U.S. INTELLIGENCE WRITES TURKEY’S FUTURE
Turkey Analyst,
vol. 6 no. 1
16 January 2013
Richard Weitz
Whether within a NATO context, acting in parallel with the United
States, or as an autonomous actor, Turkey’s importance to U.S.
strategy will likely continue to grow in coming years. Turkey has
already become a much more prominent global actor backstopped by a
dynamic diplomacy, one of the world’s most energetic economies, and a
turbulent neighborhood whose security vacuum propels Turkish
involvement. Turkey’s rapid economic growth is facilitating the
modernization of the Turkish armed forces and the country’s domestic
defense industry. Turkey is located astride multiple global hotspots
in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. With Europe’s
possibly entering a period of prolonged stagnation and with U.S.
attention drifting eastward, Turkey could become one of the most
influential NATO countries.
BACKGROUND: Every few years, the U.S. National Intelligence Council
(NIC) publishes studies of how the world might evolve over the next
two decades. The authors of Global Trends 2025, which appeared in
2008, highlighted several factors that they believe warrant focusing
much attention on Turkey’s evolving role in the international system.
Turkey’s economic prospects dwarf those of other NATO countries.
Turkey’s recent high growth rates and modest inflation should continue
due to Turkey’s vibrant middle class and strategic location between
Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In a forecast reminiscent of
those common during the early 1990s, which failed to materialize, the
report states that, `Over the next 15 years, Turkey’s most likely
course involves a blending of Islamic and nationalist strains, which
could serve as a model for other rapidly modernizing countries in the
Middle East.’ Yet, the authors note that Turkey’s evolution depends
heavily on external factors, especially its relationship with the
European Union. In its assessment, the failure of the EU to encourage
Turkey’s membership aspirations could delay the country’s political
and human rights reforms. Turkey would also want to sustain good
relations with Russia, Iran, and Central Asia given Ankara’s
dependence on foreign energy supplies.
Conflict and armed engagements between Israel, Iran, and Turkey
contribute to instability in the region, which remains unstable as
most populations in the Middle East live in poverty. Turkey could play
a prominent role in modernizing and reforming the region’s militaries.
Previous Turkish governments developed a strong, positive relationship
with Israel and any future government could reverse the friction now
existing between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and
Israel. Turkey’s future leaders might also pursue far less
conciliatory policies with religious regimes such as Iran, especially
if Iran developed nuclear weapons or pursued destabilizing policies in
Iraq, Central Asia, or the South Caucasus. An already important member
of NATO’s missile defense system, Turkey could play an even greater
role in this architecture in the future.
A more recent study, Global Trends 2030, predicts that by that year,
the diffusion of power among countries will see Asia surpass Europe
and North America in terms of aggregate GDP, population size, military
spending, and technological investment. In this vision, a regional
power such as Turkey will become especially important to the global
economy as Europe, Japan, and Russia continue to slowly decline.
However, this study views Turkey not as a single entity, but rather as
a collective with countries such as Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and
South Africa. Termed the `Next Eleven’ by Goldman Sachs, they will
surpass Europe, Japan and Russia in terms of global power by 2030.
Turkey especially has a major opportunity to secure a strong footing
in the future global economy. Aging is the key structural change
underlying the negative economic outlook for Europe, Japan, and the
United States. Turkey’s youthful population will only decline slightly
by 2030 and an influx of young migrants should help maintain a stable
workforce.
Africa’s demographic `youth bulge’ could reinforce Turkey’s economic
growth-a reality that other emerging regional and global powers,
including China, India, Brazil, and Turkey have already begun to
seize. Turkey has invested heavily in several North Africa countries.
As of late 2011, Turkish investments in Africa have reached more than
5 billion dollars. Assuming continued growth, Turkey and other members
of the Next Eleven will play a very important role in the future of
Africa as well.
However, one area of concern in Global Trends 2030 is Turkey’s
youthful, ethnic Kurdish population. In general, the amount of armed
conflict over the past forty years has decreased; even when armed
conflict has occurred, the amount of violence towards citizens has
been limited as well. However, during this same time period, there has
been an uptick in intrastate violence in countries where a population
contains a politically dissonant, youthful ethnic minority. More than
80 percent of all armed ethnic and civil conflicts have occurred in
such countries. The ethnic Kurds in Turkey have a pattern of actively
participating in intrastate conflict. Kurdish fertility in
southeastern Turkey is at four children per women. This high rate of
fertility combines with the overall decline in fertility of ethnic
Turks will result in Turkey seeing a higher percentage of ethnic Kurds
than ever before.
