This year marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey — a historic occasion for the country which might also mark the beginning of a new and unpredictable chapter for its future.

Since it was born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the tumultuous years of the War of Independence, Turkey has had a long and complicated history with which it had to struggle time and again for its entire existence. Indeed, while international crises and economic catastrophes often threatened its very existence, radical internal divisions and political violence consistently brought the adamant republic to the brink of civil war throughout the past century. Nevertheless, one thing that could always unite the country in its past despite the struggles it had to endure as a nation were the core ideals and principles crafted by M. K. Atatürk, founder of the republic, who is thankfully still widely respected and deeply revered among the population of the republic as a savior and a national hero. In such trying times for world peace as today, however, I am of the opinion that Turkey is beginning to entirely and irreversibly shift away from its noble political history and social culture defined through the famous words “Peace at home, peace in the world” — the defining characteristic of the Turkish ideal for unity and democracy. It is instead evolving, due to seismic shifts in its politics, economics and diplomatic relationships of the past few years, into a new culture of aggression, dominance and suppression through devotion to a kind of ideology that is slowly consuming the republic, eroding away the heritage it used to adhere to.

Today, after 20 years of uninterrupted conservative rule, Turkey is a place radically different from what it used to be like at the beginning of the millennium. In the years that followed since its meteoric rise to power, the incumbent regime in Turkey has almost completely strayed away from the ideals and promises with which it was elected and caused the erosion of many of the fundamental principles of democracy, justice and equality within the republic as a consequence. Another crucial consequence of this phenomenon is the terrifying effects of the failed economic policies of the government throughout its decades-long reign, which includes issues such as hyperinflation, high unemployment and an overall catastrophic decline in the prosperity and livelihood of Turkish citizens and creates national economic crisis.

Throughout these years of reactionary conservative leadership, political and social ideals which were held as fundamental to the modern Republic of Turkey have slowly eroded away as the incumbent government has made and continues to make bold attempts to erase the principles of democracy and Turkish Republicanism brought a century ago to replace them with the ultra-nationalist, religiously fundamentalist and socially divisive ideals created out of a vague mix of its Ottoman past and hard-line Islamic doctrine. More terrifyingly, the most recent elections held last May clearly show that support for such policies has not diminished even in the face of crippling living conditions, a stark rise in poverty among the population or even the infamously mismanaged natural disasters such as the devastating earthquakes from last February, which many expected to be the catalyst for the downfall of the regime at the ballot box.

Such a strange devotion to this ideology is leading me to predict that Turkey is indeed going through a national phenomenon — a political “metamorphosis” that is poised to irreversibly alter the political and social landscape of the country. Devotion to such a surreal ideology from the people themselves is the clear sign of the changes that are yet to come.

The significance of such developments in Turkey comes from the sheer strategic value of the geographic location and military strength of the country itself. Located at the crossroads of three continents and virtually surrounded by conflicts and disputes in which the United States is either directly involved with or exerting its influence by other means, Turkey is a vital strategic ally to the West that appears to slip further and further away into isolationism and an anti-Western outlook.

Meanwhile, bolstered by the desires of the government to exert greater power over the regions immediately surrounding Turkey, the government is investing large sums of money into its arms manufacturing industry as well as the domestic development of the kinds of military equipment that are very much novel to the Turkish military arsenal, such as aircraft carriers, long-range ballistic missiles and unmanned fighter aircraft. These investments can potentially be seen as a propaganda tool to bolster patriotism through self-sufficiency, yet more importantly they also raise concerns about the potential new foreign policy goals of the government where violence and warfare may very well become a means to increase power and influence.

Culturally, politically and diplomatically, Turkey is rapidly shifting away from the ideals on which it was founded by constructing a new national identity that is far more militarist, isolationist and even potentially “revanchist” than ever before. For the sake of maintaining the integrity of its own diplomatic network of alliances, as well as ensuring stability in the region, it is therefore now in the interest of the United States as well as other major powers to keep an eye out for a Turkey that is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable.

Deniz Gulay is a freshman majoring in history.