Turkey, the Biggest Global Danger

Ankara today is also more expansionist and independent-minded. In recent months, Turkey has faced possible sanctions from the US and EU for its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system and over its maritime assertiveness in the eastern Mediterranean.

The biggest danger facing Europe and the world today is not the coronavirus, but the virus of authoritarian culture spread by illiterate and populist leaders,” Foreign minister under Mr Erdogan from 2009 to 2014 and prime minister from 2014 to 2016, Mr Ahmet Davutoglu said last week, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the novel coronavirus that has killed an estimated 1.25 million people worldwide.

In September, Mr Davutoglu warned that Turkey’s power projection in the eastern Mediterranean risked military conflict. Yet if the former prime minister is ever going to win the broad and sustained support he needs to mimic Mr Biden’s path to power, he will have to shoulder some of the blame for Turkey and its current leader posing such grave danger to the world.

Mr Erdogan and Mr Davutoglu are thought to have fallen out in 2016 over Turkey’s new presidential system, leading to the latter’s resignation. Turkish aggressiveness at sea and across the region is part of a post-Davutoglu foreign policy known as Mavi Vatan, or “Blue Homeland”.

Ankara has backed Islamists in Syria, Libya, the Gaza Strip and Qatar. It is also one of the leading supporters of Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in Europe.