Chapter 5 focuses on Turkey’s energy policies in the context of the country’s relations with the West. It provides case studies of Turkey’s rejection of full membership status in the Energy Community Treaty (ECT), the reinstating of the Turkish Stream pipeline project with Russia, and Turkey’s refusal to implement the renewed sanctions against Iran. It makes a case that through rejecting its full membership into the Energy Community Treaty without its full accession into the EU and the revived Turkish Stream project with Russia, Turkey engages in challenging the boundaries of its partnership with the EU in the energy sector, using informed strategic noncooperation, cooperative balancing with Russia, and economic statecraft. Turkey has been signaling to the EU that it can undertake alternative projects to the Southern Gas Corridor project, a project of strategic importance for the EU, which would help EU decrease its dependency on Russia. The chapter further illustrates Turkey's boundary breaking against the USA through the evasion of Iran sanctions from 2010 to 2015 and the announcement of its unwillingness to implement the renewed sanctions against Iran.

Against the background of deteriorating EU–Turkey relations and EU’s multiple crises, Turkey has been attempting to use its soft power to consolidate its influence in the Western Balkans and fill a power vacuum left by the EU in the region. Turkey pursues pragmatic Neo-Ottomanism, a Realpolitik, pragmatic and interests-based, rather than ideological, foreign policy in the region. Through active diplomacy and economic statecraft, it seeks to establish itself as an economic and political power in the region before these countries become EU members. As long as Turkey’s accession to the EU remains deadlocked and the Turkish political elites feel alienated from the West, Turkey is tempted to split with the EU to pursue an increasingly independent foreign policy or play a spoiler role in the Western Balkans. Turkey has stepped up its economic, cultural, political, and diplomatic relations with the countries in the region and demanded that priority to be given to regional ownership initiatives and regional economic zones. Turkish foreign policy in the region moves from boundary testing to boundary challenging, as Turkey increasingly competes against the EU for regional influence.

Chapter 4 focuses on the EU–Turkey Syrian refugee deal, which was activated on November 29, 2015. It makes the argument that Turkey used the urgency of the refugee crisis and its position as a major transit country for refugees en route to Europe as leverage to acquire visa liberalization with the EU and bring momentum to its accession negotiation talks. By using active diplomacy and issue-linkage bargaining, Turkey was also able to secure the EU’s commitment to modernization of the Customs Union Agreement and provision of financial support for the welfare and protection of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Upon realizing that the perquisites secured through the deal were not going to materialize due to a multiplicity of reasons, Turkey switched to compellent threats and blackmail and engaged in boundary challenging against the EU. The refugee deal between the EU and Turkey makes it very costly for the EU to ‘lose’ Turkey and will serve as a good litmus test on whether Turkey will switch from challenging to breaking its boundaries with the EU. If the threat of revoking the deal becomes reasonably credible, then it is possible to talk about a switch to boundary breaking.

This chapter analyzes Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia, particularly in security and defense. It analyzes two case studies: Turkey’s declared intent of becoming a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the agreement signed with Russia to buy a missile defense system. It argues that Turkey’s intention to become an SCO member may be labeled as a compellent threat for alternative alliances against the West. Hence, it represents boundary challenging. Furthermore, by signing an agreement to purchase an S-400 missile defense system, Turkey signals to the West that the NATO defense shield system is not the only alternative and engages in collaborative balancing with Russia on defense. Representing boundary breaking against the West, as an S-400 missile defense system would not only be incompatible with the defense network of NATO but also risk intelligence infiltration into NATO’s networks. Turkey signals its resolve to engage in cooperative balancing with Russia, as it does not give in to the threats that its potential F-35 deal with the USA would be jeopardized, uses blackmail power, and makes compellent threats, which indicate a switch to boundary breaking.

The academic literature is abundant with works on Turkey–EU and Turkey–USA–NATO relations. Nevertheless, most of the works in the literature study these topics through descriptive analysis, without the incorporation of any theoretical framework, or through the lenses of Europeanization theory or Constructivism. This chapter identifies the gaps in the existing literature and formulates a framework of intra-alliance opposition. The extant literature on soft balancing is theoretically vague (Brooks and Wohlforth 2005) and lacks rigor in terms of the definition of the tools of statecraft a second-tier power utilizes within an alliance. There is conceptual overlap between different tools that are identified by the IR literature in general, and the soft balancing literature in particular, which leads to conceptual confusion, as they may also be used for different ends, i.e. bargaining, issue linkages, retaliation, and tit-for-tat strategies. Accordingly, Chapter 1 offers a clear delineation of the interactive processes of intra-alliance opposition and offers a framework of intra-alliance opposition.

While the new security environment necessitates an enhanced dialogue between the EU and NATO, since 2004 Turkey opposes NATO’s sharing of sensitive intelligence information with non-NATO EU members that did not sign a bilateral agreement with NATO (i.e. the Republic of Cyprus) on protecting classified information. Through its NATO membership, Turkey constitutes a veto player in the inter-institutional relations between the EU and NATO and engages in boundary-testing strategy using active diplomacy, entangling diplomacy, and issue-linkage bargaining. Turkey engages in boundary challenging through strategic noncooperation and inter-institutional balancing against the EU. The veto gives Turkey a voice against the EU and helps Turkey pursue long-term interests, such as increasing its leverage against the EU in its accession negotiations, resolving the Cyprus problem to its advantage, and getting fully integrated into the European Defence Agency (EDA). The chapter concludes that as long as the uncertainties around Turkey’s EU accession and EDA associate membership remain and the Cyprus conflict remains unresolved, Turkey will continue to challenge its boundaries against the EU.