all the main issues seem to be consistently relevant, though their effects might have changed slightly. Overall, both cases reveal that the above-mentioned five factors determine the outcome of interactions between large global powers and medium powers in the region.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA429671

Entities

People

  • Turgut Akgul

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Department Of State
  • Foreign Policy
  • Foreign Relations
  • Governments
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Law
  • International Organizations
  • International Relations
  • Iraqi-War
  • Medium Power
  • National Governments
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Public Policy
  • Treaties
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • International Relations and European Studies
  • Strategic Security Studies