The Anatomy of Turkish Anti-Americanism

The Architecture of Turkey’s Anti-Americanism

Threat Assessment · June 2026

Turkey buys American engines to power the fighter built to end its dependence on America. That is not a contradiction. It is the doctrine, and the threat.

Read the findings ↓ Explore the package

21

Organizations mapped

5

Ideological clusters, one still transatlantic

2023

SETA’s founder became Turkey’s spy chief

$1.4B

Pre-paid for F-35s never delivered

The Research Package

Start here: the full body of work

This page is the hub for the Middle East Forum’s assessment of Turkey’s think-tank ecosystem. The report comes in two parts, with companion data and commentary. Each component below links to its page on meforum.org.

Part I · The ArgumentEnding the Subsidy. The full threat assessment: the five-logic doctrine, the think-tank machine, the operating system, the threat to U.S. interests, and the policy recommendations. Part II · The Evidence BaseThe Intellectual Architecture of Turkish Foreign Policy. The underlying 21-organization study, with the four-pillar U.S.-posture analysis and the conclusion matrix. 21 Organizational DossiersA searchable profile of every organization: identity, leadership, funding, output, four-pillar posture, media footprint, and the personnel pipeline into the state. The Network MatrixAn interactive map: the posture spectrum, the think-tank-to-state pipeline graph, and filterable organization, personnel, and strategic-implications tables. Published CommentaryThe lead essay in the Middle East Forum Observer, plus the companion op-ed in Ynetnews on anchoring U.S. Caucasus strategy on Azerbaijan.

The series. Every component above is published on meforum.org as part of The Architecture of Turkey’s Anti-Americanism.

The Doctrine

Compartmentalized hostility

To a Western observer it looks like cognitive dissonance: a state that brands the United States an imperial threat and a sponsor of terrorism, while lobbying to buy F-16s, demanding readmission to the F-35 program, and powering its proudest national project, the KAAN fighter, with American GE engines. Inside the Turkish establishment, there is no contradiction. Ankara separates the future it wants from the present it is stuck with, and manages the gap with five logics.

1

The engine bottleneck

Turkey can build a stealth airframe but not its turbofan. The indigenous TEI-TF35000 is 10+ years out, so the KAAN flies on the American GE F110: a rented ladder across the period of vulnerability.

2

The Aegean math

After the 2019 F-35 expulsion, Greece bought 24 Rafales, upgraded its F-16s to Viper, and won approval for up to 40 F-35s. By 2030 Athens holds the edge. Only American jets close the gap.

3

The “stolen property” narrative

A Level-3 F-35 partner that machined about 900 parts and pre-paid roughly $1.4B reframes begging as recovering stolen goods: we paid for these jets; America is a pirate state.

4

The bazaar

Every issue sits in its own stall. “We will pay you billions for your hardware, but we will not buy your foreign policy.” Hardware and loyalty, deliberately decoupled.

5

Keeping the U.S. “in the tent”

Multibillion-dollar contracts entangle the U.S. defense-industrial base in Turkey’s prosperity, buying lobbying leverage inside Washington against the pressure Washington might apply.

↻

The tell

A state that merely disliked America would not manage its dependence this carefully. A state that intends to outgrow America does exactly that.

“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Turkey’s planners read the line and took it as a procurement strategy.

The Machine

Turkey’s think-tank state

Anti-Americanism in Turkey is not improvised at the podium. It is researched, drafted, and rehearsed inside a layered ecosystem of policy institutes, family foundations, and a state-owned defense house, then carried into the presidency, the foreign ministry, and the intelligence service by the same people who write it.

The incubators

ASSAM and SDE draft the maximalist blueprints: ASSAM’s “ASRICA” model constitution for an Islamic confederation built to replace NATO, under the slogan “USA… Get Out.” They push the Overton window toward the collapse of the West.

The firebrands

Parliamentary voices deliver the conspiratorial, overtly hostile speeches that mobilize the nationalist base. They are the “id” of the state.

The technocrats

Kalın, FM Fidan, and SETA scholars deliver cold, institutional critiques calibrated for Washington’s ear, signaling that Turkey’s grievances are structural, not emotional.

The pendulum

Erdoğan calls the U.S. complicit in genocide one morning and negotiates an F-16 sale the next, using the anti-Americanism his subordinates manufacture as leverage.

The Network

21 organizations, five clusters

This Middle East Forum report maps the ecosystem from the apex pro-government shops to the marginalized transatlantic holdouts. Posture toward the United States, color-coded.

OrganizationRoleCore U.S. posture

Ideological Vanguard : direct AKP / state extensions

SETA

Apex pro-government shop; personnel conveyor into the state

Declining hegemon · strategic autonomy

ORSAM

Middle East specialist (MFA-aligned since 2014)

Ally harming Turkey via the YPG

SDE

Islamist-conservative “New Turkey” institute

Imperial, declining, “Gülen harbor”

Radical & Eurasianist Doctrinaires

ASSAM (+ PMC SADAT)

Drafts “ASRICA” Islamic confederation to replace NATO

Existential threat · “USA Get Out”

ANKASAM

Eurasianist; amplifies “Asia Anew”

Hegemon to be balanced (Russia/China)

Marmara Group

Eurasian Economic Summit; track-two soft power

Balancer / dialogue (not anti-U.S.)

