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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Nov 1 2009
[Unconventional Warfare and International Relations]
Political assassinations and biological attacks as a means to
destabilize Turkey
by MEHMET KALYONCU*
A remembrance card for Ahmet Taner KıÅ?lalı, a professor who was
murdered in 1999.
Turkey's relations with its neighbors have been rapidly evolving over
the last few years. Some are improving unexpectedly well, and some are
deteriorating unexpectedly fast.
One can argue that Turkey's relations overall as such are evolving for
the better. However, the historical characteristics of some of the
neighbors which Turkey has been severing ties with requires Ankara to
be extremely vigilant and to prepare accordingly against the damage
that those particular neighbors may inflict upon it.
In line with the Justice and Development (AK Party) government's `zero
problems with neighbors' principle, Ankara has improved in a very
short span of time its relations with Damascus, from the brink of
waging war to the level of removing visa requirements between the two
countries and holding joint ministerial meetings. Similarly, it
secured Baghdad's substantial cooperation in dealing with the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the terrorist group that has long used
Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Turkey. Moreover, Ankara gained
Baku's critical support in fulfilling the Nabucco pipeline project,
which many critics used to view as a pipedream named after an opera.
In addition, Ankara has become a champion for an immediate and
sustainable solution in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Armenia's continuing
occupation has turned 1 million Azerbaijanis into homeless refugees.
Finally, Ankara has managed to accomplish the unthinkable and recently
signed the protocols that officially started the process for the
normalization of its relations with Yerevan.
However, at the same time, Ankara's relations with Israel have been
dramatically worsened over a series of issues, which included, as the
American journalist Seymour Hersh revealed, Israel's clandestine
military assistance to the Kurds in northern Iraq; Israel's apparently
intentional delay in delivering the `Heron' unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAV) Ankara agreed to buy from it in 2005; Israel's recent military
operation against Gaza where some 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and
children, died; the Davos incident in which Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an walked out of a panel discussion after he had fiery
quarrel with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres; and finally the
Turkish TV series called `Ayrılık' which depicts the Israeli
occupation of Gaza and which Israel is not so comfortable with.
In light of these developments, Turkey's increasingly active posture
in regional affairs brings to the fore an urgent need for Ankara to
improve its ability to counter possible threats that such prominence
may engender, especially when it challenges the regional status quo.
Turkey's military might and strategic importance for global energy
security minimizes the prospects of it facing any threat of
conventional warfare waged by its neighbors. However, unconventional
warfare by those states which are not so fond of Ankara's regional
policies is always likely to be waged against Turkey. As a matter of
fact, Turkey may have already been exposed to such warfare, especially
by those states that are so used to manipulating Ankara through their
influence over a small number of the ultra-secularist elite, be they
businessmen, judges or generals.
Unconventional warfare: Bringing a nation to its knees
The US Department of Defense defines unconventional warfare as `a
broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of
long duration, predominantly conducted through, with, or by indigenous
or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported,
and directed in varying degrees by an external source. It includes,
but is not limited to, guerilla warfare, subversion, sabotage,
intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery.' More
practically, unlike the conventional warfare where the parties
involved aim to maximize the damage inflicted on each other's military
capabilities, unconventional warfare targets the civilian population
and political bodies, thereby making the military might of the enemy
irrelevant in due process.
The state waging the unconventional warfare tries to propagate the
belief within the targeted country that the deteriorating
socio-economic, political and security conditions are merely caused by
the sitting government and that everything will be better once the
government is replaced by another, or agrees to make concessions in
certain policy areas. In a way, the perpetrator of the unconventional
warfare (UW) manipulates the fears and sensitivities of the society to
affect the political dynamics in the targeted country. In order to do
that, the UW perpetrator may utilize both military and non-military
means. By definition, it may provide military assistance, training and
funds to groups within the targeted country which would in turn create
military and security problems. Similarly, the UW perpetrator may seek
to destabilize the targeted country by playing one or more groups
against each other by exploiting the fears and sensitivities of those
groups. The most efficient means of doing this is certainly through
the exploitation of the mass media, and the best example of this is to
mobilize the so-called secular military against the so-called Islamist
civilian groups or civilian government.
Turkey at war
>From this point of view, a quick look into Turkey's republican history
may suggest that the country has always been a target and victim of a
never-ending unconventional warfare waged against it. The country has
long suffered from the ultra-secular center versus traditional
periphery divide, the military's dominance over politics, the paradigm
of being surrounded by sea on three sides and by enemies on four, the
idea that the Turks are not capable of accomplishing anything and that
the only way to prosperity is through an unconditional mimicking of
the West and finally the fear that Kurdishness or the manifestation of
any other ethno-religious identity poses an existential threat to
Turkishness. Improvements in areas from the legal system to
domestic/foreign policy and to the economy throughout the past seven
years indicate that Turkey has learned quite a bit about how to
counter these types of unconventional warfare tactics.
However, with the advancement of technology comes new ways and means
of unconventional warfare, and therefore it becomes ever more urgent
for Turkey to improve itself in order to cope with the evolving
threats. Two of the most effective tactics of contemporary
unconventional warfare are political assassinations and biological
attacks, which can be disguised as accidents and as natural disasters
or pandemics, respectively. In the recent past, Turkey has experienced
the seemingly `natural deaths' of a number of its political leaders.
