A Three-level Analysis of Turkey's Crisis with the U.S.-led Order

Starting in 2013, Turkish-American relations have been undergoing one of the deepest and most alarming crises since the 1940s. Ankara, a NATO member and U.S. ally for more than six decades, not only defies U.S. interests in the Middle East, as in the cases of Iran and Syria, it also works with Russia on many strategic issues, such as buying high-tech weapons, building a nuclear power plant, and negotiating the Syrian crisis. In order to explain why Turkey, as a subordinate actor in the U.S.-led order, pursues policies that are incongruent with U.S. interests, this paper employs a hierarchy approach in order to identify when and why subordinate states challenge the lead state and its rules and dictates.