Sinem Adar, Associate, Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, sinem.adar@swp.berlin.org
This is part of the MENA Politics Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020. Download the PDF of this piece here.
Since 2016, Turkish foreign policy has markedly shifted from soft power policies of the early 2010s towards a hard power approach manifesting at numerous fronts. These include unilateral military incursions into Northern Syria in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and the deployment of Turkish warships to guard drilling activities in Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It also includes the signing of EEZ and military supports agreements with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), along with shipments of arms and contributions of Turkish troops and Syrian fighters to support the GNA in late 2019. Turkey’s new military bases in the Middle East and North Africa, including in Qatar, further underline this hard power shift. These moves line Turkey firmly up against rivals from Russia to United Arab Emirates to Greece.
Scholars and experts have offered numerous explanations for Turkey’s increasing use of military power. Some emphasize President Erdoğan’s efforts to maintain domestic popularity.[i] Others point to Ankara’s attempts to recalibrate Turkey’s position in a changing regional order, especially given the increasing insufficiencies of soft power politics to do so.[ii] Still others highlight identity-based shifts rooted in Islamist, neo-Ottomanist, and nationalist ideologies.[iii] As important and influential as these factors are to understand Turkey’s changing foreign policy, they are not sufficient to explain the timing of this shift, nor how it compares with earlier periods in which threats of military invasion and cross-border operations played a significant role. This short essay focuses on the effects of the 2016 coup attempt to shed light on the question of timing, and provides insight into continuities and ruptures with the past.
A focus on domestic factors is a useful lens for understanding Turkey’s foreign policy choices.[iv] Domestic events can strongly shape perceptions of threat, attitudes toward alliances, and definition of interests. The 2016 coup attempt shows how such domestic events bring familiar characteristics of Turkish politics into sharper relief, not only providing the ruling elites with the justification for a shift to hard power but also triggering a re-configuration of intra-state alliances in ways which placed narrow interests in the driving seat of foreign policy.
Still, as important as the coup attempt was for vindicating and mobilizing militarization, without the growth of the defense industry since the 1980s, a shift to a militaristic foreign policy would not have been practically possible. Reinforcing Ankara’s self-perceptions of power, an indigenous military-industry complex motivates the ruling elites’ reckless readiness to simultaneously fight at different fronts. In short, Turkey’s new expansionist foreign policy has been enabled not only by the coup attempt but also by the decades-long developments in the defense industry.
The coup attempt: justification and mobilization of militarization
In a speech he delivered in October 2016 to muhtars – locally elected heads of villages and city neighborhoods, President Erdoğan announced that Turkey’s national security policy had fundamentally changed: “We have lost many generations in the fight against terrorism and in fratricides. We no longer want to carry the can. From now on, we will not wait until the threats are at our borders. We will no longer wait for the terrorist organizations to attack us; yet we will beat them to death wherever they mobilize.”[v] An attempt to pull up Turkey by its own bootstraps, Ankara’s military incursion into Al-Bab (Syria) in 2016 was, Erdoğan noted in the same speech, part of this new policy. Based on the idea of “defending the territory and area” (savunma sathı), the new policy, he continued, was an adoption of the military strategy that had brought victory in the Turkish Independence War during 1919-1923.
Hard power is not exactly new, given Ankara’s historical record. Military threats in 1998 to invade Syria due to its support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), cross-border operations in Iraq throughout the 1990s, the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and threats in 1936 and 1937 to invade Syria over a border dispute issue illustrate this. Linking the foreign to the domestic enables an understanding of how Turkish foreign policy has, since the establishment of the republic in 1923, been shaped by a collective anxiety over the state’s perseverance (devletin bekası).[vi] The coup attempt accentuated this anxiety, providing the justification for the necessity of using hard power to defuse threats. The belief that the West, particularly the US, did not show enough solidarity with Turkey during the coup attempt added to an already existing sense of loneliness that had been triggered by disagreements over US support in the fight against ISIS for Syrian Kurdish forces, which Turkey considers an off-shoot of the PKK. Combined, these anxieties intensified the sense of an increasing need for self-help and independency.
