Turkey's view on NATO through the scope of strategic culture theories (2009-2016)

This analysis examines and explains the way in which Turkey views its own NATO membership by making use of strategic culture theory, a constructivist approach to security studies. A strategic culture consists of a mixture of narratives that shape a country’s ideas on security which, in turn, form the basis for its foreign policy decision making. In the case of Turkey, it is pointed out that while its strategic culture has during most of the 20th century been dominated by a ‘national unity’ narrative, an alternative ‘regional power’ narrative has been gaining prominence since the 1980s. The years of Ahmet Davutoğlu as foreign and prime minister (2009-2016) mark a period during which the regional power narrative clearly gained influence in Turkey’s strategic culture. In this analysis it will be shown that Turkey’s evolving strategic culture is changing the way it sees itself as NATO member and the way it behaves within the alliance. While strategic culture theories cannot predict the future of Turkish foreign policy, it can offer us a certain range of probable behaviour. How this works exactly, is illustrated by looking at Turkey’s discourse and actions in relation to NATO’s involvement in conflicts in Libya, Ukraine and Syria during the Davutoğlu years.Die Arbeit untersucht und erklärt mithilfe der Strategic Culture Theory, einer konstruktivistischen Annäherung an Sicherheitsstudien, die Sichtweise der Türkei auf die eigene NATO-Mitgliedschaft. Eine strategische Kultur besteht aus einer Mischung von Narrativen, die die Vorstellungen eines Landes von Sicherheit beeinflussen und wiederum die Grundlage für seine außenpolitischen Entscheidungen bilden. Im Falle der Türkei lässt sich festgestellen, dass seit den 1980er Jahren ein alternatives Narrativ der ‘Regionalmacht’ zu dem während der längsten Phase des 20. Jahrhunderts gültigen Narrativ der ‘nationalen Einheit’ an Bedeutung gewinnt. Die Jahre, in denen Ahmet Davutoğlu Außen- und Premierminister war (2009-2016), markieren eine Zeitspanne, während derer das Regionalmachtsnarrativ eindeutig an Einfluss in der Strategiekultur der Türkei gewonnen hat. In der vorliegenden Analyse wird gezeigt, dass die sich herausbildende Strategiekultur der Türkei die Art der Selbstwahnehmung als NATO-Mitgliedsstaat und die Verhaltensweise innerhalb der Allianz verändert. Während Strategic Culture Theories die Zukunft der türkischen Außenpolitik nicht vorhersagen können, bieten sie doch eine Bandbreute möglicher erwartbarer Verhaltensweisen an. Die Arbeit veranschaulicht diese Verhaltensweisen und ihre Funktionen im Hinblick auf Diskurse und Handlungen der Türkei in Beziehung zur Einmischung der NATO in Konflikte in Libyen, der Ukraine und Syrien während der Davutoğlu-Jahre

The South Caucasus - Between integration and fragmentation

The South Caucasus is situated at the intersection of Eurasia’s major transport and energy corridors, making it an important geostrategic region. Traditional regional actors Iran, Turkey and Russia have jostled for influence and power in the region for centuries, and are now faced with competition from the EU, China, the US and NATO. Although Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have been independent for more than two decades, they still continue to feel the sway, and sometimes threat, of external actors. As a response, the three South Caucasus states have chosen very different geostrategic paths since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving the region more fragmented and volatile than ever. In this book, various authors offer a deep and broad understanding of the developments in the South Caucasus, analyse the different foreign trajectories that each of the three state is following, and highlight the impact of external actors’ policies

Cyber insurance: the current situation and prospects of development

The aim of the article is to analyze current trends in the development of cyber insurance. The following methods of scientific research were used in the preparation of the article: generalization, correlation analysis, comparative analysis. The authors analyze in detail the main trends in the spread of cybercrime. The correlation analysis between the number of registered cybercrimes in a particular country and its GDP, the number of business entities, indicated the lack of correlation between the studied indicators. It states that the most common types of cybercrime are: hacking, unauthorized access, accidental exposure, insider and physical theft. The sectoral analysis of the distribution of cybercrime has revealed a decrease in the share of financial companies while increasing the share of health care companies. It is noted that cyber insurance is one of the effective preventive measures that minimize the negative effects of cybercrime intervention. The article presents segmentation of the cyber insurance market by geography and size of insurance companies. The results of the analysis showed the dominance of US companies in the cyber insurance market. It is stated that the sectoral distribution of cybersecurity policy purchasers in general follows the trends of the sectoral distribution of cybercrime. The volume of cyber insurance, expenses of insured legal entities is analyzed. The main trends in the development of cyber insurance have been identified. The factors that hold back the development of cyber risk insurance have been identified. The main ones include the following: high level of information entropy in the process of cyber risk assessment, lack of a single standard for filling insurance services in the field of cyber insurance. It is noted that in the medium term the cyber insurance market is prospective for insurance companies. This is caused by the increasing scale of cyber threats and the costs associated with cyberattacks