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  • Turkey's Contempt For NATO Principles

    TURKEY'S CONTEMPT FOR NATO PRINCIPLES

    November 16, 2014

    By Seth Cropsey -

    Hudson Institute research organization -

    When John Churchill, later the first duke of Marlborough, led the
    Anglo-Dutch alliance against Louis XIV, he and his ally differed
    constantly over tactics. Marlborough sought a knock-out. The Dutch
    preferred maneuver warfare to the risk of all-out battles. But the
    two states agreed on the broader goal: preventing Louis from achieving
    hegemonic continental power.

    Alliances - or alliance members - that cannot agree on ultimate
    objectives are in trouble. NATO member Turkey and the rest of
    the Atlantic alliance once agreed on basic principles: democracy,
    and the need to keep the Soviets from swallowing the part of Europe
    that remained free after World War II. No such agreement about basic
    principles unites Turkey with the rest of NATO today.

    Turkey's current leadership - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
    his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish acronym,
    AKP - have led Turkey on a steady drift away from democracy since
    Erdogan came to power in 2003. Turkey now holds more journalists in
    its prisons than does any country in the world. The oppression does
    not stop with individuals - Erdogan fined an opposition media group
    $2.5 billion dollars in 2009 for "evading taxes."

    The AKP's siege of democracy doesn't constrain only the organs of
    free speech. A law passed earlier this year restricts the judicial
    system's independence and corrodes the state's rule of law, and the
    government is now considering a draft security measure that would
    give Turkish police sweeping new powers. More than forty people were
    killed across Turkey in October protests against Erdogan's hands-off
    policy in defending the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani. Orthodox
    churches in Iznik, near the Sea of Marmara, and Trabzon, on the south
    coast of the Black Sea, have been converted into mosques.

    The U.S. Congress recently passed a law that requires the Obama
    administration to submit annual reports on Christian churches in
    Turkey and the Turkish-controlled portion of the Republic of Cyprus
    that have been looted, turned into mosques and casinos, or otherwise
    desecrated. The AKP is not choosy about which non-Muslim religion
    to oppress, though. The party's anti-Semitic words and actions are
    pushing young Jewish Turks to leave the country. Their flight mirrors
    Turkey's own departure from the circle of free and open societies.

    At odds with the Alliance

    Turkey's foreign and security policy parallels its departure from
    democratic institutions. Under Erdogan, Ankara is at odds with NATO's
    interest in a stable pro-Western anchor in its southeastern quadrant.

    "ISIS Draws a Steady Stream of Recruits from Turkey," read a New York
    Times headline from September this year that described the active
    recruitment of Turks to the terrorist group operating in Syria and
    Iraq. Ten Arab states joined the United States in signing an agreement
    in September to cooperate in destroying ISIS. Turkey declined, and
    Erdogan's administration continues to ignore would-be jihadists as
    they transit through Istanbul south to join ISIS. Meanwhile, Turkey
    remains a major financial backer of Hamas.

    Ankara's security policy goes beyond assisting violently anti-Western
    terrorist groups - it weakens NATO itself. The Erdogan government
    announced its intent to purchase a Chinese anti-ballistic missile
    system a year ago. The Chinese system is not interoperable with
    other NATOmembers' Patriot anti-ballistic missile. This loss
    of interoperability would deprive Europe of Asia Minor's large
    defensive extension into the heart of the Middle East - and into a
    region where the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons mounted aloft
    ballistic missiles with steadily increasing range is real. Erdogan
    balked on the deal under Western pressure, But no final decision has
    been reached, and a Turkish attempt to negotiate a better deal with
    China is at least as plausible an explanation for for the delay as
    is any reconsideration of Turkey's obligations to NATO. As of this
    writing, Turkey is dispatching ships, including naval combat vessels,
    to explore for hydrocarbons in violation of Cyprus' exclusive economic
    zone, part of which the Italian companyENI had previously licensed.

    Italy is a member of NATO and of the European Union, which Turkey
    says it wants to join.

    In the meantime, the fate of Kobani, a medium-sized city with a
    large Kurdish population situated on the Syrian side of its border
    with Turkey, remains uncertain. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut
    Cavusoglu has said that Kurdish fighters will be permitted to cross
    into Syria to fight ISIS, but Turkey neither pledges large quantities
    of combat equipment, nor guarantees the use of the Incirlik airfield
    for launching airstrikes againstISIS. Thus the terrorist assault on
    Kobani continues, portending a massacre if ISIS succeeds.

    What the West can do

    The West is beginning to respond to Turkey's inaction and outright
    hostility. Ankara's bid to join the U.N. Security Council in October
    fell short. Despite 154 letters of support for Turkish membership,
    Spain received 132 votes in the General Assembly while 60 members
    voted for Turkey.

    More important, distinguished French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy,
    writing in the Oct. 12 edition of New Republic, asked whether Turkey
    should remain in NATO if Kobani falls. The U.N. vote and the Levy
    article signal that more questions will be raised about Turkish
    participation, and probably its membership in major international
    organizations such as NATO. The Alliance has never ejected a member,
    but its charter specifically states that the NATO is "founded on the
    principles of democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law." The
    current Turkish government's actions demonstrate contempt for these
    principles domestically and abroad.

    U.S. policy does not recognize the widening gulf between Turkey and
    the rest of NATO. Business carries on largely as usual, for example
    in the State Department's August 2014 approval of Turkey's request to
    purchase $320 million dollars of air-to-air missiles and supporting
    logistics. This is an insignificant fraction of the arms that the
    United States has sold since Erdogan took power over a decade ago,
    and bringing these arms sales to a stop would allow Washington to
    send an unmistakable message, while stopping short of terminating
    Turkey'sNATO membership.

    Included in future arms sales to Turkey are 100 F-35 stealth fighters.

    Completing the sale would give Turkey a qualitative and destabilizing
    advantage over Greece's F-16s. It would threaten the emerging security
    relationship between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, which is the best
    hope to replace the democratic anchor that Turkey once represented
    atNATO's southeastern perimeter. It would further dilute the political
    coherence of the Atlantic alliance, which is already under strain as
    Russia continues daily to test Baltic air defenses.

    European security is threatened today in ways unseen since the early
    days of the Cold War. The Middle East's borders are now as much a
    part of history as their creation a century ago. Turkey sits at the
    center of these regions and is as likely to disrupt the alliance
    politically as it is to challenge the West's security interest in a
    secure southern border. Only through concerted, effective action would
    Washington and NATO's policies reinforce one another and increase
    the alliance's defenses.

    Seth Cropsey

    Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and director
    of its Center for American Seapower. He served as a naval officer
    and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George
    H. W. Bush administrations.

    http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/53005
    http://www.hudson.org/research/10762-turkey-s-contempt-for-nato-principles


    From: Baghdasarian
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