Identification and assessment (prioritization) of geopolitical factors, codes and genomes of Turkey in the formulation of defense policy perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran

The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the (prioritization) of geopolitical factors (fixed and variable), codes and genomes of Turkey in the formulation of defense policy perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefore, it is an applied research of the descriptive depth research type. The statistical population consists of military academic lecturers and experts familiar with the matter comprising two groups of 10 interviewees and 59 questionnaire repliers selected in stratified random sampling method. In this way, the data gathering tools are interviews, researcher-made questionnaires and library studies. The qualitative data was analyzed via content analysis and the hypotheses were tested through descriptive statistics (average coefficient) and inferential statistics (paired comparison and Friedman ranking). The findings suggest the identification of 77 geopolitical factors, codes and genome of Turkey, coded to 34, influencing the formulation of defense policy perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These factors include 9 fixed factors, 5 variable factors and 20 geopolitical codes and genomes which, in order of importance, are: membership of Turkey in NATO and the deployment of missile shield in Turkey, the US-Turkey relations, the political structure of power, foreign policy, the proxy role of Turkey and its relations with Israel. In addition, it was discovered that the geopolitical codes and genomes of Turkey have a significantly greater role and influence in the formulation of defense policy perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran than the fixed and variable geopolitical factors.