Turkey has clearly stated its ambitions in overtaking large parts of land that it believes belongs to them through the legacy of the Ottoman empire. Through Erdogans AKP party coalition governement, threats have been raised against Armenia, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus, Lebanon and as far as the balkans that Turkey wishes to reclaim former occupied territories. Erdogan has spoken about this not so subtly in his "borders within our hearts"-speech, claiming the Turks could not be content with the territories given to them during the Laussane-agreement.
Many politicians in Turkey have made aggressive statements regarding how they believe greek inhabited islands that used to be occupied by Italy belongs to Turkey by right. These same aggressive moves are made in referral towards the extention of maritime borders according to international law, something turkey doesnt seem to mind using in its favour whenever it benefits them but otherwise object to.
Turkey has entered the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq as well as Syria to attack kurdish millitias and also to support their own proxy armies. It seems now these moves are starting to come together in a plot to overtake syrian oil fields permanently. The US refused to aid their former allied kurds in northern Syria against this Turkish incursion, most likely viewing the kurds as merely a useful tool against Assads government in Syria.
So why is this expansionism possible now and have never been before? Largely due to the fact that there are no clear challenger to Turkeys power in the middle east. Iran is the one possible contender, but they are being fully sanctioned now by the US, and also have their own issues with kurish separatists, and not to mention Azeri separatists, who might be loyal to Turkey should a conflict between the two arise.
The other possible contender is Saudi Arabia, and despite having conflicts with Turkey before, it is unlikely that Saudi Arabia will be able to diversify their economy in the coming years. This likely leading to their country stepping down in the future from the world stage or even dissolving in the future. Egypt is another country who will face many issues in the coming 10-20 years, dealing with problems such as overcrowding, illiteracy, missmanged government funds and poverty.
Israel and Turkey have challenged each other before in politicised spats, but the countries have despite these photogenic news stories very good relationships, most likely due to the fact that both countries are protected by the US.
This brings us to the main point of this story, why is Turkey expanding now? The US has been scaling down somewhat regarding its actions in the middle east due to the superpower becoming self sufficient in oil on its own and thus not needing to control the region to the same extent. They have always needed Turkey as a base to ward of the eastern block, and now russia and therefore always kept Turkey in their pockets. Now that Turkey begins to threaten EU members, and fellow NATO members such as Greece, it would be easy to imagine Turkey would be sanctioned.
Wrong. Germany has invested heavily in Turkish businesses and they dont have any interest in protecting Greece over their investments in Turkey. German authorities presume if they play their cards right, a turkish invasion and division of greek territory will benefit them largely as well if they can manage to get a piece of the pie, due to heavy debt owed by Greece to Turkey.
There is only one thing that is stopping Turkey from going to war with its neighbours - the turkish lira. The Turkish lira has been on a steady slope for a number of years now and have plummeted even more heavily during the recent winds of war brewing up in the region. The Turkish government know they need to settle their issues with currency until they can fulfill any of their irrendist ambitions.
As you might have guessed by now, that is where crypto comes in. Turkish ordinary citizens have embraced Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies due to the crisis of the lira and are trying to tie down their assets in digital currency due to their ordinary currency is rapidly becoming useless. The government of Turkey however have not fully understood the benefits crypto could have to their country and are therefore likely to miss out on their dreams of plunder.
