On 
Monday 
evening, 
the 
Weiser 
Center 
for 
Emerging 
Democracies organized a lecture 
titled “Hegemon Risen: Turkey’s 
Emergence as an Independent 
Authoritarian 
State” 
with 
support from the Donia Human 
Rights Center, the University of 
Michigan Department of History, 
the Michigan War Studies Group 
and the International Institute. 
The audience consisted of about 
50 people, both students and 
professors. 
Michael 
Hickok, 
an 
FBI 
assistant special agent-in-charge 
in the Las Vegas Division with a 
Ph.D. in Ottoman history from 
the University, was the lecture’s 
keynote speaker.
Fatma Müge Göçek, professor 
of sociology and women’s studies, 
began the event by introducing 
Hickok’s background in Ottoman 
history and work with the FBI. 

Hickock said he conceived 
of the idea for this lecture two 
decades ago. 
“The Hegemonic Rise piece 
comes out of something I did 
approximately twenty years ago,” 
Hickok said. “I was sitting and 
doing some thinking about some 
pieces I had done previously in 
Turkey in the context of what was 
changing in Turkey in that period 
and I speculated a little on where I 
thought things were going, sitting 
in 2000.”
Hickok asserted that very little 
of what is happening in Turkish 
politics is happening for the first 
time. He mentioned a piece he 
wrote in 2001, where he analyzed 
the political and economic history 
in Northern Iraq to get a broader 
understanding of the situation. 
“In taking it back to the 
Ottoman 
times, 
through 
the 
British, through what Saddam 
was trying to do, I would suggest 
to you that the themes are very 
similar,” 
Hickok 
said. 
“The 

mistakes that we made in our 
policy, the mistakes that the 
Ottomans made, the mistakes that 
the British had made in trying to 
make an economy in Iraq.”
Hickok 
also 
contrasted 
1990s Turkey and present-day 
Turkey. He spoke about Turkey’s 
newfound willingness to invade 
other 
countries, 
which 
has 
contributed to Turkey’s rise as a 
hegemon. 
“(Turkey’s) previous strategic 
planning had been based on 
somebody else invading them,” 
Hickok said. “But they spent much 
of the 2000s, and more recently 
last week, invading other people. 
They are comfortable doing that 
in a way they would not have been 
prior to 1998.”
Hickok further emphasized 
that Turkey’s previous view as 
a bridge to get somewhere else 
and not be somewhere to go has 
changed and that this change 
in perspective has led Turkey 
to recognize itself as a regional 
power. 
“Now Turkey no longer 
sees itself as this thing 
that people use to get to 
somewhere else,” Hickok 
said. “It is, in itself, an 
independent security actor 
within the area.”
In an interview with 
The Daily after the event, 
LSA sophomore Alp Yel, 
executive board member 
of 
the 
Turkish 
Student 
Association, said he believes 
Turkey can indeed become 
a significant regional power 
in the future.
“If 
Turkey 
plays 
its 
moves right it can become 
a regional power,” Hickok 
said. “Turkey has to strike 
a balance between its own 
goals and political ties with 
its allies and neighbors.”
To conclude the lecture, 
Hickok said he believed that 
though there are changes 
coming in the future in 
regards to Turkey’s internal 
politics, 
the 
relationship 
between 
Turkey 
and 
the United States is still 
uncertain. 

“Whether in the end (these 
internal 
changes) 
bring 
us 
to a better relationship with 
Washington or whether it makes 
Turkey 
a 
more 
predictable 
security actor within the region,” 
Yel said. “I think it is something 
that has not been decided and I 
think that it is very hard right now 
from the Americans’ point of view, 
due to the nature of our relation, 
to see that. We are in a position 
where it is very hard for us to see 
what’s going on internally.”
At the end of the lecture, 
audience members were able to 
ask Hickok questions.
In response to a question 
regarding whether the change 
in Turkey’s military strategy is a 
reflection of the Ottoman legacy, 
Hickok said Turkey was almost 
semi-isolating 
the 
Ottoman 
legacy and recognizing itself as a 
Eurasian power. 
“(Turkey) is almost turning its 
back on the Ottoman tradition and 
Ottoman history,” Hickok said. “If 
anything, (Turkey) is integrating 
with the West.”
Finally, Hickok was asked how 
powers like the Moscow, Tehran 
and Baghdad reacted to Turkey’s 
assertion 
as 
an 
independent 
power as compared to the United 
States.
“So it’s been a different dynamic 
because the Russians, the Iraqis 
have had a different relationship 
with Turkey than Washington,” 
Hickok said. “So for Iraq, to see 
Turkey as an independent security 
actor is less of a concern than the 
internal issues within Iraq right 
now. So they can’t do anything 
about Turkey’s interference in 
Northern Iraq and so are more or 
less set with kind of negotiating it 
out.” 
LSA senior Selin Levi said after 
the lecture she thinks Turkey is 
indeed becoming an unpredictable 
hegemonic power.
“Turkey’s rise to a hegemonic 
power has made the future 
uncertain,” 
Levi 
said. 
“With 
its military action in Syria, it is 
becoming increasingly hard to 
predict what sort of actor it will 
become in the future.”

2 — Tuesday, October 29, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

OLIVIA CELL/Daily
Michael Hickok, Las Vegas Division Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, discusses his thoughts on Turkish-American relations at the WCED lecture 
at Weiser Hall Monday afternoon.

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Weiser Center hosts event on Turkey 
with Ottoman history expert speaker
FBI special agent lectures on emergence of nation as a hegemonic state

NAVYA GUPTA
For the Daily 

