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Turkey's New Outlook Center for Security Studies STRATEGIC TRENDS 2021 Key Developments in Global Affairs Editors: Brian G. Carlson, Oliver Thränert Series Editor: Andreas Wenger Authors: Brian G. Carlson, Julian Kamasa, Linda Maduz, Niklas Masuhr, Lisa Watanabe CSS ETH Zurich STRATEGIC TRENDS 2021 is also electronically available at: www.css.ethz.ch/publications/strategic-trends Editors STRATEGIC TRENDS 2021: Brian G. Carlson, Oliver Thränert Series Editor STRATEGIC TRENDS: Andreas Wenger Contact: Center for Security Studies ETH Zurich Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW CH-8092 Zurich Switzerland This publication covers events up to 1 April 2021. © 2021, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich Images © by Reuters ISSN 1664-0667 ISBN 978-3-905696-76-9 CHAPTER 3 Turkey’s New Outlook: Power Projection in the Middle East and Beyond Niklas Masuhr Turkey’s military operations in 2020 and beyond lie at the intersection of a more activist and autonomous foreign policy, the continuous mutation of the country’s guiding ideologies, increased autocracy at home, and an expedition- ary military machine 25 years in the making. Trends and shifts in both the short and long terms, from changing government coalitions in Turkey to the Syrian civil war, help to explain the erstwhile Kemalist Republic’s accelerated transformation, both internationally and domestically, as well as its likely strategic implications. A Turkish soldier walks next to a Turkish military vehicle during a joint US-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria, September 8, 2019. Rodi Said / Reuters 53 STRATEGIC TRENDS 2021 Turkish military operations through- While interventions in Libya, Syria, out 2020 came as a shock to many and in the Nagorno-Karabakh war Western policymakers and commen- rely on similar tools and operation- tators, both in terms of their political al preferences, the politico-strategic audacity and their aggressive nature. drivers behind them are anything In particular, its armed forces’ use of but uniform. Turkey’s military inter- Unmanned Aerial (Combat) Vehi- ventions in all three theaters notably cles (UAV/UCAV) made headlines featured the use of UCAVs, but its far beyond the usual bubble of mil- objectives in Syria, Libya, and the itary technology watchers. Beyond Southern Caucasus were quite differ- the battlefields of Syria, Libya, and ent in each case. The Syrian civil war the Caucasus, President Recep Tayy- naturally has a direct impact on Tur- ip Erdogan’s increasing assertiveness key’s own national security and deter- in foreign policy and heavy-handed- mines its relations with regional and ness at home have long invited dip- extra-regional powers, most notably lomatic frustration and pensive anal- the US and Russia. Importantly, the yses in NATO countries. Indeed, the Syrian war also prompted renewed very trustworthiness and reliability of concerns in Turkey over the Kurdish Ankara as a NATO member has been conflict. Operations in Libya reflect questioned. both the ideological makeup of Tur- key’s current governing coalition and Many facets of Turkey’s recent behav- the country’s policies to ensure ener- ior have simmered for years, even de- gy security. Support for Azerbaijan cades, and have only now reached full against Armenia over Nagorno-Kara- maturation. In domestic politics, the bakh, meanwhile, was similarly driv- ruling AK Party’s soft Islamism has en by ideological support and energy merged with ethno-nationalist cur- security as well as Turkey’s ambiguous rents. In the military sphere, mean- relationship with Russia. While Mos- while, important force design deci- cow has acquiesced to direct Turkish sions made decades ago ensure that and Turkish-supported military ac- Erdogan has the capacity to project tion in all three theaters, the results power as he sees fit. These develop- in each case likely would have played ments intersect with a destabilized in- out much differently if Russia had not ternational environment that permits, done so. This lenience appears to be and perhaps even advantages, the driven mostly by Moscow’s desire to overt use of military force that Turkey further weaken the already strained undertook in 2020. bonds between Ankara and its NATO 54 TURKEY’S NEW OUTLOOK allies in the West. Taken together, all The fall of the Soviet Union, howev- three areas of operation showcase not er, fundamentally changed Turkey’s only Turkey’s current assertiveness, strategic environment. Within Turkish but also the multi-vectored drivers of security policy circles, the two main this trend and how the country seeks internal opponents to Kemalism, sep- to position itself in an increasingly un- aratism (meaning Kurdish resistance) certain security environment. and Islamism, replaced the Red Army at the top of the threat list. Against Is- Kemalist Past and Recent Shifts lamist forces, the military set up mon- There is no straight line between itoring mechanisms in order