For instance, former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, whose coming to
office marked Turkey's transition to multiparty democracy, was
sentenced to death and duly executed after a seemingly normal judicial
process. Former Prime Minister and President Turgut Ã-zal, whose dream
was the unification of the Turkic world, is believed to have passed
away because of a heart attack, although there has been speculation
that he had been gradually poisoned over a long period of time, which
led to the heart attack. Former Governor Recep YazıcıoÄ?lu, who stood
against the foreign corporations that sought to explore for uranium in
Denizli province, was seemingly killed in a tragic car accident while
on his way to Ankara to investigate the deaths of engineers who had
been killed in mysterious car accidents as well. In addition to these
political figures, many journalists and academics such as UÄ?ur Mumcu,
Ahmet Taner KıÅ?lalı and Hrant Dink have also been killed in such
mysterious ways that these deaths eventually fanned the animosities
between different segments of society.
Similarly, the deliberate spread of certain infectious diseases and
viruses constitutes another dimension of unconventional warfare. One
historic example of that is the mass death of the American Indians in
the 17th century caused by the Europeans who migrated to the New World
and considered the spread of smallpox among the American Indians as an
effective way to vacate the land where they intended to settle. Today,
although they are not nearly as deadly, the outbreak of such
contagious diseases as bird flu, swine flu and many others yet to come
poses a grave danger to the countries that are not capable of
producing their own vaccines against these diseases, but instead are
dependent on the mercy of the other states that are able to produce
these vaccines. This exemplifies the current situation that Turkey
finds itself in. Although Turkey recently secured the purchase of
500,000 doses of the swine flu vaccine, it does not eliminate the
country's vulnerability to the threat posed by swine flu or other such
pandemics that are likely to emerge in the near future. Accordingly,
the fate of a government that may seem unable to protect the
population against epidemic diseases would also be at stake.
As Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an becomes openly critical of a particular
state in the neighborhood, and as such, Ankara defies an almost
century-long status quo that its relations are built upon with this
unconventional neighbor, the AK Party government is likely to be
challenged time and time again in the near future by the ever evolving
tactics of unconventional warfare. It is not something to be afraid of
in itself, but a critical challenge to be prepared for as Turkey
gradually rises to become a regional leader.
*Mehmet Kalyoncu is an international relations analyst and author of
the book `A Civilian
Response to Ethno-Religious Conflict: The Gülen Movement in Southeast Turkey.'
Nov 1 2009
[Unconventional Warfare and International Relations]
Political assassinations and biological attacks as a means to
destabilize Turkey
by MEHMET KALYONCU*
A remembrance card for Ahmet Taner KıÅ?lalı, a professor who was
murdered in 1999.
Turkey's relations with its neighbors have been rapidly evolving over
the last few years. Some are improving unexpectedly well, and some are
deteriorating unexpectedly fast.
One can argue that Turkey's relations overall as such are evolving for
the better. However, the historical characteristics of some of the
neighbors which Turkey has been severing ties with requires Ankara to
be extremely vigilant and to prepare accordingly against the damage
that those particular neighbors may inflict upon it.
In line with the Justice and Development (AK Party) government's `zero
problems with neighbors' principle, Ankara has improved in a very
short span of time its relations with Damascus, from the brink of
waging war to the level of removing visa requirements between the two
countries and holding joint ministerial meetings. Similarly, it
secured Baghdad's substantial cooperation in dealing with the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the terrorist group that has long used
Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Turkey. Moreover, Ankara gained
Baku's critical support in fulfilling the Nabucco pipeline project,
which many critics used to view as a pipedream named after an opera.
In addition, Ankara has become a champion for an immediate and
sustainable solution in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Armenia's continuing
occupation has turned 1 million Azerbaijanis into homeless refugees.
Finally, Ankara has managed to accomplish the unthinkable and recently
signed the protocols that officially started the process for the
normalization of its relations with Yerevan.
However, at the same time, Ankara's relations with Israel have been
dramatically worsened over a series of issues, which included, as the
American journalist Seymour Hersh revealed, Israel's clandestine
military assistance to the Kurds in northern Iraq; Israel's apparently
intentional delay in delivering the `Heron' unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAV) Ankara agreed to buy from it in 2005; Israel's recent military
operation against Gaza where some 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and
children, died; the Davos incident in which Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an walked out of a panel discussion after he had fiery
quarrel with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres; and finally the
Turkish TV series called `Ayrılık' which depicts the Israeli
occupation of Gaza and which Israel is not so comfortable with.
In light of these developments, Turkey's increasingly active posture
in regional affairs brings to the fore an urgent need for Ankara to
improve its ability to counter possible threats that such prominence
may engender, especially when it challenges the regional status quo.
Turkey's military might and strategic importance for global energy
security minimizes the prospects of it facing any threat of
conventional warfare waged by its neighbors. However, unconventional
warfare by those states which are not so fond of Ankara's regional
policies is always likely to be waged against Turkey. As a matter of
fact, Turkey may have already been exposed to such warfare, especially
by those states that are so used to manipulating Ankara through their
influence over a small number of the ultra-secularist elite, be they
businessmen, judges or generals.