Family & Grassroots Pipelines

TÜGVA / TÜRGEV

Erdoğan-family cadre engines; “pious generation”

Anti-U.S. (2016 surveillance memo)

İLKE

Islamist intellectual ecosystem (no family tie)

Anti-Eurocentric / civilizational

KADEM

Gender-policy GONGO (Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar)

Contests U.S./UN/EU norms

Bureaucratic & Legacy Nationalist

STM ThinkTech

Foresight arm of the state defense firm STM

U.S. = unreliable supplier, indigenize

TASAM · BİLGESAM · TESAM

Convening, security and academic nationalist shops

Multipolar · “Blue Homeland”

Aydınlar Ocağı

Author of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis

Cultural anti-Westernism

Transatlantic Holdouts & Insiders (comparative baseline)

EDAM · GRF · TEPAV · FPI

Independent, business-aligned, pro-NATO

Indispensable but strained ally

Ankara Institute

Former-insider critical-conservative

Not pro-West · Valdai-engaged

ASAM (closed 2008)

Legacy nationalist/Eurasianist (historical anchor)

State-security, never transatlantic

Full per-organization dossiers (leadership, funding, output, four-pillar U.S. posture, controversies) and a personnel/network matrix are published as part of the series.

The Operating System

Why it outlasts Erdoğan

This is not one man’s temper. Turkish anti-Americanism has migrated into the operating system of the state, running on layers no single election will switch off.

Sèvres Syndrome 2.0

The 1920 trauma of attempted Western partition, updated: the U.S. arming Syria’s Kurds reads as a “Modern Sèvres,” and the 2016 coup as Washington’s attempt to destroy the Turkish state.

The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis

Islamist grievance (Milli Görüş) fused after 2016 with secular-nationalist Eurasianism. Opposing America becomes at once a religious duty and a security imperative: bulletproof.

Strategic autonomy

A judgment that the unipolar moment is over. Decoupling from U.S. supply chains is framed as decolonization: breaking Washington’s “kill-switch” over Turkish weapons.

Domestic utility

An omnipotent “supreme mastermind” (Washington) to blame for the lira and the opposition. Anti-Americanism is now the litmus test of Turkish patriotism.

The Threat to U.S. Interests

Concrete and compounding

Defense

A Russian S-400 inside NATO airspace; an indigenization drive built to end U.S. leverage; and American B61 nuclear weapons still at Incirlik, on the soil of a government that threatens to close the base. As of mid-2026, Turkey remains F-35-barred.

Intelligence

The MİT is led by the architect of the “America orchestrated the coup” narrative. Cooperation on Syria and ISIS detainees carries a counterintelligence cost, and the family-foundation network has proposed surveilling dissidents abroad “in coordination with” the service.

Diplomacy

NATO access used against the alliance: slow-walking Finland and Sweden, proxy operations against U.S. partners, and building the convening infrastructure of a post-American bloc with Russia, China, and the Turkic states.

The danger is not that Turkey leaves NATO. It is that Turkey stays, and uses the access membership confers to assemble the order designed to replace it.

What Washington Should Do

End one-way compartmentalization

The fix is not a rupture. It is symmetry: take Ankara at its word that hardware and politics are separable, and apply the rule in reverse. Charge full price, in conduct, not just cash.

1. Condition every advanced capability on measurable conduct. No F-35 readmission while a Russian S-400 sits on Turkish soil: removed and verified, not “managed.” Tie new F-16s and engine cooperation to behavior toward U.S. forces and partners in Syria.
2. Remove the B61 nuclear weapons from Incirlik. Do not leave a hostage on the table.
3. Treat the intelligence relationship with open eyes. Scope cooperation realistically and bring U.S. and allied law against transnational repression on Western soil.
4. Apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act to the U.S.-based foundation affiliates and the Washington arms of the state-aligned think tanks.
5. Stop ceding the convening space in the Turkic world, the Caucasus, and Africa. Compete with presence, not press releases.
6. Resource the transatlantic holdouts: EDAM, GRF, TEPAV, FPI. Washington spends fortunes on hardware for Ankara and pennies on the Turks who want the alliance to work. Reverse the ratio.

Evidence & Sources

Primary sources and published commentary

Read the full series. The two-part report, the 21 organizational dossiers, and the interactive network matrix are published on meforum.org as part of The Architecture of Turkey’s Anti-Americanism.

Published commentary. The argument is also live in two articles: “The Architecture of Turkey’s Anti-Americanism” (Middle East Forum), and “US No Longer Needs Turkey to Shape the Caucasus’ Future” (Ynetnews).

A note on sourcing. Institutional and personnel findings are drawn from primary-source organizational material, Turkish and Western press, and academic literature, and independently verified, including all defense-procurement figures. Key primary sources are linked below.

ASSAM”Why ASSAM” and ASRICA congress declarations”World gendarmerie”; “USA… Get Out”; “imperialist Western states.”

SDE”The US Hand-in-Hand with Terrorists”; “European States and the USA Are Collapsing”On U.S. backing of the YPG and Western “collapse.”

SETA”PKK/YPG’s State Dream in Syria”Alleges a U.S.-built Kurdish statelet.

ORSAManalyses of the 2026 U.S./Israel-Iran war: 3 Mar and 8 Apr 2026Frames the U.S. as initiator of the 2026 Iran war.

SETA Security Radar”Türkiye’s Geopolitical Landscape in 2026”Names the U.S./SDF partnership the “most significant structural crisis.”

ANKASAM”The Rise of BRICS and the Multipolar Order”On multipolarity and the decline of U.S. hegemony.

KADEM”We United Muslim Civil Society Leaders in New York”Organizing Muslim civil society against Western NGO norms.

Originally published by Middle East Forum. Read at the original outlet →