The coup attempt has also been central in re-configuring alliances within the state apparatus, making narrow interests more central to foreign policy choices. The ground for this was somewhat laid following the June 2015 parliamentary elections, when, for the first time since 2002, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority due to the Kurdish and left-leaning Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) unprecedented passing of the 10% electoral threshold. Lacking the votes for a single-party government, the AKP went into a de facto alliance with the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and ramped up its own nationalist rhetoric. Soon after, the so-called Peace Process with the PKK came to a halt, armed conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK resumed, and AKP regained its majority in the November 2015 snap elections thanks to the votes that it gained from the MHP base. MHP’s support to the AKP has since then been the key in Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary system to a presidential one providing Erdoğan with expansive powers.
The MHP is, however, not alone in its support to Erdoğan. Following the coup attempt, the AKP incorporated various political and security factions that share a strong commitment to Turkey’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, despite partisan and ideological differences. Even though the background negotiations and compromises that led these factions to support President Erdoğan against the coup plotters will remain unclear in the near future, it is clear that the coup attempt presented these various groups a unique opportunity for logrolling. Erdoğan’s personal ambition to remain in power conveniently overlapped with the increasing national security concerns as well as power aspirations of these actors, bringing Ottomanist ideals side by side with Eurasianist[vii] and ultranationalist ones. By positioning himself as the embodiment of the will of “those who truly belong to the nation” (yerli ve milli) and as the charismatic defender of Turkey’s territorial integrity, President Erdoğan became in July 2016 the “commander in chief” of Turkey’s so-called second Independence War.[viii] Since then, the AKP’s militarism has intensified, going beyond a sole focus on preventing the so-called Kurdish threat at the Syrian border.
Defense industry as the enabling factor
Expansionist foreign policy aspirations do not necessarily imply an actual or perceived capacity to act on them. Without the cumulative growth in the defense industry over the last four decades, a pronounced shift to the current hard power approach would not have been possible. If the US embargo on arms sales following Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974 was the first moment when Ankara realized the importance of a native defense industry to protect national interests, the end of the Cold War prompted a further recalculation that necessitated modifying Turkey’s position in a changing world order. The volatile situation in the neighboring countries and the armed conflict with the PKK prompted Turkey to continue its defense investments during the 1990s. The same period also witnessed the establishment of new joint ventures between Turkish and Western companies.
Building on these earlier developments, the industry continued to grow rapidly under the AKP rule. Between 2010 and 2018, part of the period that overlapped with the seeming “soft power” era, Turkish military expenditure increased steadily from 13 billion USD to 22 billion USD.[ix] Aviation and defense exports rose from an annual 1.388 billion in 2013 to 2.035 billion in 2018,[x] with around 60 percent of the aviation and defense products currently produced domestically.[xi] These developments are an evident source of pride for government officials. At public events, for instance, they often praise home-made drones produced by Baykar Savunma, a firm owned by the family of President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, Selçuk Bayraktar, and by Turkish Aerospace Industries. The latter was first established in 1984 as a joint venture between Turkish and US partners, and restructured in 2005 with the acquisition of foreign shares by Turkish partners.[xii] Turkish drones have attracted international attention in the last few years, especially following their increasing deployment in Syria and Libya. The Turkish navy has also been an important pillar of Ankara’s power aspirations in recent years, evidenced particularly by maneuvers in the Eastern Mediterranean.[xiii] In short, the growth over time of an indigenous defense industry and, equally if not more important, the sense of power that it has reinforced in Ankara generates an aggressive stance and readiness for military action in multiple spheres.
Is Turkey’s militaristic foreign policy sustainable?
