Routledge Companion to Global Cyber-Security Strategy

33BETWEEN MULTI-STAKEHOLDERISM AND CYBER SOVEREIGNTY

Understanding Turkey’s cybersecurity strategy

Tuba Eldem

Introduction

The mysterious explosions at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline attack near the eastern Turkish city of Erzincan in August 2008 may be considered as a “cyber wake-up call for Turkey” (Kasapoğlu, 2015: 13–14). The fire caused by an explosion without triggering any sensors or alarms happened on August 5, 2008 two days before the conflict between Russia and Georgia began over the South Ossetia region. Although it was ruled at the time to be an accident resulting from a mechanical failure, the subsequent investigations linked it to a cyber attack, which according to some sources “rewrites the history of cyber war” (Robertson ...