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Erdogan's Outburst And The Future Of The Turkish State

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  • Erdogan's Outburst And The Future Of The Turkish State

    ERDOGAN'S OUTBURST AND THE FUTURE OF THE TURKISH STATE
    By George Friedman

    Stratfor
    http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/ 20090202_erdogans_outburst_and_future_turkish_stat e
    Jan 3 2009

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan exploded during a public
    discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the annual meeting
    of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. Erdogan
    did not blow up at Peres, but rather at the moderator, Washington
    Post columnist and associate editor David Ignatius, whom Erdogan
    accused of giving more time to Peres. Afterward, Erdogan said,
    "I did not target at all in any way the Israeli people, President
    Peres or the Jewish people. I am a prime minister, a leader who has
    expressly stated that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity."

    Nevertheless, the international press focused not on the finer points
    of Erdogan's reasoning, but rather on his attacks on Israeli policy in
    Gaza and his angry exit, which many thought were directed at Peres and
    Israel. The confusion, we suspect, suited Erdogan quite well. Turkey is
    effectively an ally of Israel. Given this alliance, the recent events
    in Gaza put Erdogan in a difficult position. The Turkish prime minister
    needed to show his opposition to Israel's policies to his followers
    in Turkey's moderate Islamist community without alarming Turkey's
    military that he was moving to rupture relations with Israel. Whether
    calculated or not, Erdogan's explosion in Davos allowed him to appear
    to demonstrate vocal opposition to Israel -- directly to Israel's
    president, no less -- without actually threatening ties with Israel.

    It is important to understand the complexity of Erdogan's political
    position. Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World
    War I, Turkey has had a secular government. The secularism of the
    government was guaranteed constitutionally by the military, whose
    role it was to protect the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- the
    founder of modern, secular Turkey, who used the army as an instrument
    of nation-building. The Turkish public, in contrast, runs the gamut
    from ultrasecularists to radical Islamists.

    Erdogan is an elected moderate Islamist. As such, he is held in
    suspicion by the army and severely circumscribed in how far he can go
    on religious matters. To his right politically are more hard-line
    Islamist parties, which are making inroads into Turkish public
    opinion. Erdogan must balance between these forces, avoiding the two
    extreme outcomes of military intervention and Islamist terrorism.

    Meanwhile, from a geopolitical perspective, Turkey is always in an
    uncomfortable place. Asia Minor is the pivot of Eurasia. It is the
    land bridge between Asia and Europe, the northern frontier of the Arab
    world and the southern frontier of the Caucasus. Its influence spreads
    outward toward the Balkans, Russia, Central Asia, the Arab world and
    Iran. Alternatively, Turkey is the target of forces emanating from
    all of these directions. Add to this its control of the Bosporus,
    which makes Turkey the interface between the Mediterranean and Black
    Sea, and the complexity of Turkey's position becomes clear: Turkey
    is always either under pressure from its neighbors or pressuring
    its neighbors. It is perpetually being drawn outward in multiple
    directions, even into the eastern Mediterranean.

    Turkey has two different paths for dealing with its geopolitical
    challenge.

    Secular Isolationism

    >From the army's point of view, the Ottoman Empire was a disaster
    that entangled Turkey into the catastrophe of Word War I. One of
    Ataturk's solutions involved not only contracting Turkey after the
    war, but containing it in such a way that it could not be drawn into
    the extreme risk of imperial adventure.

    In World War II, both Axis and Allies wooed and subverted Turkey. But
    the country managed -- with difficulty -- to maintain neutrality,
    thereby avoiding another national catastrophe.

    During the Cold War, Turkey's position was equally difficult. Facing
    Soviet pressure from the north, the Turks had to ally themselves with
    the United States and NATO. Turkey possessed something the Soviets
    desperately wanted: the Bosporus, which would have given the Soviet
    navy unimpeded access to the Mediterranean. Naturally, the Turks
    could not do anything about their geography, nor could they cede the
    Bosporus to the Soviets without sacrificing their independence. But
    neither could they protect it by themselves. Thus, left with only
    the choice of NATO membership, the Turks joined the Western alliance.

    There was a high degree of national unity on this subject. Whatever
    the ideologies involved, the Soviets were viewed as a direct threat to
    Turkey. Therefore, using NATO and the United States to help guarantee
    Turkish territorial integrity was ultimately something around which a
    consensus could form. NATO membership, of course, led to complications,
    as these things always do.

    To counter the American relationship with Turkey (and with Iran,
    which also blocked Soviet southward movement), the Soviets developed
    a strategy of alliances -- and subversion -- of Arab countries. First
    Egypt, then Syria, Iraq and other countries came under Soviet influence
    between the 1950s and 1970s. Turkey found itself in a vise between
    the Soviets and Iraq and Syria. And with Egypt -- with its Soviet
    weapons and advisers -- also in the Soviet orbit, Turkey's southern
    frontier was seriously threatened.

    Turkey had two possible responses to this situation. One was to build
    up its military and economy to take advantage of its mountainous
    geography and deter attack. For this, Turkey needed the United
    States. The second option was to create cooperative relations with
    other countries in the region that were hostile to both the Soviets and
    the left-wing Arab regimes. The two countries that fit this bill were
    Israel and pre-1979 Iran under the shah. Iran tied down Iraq. Israel
    tied down Syria and Egypt. In effect, these two countries neutralized
    the threat of Soviet pressure from the south.