to collect the rise of the Islamist Justice and intelligence, ban non-secular parties if Development Party (AKP) to pow- necessary, and prevent the circumven- er and Turkey’s current approach to tion of the Kemalist canon – even in international engagement. The de- the face of Islamist movements gath- velopments that have led here can ering steam among the electorate. By be viewed through the prism of civ- the mid-1990s, an Islamist-influenced il-military relations and changes in coalition government, headed by the the state-endorsed doctrine in three Welfare Party, was in power. In 1997, phases: pre-2002 military dominance, the military intervened and overturned the AKP’s struggle to roll back that the government, eventually banning dominance culminating in the failed the Welfare Party. This, however, coup attempt in July 2016, and, lastly, merely delayed the rise of some of its the reintegration of military elites by members, among them Erdogan him- way of ideological realignments inside self, who successfully regrouped as the Turkey. Justice and Development (AK) Party. During the first phase, until the elec- In 2002, the AKP swept national pol- tion of the conservative AKP in 2002, itics in a landslide victory at the gen- the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) eral election. From the beginning, the served as the guardrails of Atatürk’s Islamist party was hindered by the Kemalist vision. Turkey joined NATO military, setting the tone for a con- in 1952; inter-military links with the flictual relationship that culminated in US were especially pronounced until the attempted coup on 15 July 2016. and beyond the end of the Cold War. These two events serve as bookends for The corollary of anchoring Turkey to the second period under observation. the West was that it withdrew from During this period, the AKP and its the wider Middle East.1 allies wrested control of the state and 55 STRATEGIC TRENDS 2021 societal institutions from the TSK, even contingency plans leading to a coup, as instability rose throughout Turkey’s referred to as “Sledgehammer.”2 While neighborhood after the outbreak of the ultra-nationalist officers and civilian al- Arab Spring in 2011. In terms of the lies were certainly opposed to the AKP country’s broader foreign policy and government and had proven their pro- strategic outlook, the new government pensity for intervening in politics, the sought to capitalize on the pivotal posi- vast judicial proceedings also caught tion afforded to it by straddling Europe left-of-center journalists in its nets.3 and Asia. Under the so-called Strate- gic Depth doctrine, Ahmet Davuto- Externally, a string of events after glu, a political scientist-turned-diplo- 2010 put the Erdogan government mat-turned-politician, formalized the into “survival mode.” The first exter- idea that Turkey possessed a natural nal event and the ignition for much sphere of influence not only in terms of what followed was the eruption of geography but also by virtue of his- of the Arab Spring. Erdogan at first toric linkages throughout the region as sought to ride its wave by present- the heir to the Ottoman Empire. These ing himself as patron and partner to ideas formed the basis for ‘neo-Ot- moderate Islamist forces, many of tomanism’, which would replace Ke- which were national organizations of malism as the state ideology. Part and the Muslim Brotherhood. This ap- parcel of this construct was the dic- proach, however, meant that Turkey tum of “zero problems” with Turkey’s was overtly at loggerheads with more neighbors, as Davutoglu in his capacity secular regimes. In Egypt, a military as Turkey’s foreign minister sought to coup aborted the attempt to create an position the country as a pivotal power Islamic republic.4 The shockwaves of drawing its political capital from diplo- the Arab Spring also reached Istan- matic relations. bul itself, and in 2013 the city was rocked by a series of liberal protests The AKP and its then-allies in the re- at Gezi Park directed against the ever ligious Gülen movement proved quite increasing autocracy of the AKP. The successful in rolling back military in- response was a major crackdown on fluence, mainly through a series of tri- left-of-center opposition and a stifling als from 2007 onward that exhibited of critical media and the judiciary. questionable adherence to the rule of Across the border, the destabilization law. Prosecutors alleged the existence of Syria and Iraq and the expansion of an ultra-nationalist network (“Er- of the Islamic State (IS) resulted in a genekon”) and the existence of military long-term zone of instability. 56 TURKEY’S NEW OUTLOOK Perhaps the most significant catalyst essence, ethno-nationalist paradigms for Erdogan’s transformation of the were imported into the state canon country, however, was the 15 July even before the coup attempt oc- 2016 coup attempt, undertaken by a curred. In 2018, the AKP entered into coalition of disgruntled TSK officers.
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