Turkey's role in the Eisenhower administration's security policy in Western Europe and the Middle East, 1953-60

This thesis discusses how the Eisenhower administration (1953-60) saw Turkey's position in relation to the defence of Western Europe and the Middle East. It argues that the administration's cold war strategy, which envisaged that the US should prevail over the Soviet bloc in the long-term while avoiding a war with the Soviet Union, affected US-Turkish collaboration in security and defence matters in two ways. On the one hand it constituted the basis of US-Turkish co-operation against the perceived Soviet threat. In this context, Washington granted a security guarantee to Turkey, helped it to improve its economic and military posture, preferred that the country's regime remained pro-Western, tried to organise a defence system among the 'northern tier' countries of the Middle East in which Turkey played a leading role, and utilised Turkey's territory, military power and diplomatic service for the attainment of American objectives in the cold war. On the other hand, the American cold water strategy led the US to pay a particular attention to the Soviet security concerns. In American thinking, if US-Turkish collaboration in military and political fields upset the regional status quo, this might provoke a strong Soviet reaction in Europe or in the Middle East. Considering this, the US exercised restraint in its security collaboration with Turkey. Utilising principally declassified American governmental documents, this study reaches the conclusion that the single most important factor that shaped US-Turkish security relations was the American strategic interests in the cold war.