4. Competing frames: confrontation logic vs. law‑based guardianship
Taken together, these narrative currents work to replace a sober discussion of legal obligations and de‑escalation instruments with emotionally charged stories about identity, betrayal, and humiliation. Instead of debating Montreux compliance, EEZ security, or the requirements of crisis management, Russian‑linked outlets in Türkiye and far‑right voices in Europe invite audiences to see the Black Sea through the lenses of “reckless” allies, “threatened” Christians, and “restrained” nations allegedly prevented from exercising full sovereignty. [1]
This shift dovetails with the dual‑logic schema developed in earlier AVİM work: a confrontation logic, which interprets the region primarily through NATO–Russia rivalry and civilizational rhetoric, and an order logic, which centers Türkiye’s implementation of treaty commitments and measured guardianship over the Straits. By casting law‑based restraint as either weakness or capitulation to hostile “globalist” norms, these information campaigns seek to delegitimize the order logic itself, thereby lowering political and societal resistance to escalatory or revisionist moves that would erode the very legal architecture that has so far contained the conflict’s spillover into the Black Sea.[2]
[1] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “GUARDIANSHIP UNDER PRESSURE: DRONE ESCALATION, RUSSIAN MILITARIZATION, AND TÜRKIYE’S LEGAL ORDER IN THE BLACK SEA,”
[2] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “At the Crossroads: Türkiye and the Battle for Black Sea Order,”