Ankara’s recent foreign policy choices were prompted by the coup attempt, which not only provided justification for the necessity of an increased militarism beyond national borders, but also placed foreign policy choices in the hands of narrow interests. A full understanding of these choices would, however, be incomplete without taking into account the changes in the defense industry since 1980s. The sustainability of Turkey’s hard power approach in the medium-to-long term is highly questionable, however, given the limitations that domestic factors also can pose. The rapid weakening of state institutions since the coup attempt, Erdoğan’s growing legitimacy crisis in the aftermath of the 2019 municipal elections, the fragility of intra-state alliances, and last, but not least, a growing economic crisis – one that COVID-19 is already exacerbating – risk a clash between aspirations and realities.
[i] Kingsley, Patrick. 2019. “The World Condemns Erdogan’s War on Kurds. But Turkey Applauds.” New York Times. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/Turkey-Kurds-Erdogan.html.
[ii] Karsikaya, Birol Altiok & Karsikaya, Sinan. 2017. “Recalibrating Turkish Foreign Policy After the Arab Uprisings: From Pro-Activism to Uncertainty by Easing Off Ideational and Liberal Goals.” In Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Turkey Transformed? Power, History and Culture. Edited by Meltem Ersoy & Esra Ozyurek. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Pp: 145-161
[iii] Ozkan, Behlul. 2014. “Turkey, Davutoglu, and the Idea of Pan-Islamism.” Survival 56 (4); Taspinar, Omer. 2008. “Turkey’s Middle East Policies: Between Neo-Ottomanism and Kemalism.” Carnegie Papers 10; Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2008/10/07/turkey-s-middle-east-policies-between-neo-ottomanism-and-kemalism-pub-22209; Hintz, Lisel. 2018. Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; Danforth, Nick. 2016. “Turkey’s New Maps are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire.” Foreign Policy. Available at https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/23/turkeys-religious-nationalists-want-ottoman-borders-iraq-erdogan/.
[iv] Synder, Jack. 1991. Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Also see Sonmez, Goktug. 2017. The Interplay between international and domestic factors in Turkey’s grand strategy-making. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London.
[v] “Bu Ülkede Artık Kimsenin Yaptığı İhanet Yanına Kâr Kalmayacak”, Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaskanligi, 19.10.2016. Accessible at https://www.tccb.gov.tr/haberler/410/55684/bu-ulkede-artik-kimsenin-yaptigi-ihanet-yanina-kr-kalmayacak.html.
[vi] Göçek, Fatma Müge. 2011. The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. London, UK: I.B. Tauris.
[vii] Akturk, Sener. 2015. “The Fourth Style of Politics: Eurasianism as a Pro-Russian Rethinking of Turkey’s Geopolitical Identity.” Turkish Studies 16(1): 54-79. Gurcan, Metin. 2017. “The Rise of the Eurasianist vision in Turkey.” Al-Monitor. Available at https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/turkey-rise-of-euroasianist-vision.html.
[viii] Bargu, Banu. 2018. “Year One: Reflections on Turkey’s Second Founding and the Politics of Division.” Critical Times 1(1): 23-48. Also see Turkyilmaz, Yektan. 2018. “Quo Vadis Turkiye.” Gazete Duvar. Available at https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/forum/2018/06/01/quo-vadis-turkiye-1-yazilmis-oykuleri-unutmali-bir-devlet-kendisine-savas-acarsa/.
[ix] https://tradingeconomics.com/turkey/military-expenditure.
[x] https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/03/13/turkey-targets-defense-and-aerospace-exports-to-counter-growing-national-deficit/.
[xi] https://eraiturkey.com/news/aviation-and-defense-industry-in-turkey/.
[xii] “Turkey: New drone software to spot terrorists with ease.” Anadolu Agency. 03.03.2019. Available at https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkey-new-drone-software-to-spot-terrorists-with-ease/1407978.
[xiii] Gingeras, Ryan. “The Turkish Navy in an Era of Great Power Competition.” War on the Rocks. 30.04.2019. Available at https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/the-turkish-navy-in-an-era-of-great-power-competition/.