E.G.

This post from Noam Chomsky is old, but perhaps worth revisiting.  Chomsky says:

The US interest in having Turkey join the EU goes well beyond issues of its resources, etc. Turkey has been a close ally of the US since World War II, serving both as part of the encirclement of the official Cold War enemy — for example, a launching pad for nuclear missiles until they were replaced by more lethal Polaris submarines — but also as part of the ring of peripheral states that protects US interests in the crucial energy-producing regions of the Middle East, along with Iran (under the Shah), Israel (since 1967), Pakistan (intermittently). Israeli-Turkish relations trace back to 1958, but became much closer in later years.  …  [I]t’s assumed [by American policy-makers] that Turkey will be a loyal client, and its entry into the EU, it is expected, will dilute the influence of Germany and France, the economic powerhouses of Europe. It’s been a major concern of US policymakers since World War II that they might lead Europe towards a more independent stance in world affairs. US support for admission of the former Soviet satellites in part traces to similar considerations: they are expected to obey Washington’s orders in a more disciplined way.

Chomsky is here assuming that after joining the E.U., Turkey will continue to be a "loyal client" of the U.S.  Turkey has long acted in American interests — for the narrowly rational reason that it has long been in Turkey’s interests to do so.  If Turkey joins the E.U., it should be expected that its interests will change.  Its situation, and therefore its interests, will more closely resemble those of countries like Germany and France, so I suppose it should be expected that its behavior will more closely resemble that of countries like Germany and France, as well.  Moreover, in joining the E.U., countries like Germany and France will gain more influence over Turkey than Turkey will gain over them.  So if Turkey joins the E.U., America is more likely to lose Turkey to Europe, than Turkey is to win Germany and France for America.

I think Chomsky’s rather quick assessment of this situation reflects a larger tendency in his thinking.  It has seemed to me that Chomsky’s first instinct is to think in terms of slaves and non-slaves, masters and non-masters, client states and superpowers.  There’s nothing wrong with these classifications, as far as they go; there certainly are such things as "American client states," for instance, and Turkey may well be one of them.  But a client state is a client state in virtue of its highly contingent circumstances, not by its nature.  Client states are subservient to superpowers for reasons of their own, and those reasons change when circumstances change, as they must.