    Thus was born the Turkish relationship with Israel. Both
    countries belonged to the American anti-Soviet alliance system
    and therefore had a general common interest in conditions in the
    eastern Mediterranean. Both countries also had a common interest
    in containing Syria. From the standpoint of the Turkish army, and
    therefore the Turkish government, a close collaboration with Israel
    made perfect sense.

    Islamist Internationalism There is a second vision of Turkey,
    however: that of Turkey as a Muslim power with responsibilities
    beyond guaranteeing its own national security. This viewpoint would
    of course break the country's relationship with Israel and the United
    States. In some sense, this is a minor consideration now. Israel is
    no longer indispensable for Turkish national security, and Turkey has
    outgrown outright dependence on the United States. (These days, the
    United States needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the United States.)

    (click image to enlarge) Under this second vision, Turkey would extend
    its power outward in support of Muslims. This vision, if pursued to the
    full, would involve Turkey in the Balkans in support of Albanians and
    Bosnians, for example. It would also see Turkey extend its influence
    southward to help shape Arab regimes. And it would cause Turkey to
    become deeply involved in Central Asia, where it has natural ties
    and influence. Ultimately, this vision also would return Turkey to
    maritime power status, influencing events in North Africa. It is at
    its heart a very expansionist vision, and one that would require the
    active support of a military that, at present, is somewhat squeamish
    about leaving home.

    Along with Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran and Egypt, Turkey is one of
    only five major powers in the Islamic world with enough economic
    and military potential to affect anything beyond their immediate
    neighbors. Indonesia and Pakistan are internally fragmented and
    struggling to hold together; their potential is largely bottled
    up. Iran is in a long-term confrontation with the United States
    and must use all of its strength in dealing with that relationship,
    limiting its options for expansion. Egypt is internally crippled by
    its regime and economy, and without significant internal evolutions
    it cannot project power.

    Turkey, on the other hand, is now the world's 17th-largest economy. It
    boasts a gross domestic product (GDP) that is larger than that of every
    other Muslim country, including Saudi Arabia; larger than that of every
    EU country other than Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy,
    Spain, and the Netherlands; and nearly five times larger than that
    of Israel. In per capita GDP, Turkey ranks much lower on the global
    scale, but national power -- the total weight a country can bring to
    bear on the international system -- frequently depends more on the
    total size of the economy than on per capita income. (Consider China,
    which has a per capita income less than half that of Turkey's.) Turkey
    is surrounded by instability in the Arab world, in the Caucasus and
    in the Balkans. But it is the most stable and dynamic economy in its
    region and, after Israel, has the most effective armed forces.

    On occasion, Turkey goes beyond its borders. It has, for example,
    moved into Iraq in a combined air-ground operation to attack units
    of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a Kurdish separatist group. But
    it is Turkey's policy to avoid deep entanglements. From the Turkish
    Islamist point of view, however, a power of this magnitude under the
    control of an Islamist regime would be in a position to spread its
    influence dramatically. As mentioned, this is not what the army or
    the secularists want: They remember how the Ottoman Empire sapped
    Turkish strength, and they do not want a repeat.

    Erdogan's Challenge and Turkey's Future It is not fair to say that
    Turkey is a deeply divided society. Instead, Turkey has learned to
    blend discord. At the moment, Erdogan probably represents the center
    of the Turkish political spectrum. But he is stuck trying to balance
    three competing forces. The first is an economy that remains robust
    and is likely to grow further despite suffering setbacks (along
    with the rest of the world). The second is a capable military that
    does not want excessive foreign entanglements, and certainly not for
    religious reasons. And the third is an Islamist movement that wants
    to see Turkey as part of the Islamic world -- and perhaps even the
    leader of that world.

    Erdogan does not want to weaken the Turkish economy, and he sees
    radical Islamist ideas as endangering Turkey's middle class. He wants
    to placate the army and keep it from acting politically. He also wants
    to placate the radical Islamists, who could draw the army out of the
    barracks, or worse, weaken the economy. Erdogan thus wants to keep
    business, the military and the religious sector happy simultaneously.

    This is no easy task, and Erdogan was clearly furious at Israel for
    attacking Gaza and making that task harder. Turkey was crucial in
    developing the Israeli-Syrian dialogue. This means the wider world
    now views Turkey's leadership as regionally engaged, something its
    risk-averse military is more than a little touchy about. Erdogan
    therefore saw Israel as endangering Turkey's military-civilian power
    balance and squandering its tentative steps into the regional spotlight
    for what he considered a pointless operation in Gaza.

    Still, Erdogan did not want to break with Israel. So he became furious
    with the moderator. Whether this was calculated or simply reflected
    his response to the situation he finds himself in is immaterial. The
    outburst allowed him to appear to break with Israel decisively without
    actually creating such a rupture. He thus deftly continued to walk
    his fine line.

    The question is how long Erdogan can maintain the balance. The more
    chaotic the region around Turkey becomes and the stronger Turkey gets,
    the more irresistible will be the sheer geopolitical pressure on
    Turkey to fill the vacuum. Add to that an expansionist ideology --
    a Turkish Islamism -- and a potent new force in the region could
    quickly emerge. The one thing that can restrain this process is
    Russia. If Moscow forces Georgia to submit and brings its forces back
    to the Turkish border in Armenia, the Turks will have to reorient
    their policy back to one of blocking the Russians. But regardless
    of what level Russian power returns to over the next few years, the
    longer-term growth of Turkish power is inevitable -- and something
    that must be considered carefully.
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