IMPLICATIONS: The U.S. Intelligence’s evolving assessments regarding
Turkey have been accompanied by Washington-based studies and seminars
that have sought to tease out their policy implications, which the NIC
is not supposed to do. One scenario focuses on how Turkish leaders use
(or misuse) modern information and surveillance technologies for
untoward purposes. Turkey’s leaders might be tempted to employ
technology to increase surveillance of the general public to stifle
political dissent as well as religious extremism and terrorism.
Turkey’s leaders might be drawn to the East Asian model of
China/Singapore, which promises economic growth while preserving
political stability and state control. The NIC authors believe that
this would be easier to implement in Turkey’s urban centers, but more
difficult in Turkey’s less connected interior, which is more
conservative and aligned with religious movements. The effort could
easily backfire domestically as well as alienate Turkey from its
natural allies.
Turkey will become increasingly at risk for cyber warfare as its
economy modernizes and more Turkish citizens and firms gain access to
the Internet. If a group or entity wished to target Turkey, using
cyber warfare to disrupt river channels could be effective in damaging
agriculture and limiting the usefulness of dams designed to collect
hydroelectric energy from the rivers. Cyber warfare can also be used
as starting point for a greater social failure, with the concentration
of ethnic groups in urban areas needing just a spark – such as a
targeted electric outage – to erupt into intrastate violence and
conflict.
A nuclear Iran presents several problems for Turkey as well. In the
event that Iran realizes its nuclear aims, Turkey might seek to take
matters into its own hands through diplomatic action or more
problematically through achieving its own nuclear capability rather
than relying on NATO. This response could foster conflict in the
Middle East, as well as create an impending sense of doom that could
derail Turkey’s economic growth. Additionally, this approach could
lead to greater separation between Turkey and the West.
In the past, modernization was synonymous with Westernization; the
increasing influence of countries reflected a Western-styled
modernization occurring as wealth and technology spreads to the east
and south. But as future countries experience growth, they could have
competing interests, not only with the Western world, but also with
each other in regional hotbeds such as Africa and Central Asia. These
competing interests are further compounded by regional tensions and
rivalries between China and India, China and Japan, Sunni Arabs and
Shiite Islam, and Turkey and Iran. Beyond resentment of U.S. dominance
both economically and politically, how much does the BRICS and the
Next Eleven countries agree on? This question could confront Turkey’s
future leaders with hostile or conflicting relationships that lead to
conflict in coming years.
Despite the growing prominence of India, China, Turkey and other
developing countries, the NIC generally believes that the United
States will continue to maintain the strongest military preeminence in
state-on-state scenarios through at least 2030. So the influence
exerted by Turkey will be achieved through diplomatic channels and
other tools besides military strength.
However, with so many countries coming into prominence, there is a
concern that the scenario embodied by the phrase `too many cooks in
the kitchen’ can occur. Adding other players to delicate negotiations
can needlessly complicate them. Already some of the emerging powers,
democracies as well as authoritarian regimes, harbor resentments
against Western-imposed policies that may surface in unexpected ways.
This was seen in 2010 when Brazil and Turkey tried to launch their own
diplomatic effort to solve the Iranian nuclear issue. The developing
secondary players in the global arena today (Turkey, Brazil, South
Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa) are likely to play an
increasingly important role in regional security and global rule
shaping.
CONCLUSIONS: It is only natural that the U.S. intelligence community
ponders the impact of Turkey’s growing significance in global affairs.
Turkey can be expected to exercise considerable influence over global
and regional power dynamics during the next twenty years. The
legitimacy, stability and alignment of Turkey will certainly have a
major impact on the balance of power in Southeast Europe, the Black
Sea, the Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean, and not least the Middle
East. Turkey can either be a valuable source of stability in these
regions or a dangerous contributor to their problems.
If Turkey ignores its own demographic situation involving the youthful
Kurdish population, or engages the Iranian nuclear problem
unilaterally, Turkey’s likely bright future could become considerably
dimmer.
Richard Weitz is Senior Fellow and Director, Center for
Political-Military Analysis, Hudson Institute.