Unconventional warfare: Bringing a nation to its knees
The US Department of Defense defines unconventional warfare as `a
broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of
long duration, predominantly conducted through, with, or by indigenous
or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported,
and directed in varying degrees by an external source. It includes,
but is not limited to, guerilla warfare, subversion, sabotage,
intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery.' More
practically, unlike the conventional warfare where the parties
involved aim to maximize the damage inflicted on each other's military
capabilities, unconventional warfare targets the civilian population
and political bodies, thereby making the military might of the enemy
irrelevant in due process.
The state waging the unconventional warfare tries to propagate the
belief within the targeted country that the deteriorating
socio-economic, political and security conditions are merely caused by
the sitting government and that everything will be better once the
government is replaced by another, or agrees to make concessions in
certain policy areas. In a way, the perpetrator of the unconventional
warfare (UW) manipulates the fears and sensitivities of the society to
affect the political dynamics in the targeted country. In order to do
that, the UW perpetrator may utilize both military and non-military
means. By definition, it may provide military assistance, training and
funds to groups within the targeted country which would in turn create
military and security problems. Similarly, the UW perpetrator may seek
to destabilize the targeted country by playing one or more groups
against each other by exploiting the fears and sensitivities of those
groups. The most efficient means of doing this is certainly through
the exploitation of the mass media, and the best example of this is to
mobilize the so-called secular military against the so-called Islamist
civilian groups or civilian government.
Turkey at war
>From this point of view, a quick look into Turkey's republican history
may suggest that the country has always been a target and victim of a
never-ending unconventional warfare waged against it. The country has
long suffered from the ultra-secular center versus traditional
periphery divide, the military's dominance over politics, the paradigm
of being surrounded by sea on three sides and by enemies on four, the
idea that the Turks are not capable of accomplishing anything and that
the only way to prosperity is through an unconditional mimicking of
the West and finally the fear that Kurdishness or the manifestation of
any other ethno-religious identity poses an existential threat to
Turkishness. Improvements in areas from the legal system to
domestic/foreign policy and to the economy throughout the past seven
years indicate that Turkey has learned quite a bit about how to
counter these types of unconventional warfare tactics.
However, with the advancement of technology comes new ways and means
of unconventional warfare, and therefore it becomes ever more urgent
for Turkey to improve itself in order to cope with the evolving
threats. Two of the most effective tactics of contemporary
unconventional warfare are political assassinations and biological
attacks, which can be disguised as accidents and as natural disasters
or pandemics, respectively. In the recent past, Turkey has experienced
the seemingly `natural deaths' of a number of its political leaders.
For instance, former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, whose coming to
office marked Turkey's transition to multiparty democracy, was
sentenced to death and duly executed after a seemingly normal judicial
process. Former Prime Minister and President Turgut Ã-zal, whose dream
was the unification of the Turkic world, is believed to have passed
away because of a heart attack, although there has been speculation
that he had been gradually poisoned over a long period of time, which
led to the heart attack. Former Governor Recep YazıcıoÄ?lu, who stood
against the foreign corporations that sought to explore for uranium in
Denizli province, was seemingly killed in a tragic car accident while
on his way to Ankara to investigate the deaths of engineers who had
been killed in mysterious car accidents as well. In addition to these
political figures, many journalists and academics such as UÄ?ur Mumcu,
Ahmet Taner KıÅ?lalı and Hrant Dink have also been killed in such
mysterious ways that these deaths eventually fanned the animosities
between different segments of society.
Similarly, the deliberate spread of certain infectious diseases and
viruses constitutes another dimension of unconventional warfare. One
historic example of that is the mass death of the American Indians in
the 17th century caused by the Europeans who migrated to the New World
and considered the spread of smallpox among the American Indians as an
effective way to vacate the land where they intended to settle. Today,
although they are not nearly as deadly, the outbreak of such
contagious diseases as bird flu, swine flu and many others yet to come
poses a grave danger to the countries that are not capable of
producing their own vaccines against these diseases, but instead are
dependent on the mercy of the other states that are able to produce
these vaccines. This exemplifies the current situation that Turkey
finds itself in. Although Turkey recently secured the purchase of
500,000 doses of the swine flu vaccine, it does not eliminate the
country's vulnerability to the threat posed by swine flu or other such
pandemics that are likely to emerge in the near future. Accordingly,
the fate of a government that may seem unable to protect the
population against epidemic diseases would also be at stake.
As Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an becomes openly critical of a particular
state in the neighborhood, and as such, Ankara defies an almost
century-long status quo that its relations are built upon with this
unconventional neighbor, the AK Party government is likely to be
challenged time and time again in the near future by the ever evolving
tactics of unconventional warfare. It is not something to be afraid of
in itself, but a critical challenge to be prepared for as Turkey
gradually rises to become a regional leader.
*Mehmet Kalyoncu is an international relations analyst and author of
the book `A Civilian
Response to Ethno-Religious Conflict: The Gülen Movement in Southeast Turkey.'