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