The Turkish Military and the US (II)
From Ihsan Dagi’s column:
It is often said that Turkish-American relations have never been redefined according to the new circumstances that followed the end of the Cold War. It is true that the old paradigm of security cooperation based on a shared threat emanating from the Soviet Union and international communism no longer justifies the alliance. Since then the Turkish military has gone through a mental transformation in which its threat perception has changed. Now the Turkish military’s central security question is highly political. As expressed many times by the high command, including the incoming Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, the main concern is the preservation of the Turkish “nation state.” They feel that the notion of a unitary nation state is under threat. What can be done against such a threat? It is virtually impossible to identify its source. And even if this is done successfully, it is almost inconceivable to wage a war against it, since the perceived threat involves social, political and economic actors, rather than enemy militaries. Social and economic forces that act globally cannot be controlled. This is the predicament of the Turkish military’s current threat perception. No one, including a superpower like the US, can address their fear about the future of the nation state.
Demands for greater human rights, democratization, pluralism, minority rights and the dynamics of globalization are all feared to weaken the nation state. The identified source of these evils is the West. The military’s unease, therefore, is not directed just at the US, but at the West at large. The West, which views supporting democracy that brings the “Islamists” to power, demands human rights that protect the “terrorists” and asks for minority rights that encourage “Kurdish separatism,” is no longer seen as an ally, but as the adversary. The result is simple; The Turkish military’s priorities, needs and threat perceptions fundamentally differ from those of the West. The negative perception of the West by the military is therefore structural, not circumstantial.
How is this situation different than what happened during the cold war? “Social awakening is overtaking economic development, this ought to be stopped”[1] is one famous quote from a — decidedly pro-US — general as the period of turmoil between 1970-80 was kicked off. No doubt, Zaman columnists would have us believe that “social awakening” was simply code for the military might of the Red Army back then. It is grossly disingenuous to imply that what used to be a perception of a military threat during the cold war has changed into a domestic and political one now. It is, rather, simply that the present domestic political situation with the AKP (unlike their predecessor, Refah Party, which was hit by a ‘post-modern’ coup and shut down with Europe’s blessing and unlike the Turkish left that was decimated by the army during the cold war) suits the powers that be abroad.
The underlying tacit assumption that “the West” takes a truly principled and uniform stance on issues concerning civil and political liberties in Turkey is ludicrously naive. They clearly don’t, nor should they be realistically expected to. There’s nothing especially dirty or surprising about this since those Western politicians and governments are not answerable to the Turkish public whose civil liberties are at stake. What is truly surprising, however, is the ease with which this kind of propaganda about the West is fed back to the Westerners by locals who clearly ought to know better. I, as a techie, am amazed at the influence some Turkish social scientists have on sophisticated western audiences when it should be obvious that their view of ‘the West’ is basically that of an ROTC cadet. I don’t think the people in uniform here are that simple-minded.
[1] I couldn’t find a source in English for this. The quote is from gen. Memduh Tagmac from around 1971.