Strategic Depth

From “brilliant” and “a geopolitics schoolbook” to “Neo-Ottomanist”; from “a milestone in statehood” to a cunning plan to re-conquer the region. Turkish Prime Minister’s book on Turkish foreign policy, Stratejik Derinlik (“Strategic Depth”) has enjoyed mixed reception in Bulgaria and neighboring countries for years - well before it was translated.

Having appeared in 2001, the book has had 45 editions in Turkish but has been translated only into a few other languages. In Europe, to name a few, these include Greek, Serbian, Albanian, Romanian and Italian - the English version is still to appear.

The book is 600 pages long, very dense and almost certainly more known than read. One of Davutoglu’s aides describes the book as “mesmerizing.” (Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at Lehigh University, pronounces the work “mumbo jumbo,” adding that Davutoglu “thinks of himself as God.”) “Strategic Depth” weaves elaborate connections between Turkey’s past and present, and among its relations in the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Balkans and elsewhere. The book was read as a call for Turkey to seize its destiny.