Tag Archive for: Turkey

Talking Turkey about the F-35

One of the reasons countries support indigenous defence industries is to ensure their sovereign control over defence capabilities. The argument is that by having the ability to design, manufacture and sustain military equipment, a country won’t be reliant on others in times of crisis.

The problem for small and medium-sized powers (and increasingly even major ones) is that modern military systems are so complex that it’s beyond the ability of their economies to design and build them (though countries like Australia are capable of sustaining them). So even small countries with highly developed defence industries, such as Israel, buy complex platforms on the global market and focus their own efforts on specific, high-value systems that they can’t source from elsewhere.

This makes sense provided the sovereign risks can be managed. In recent history, Australia has acquired advanced military platforms from the United States, which is a pretty safe bet because there’s a relatively low probability that the US will cut off supplies. But when the number of players in a program multiplies, so do the risks, particularly at a time when longstanding alliances appear to be unravelling.

The F-35 joint strike fighter (JSF) program, which is a consortium of nine countries, is a useful case study. Turkey has been a member of the consortium from the beginning and is planning on acquiring around 100 aircraft, potentially making it the third biggest operator globally. As part of its membership, Turkey also receives opportunities for industrial participation and 10 Turkish companies have been involved in development and/or production of the jet.

Consequently, the meltdown in relations between Turkey and the US presents a number of risks to other consortium members, including Australia. There are number of reasons for the precipitous decline. In part, it’s due to US President Donald Trump’s personal sense of betrayal that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reneged on a ‘deal’ to release an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey. It’s also related to Turkey’s overall slide from democracy to strongman authoritarianism, as well as Turkey’s military action against Syrian Kurds who are supported by the US.

But another reason is that the US Congress is concerned about Turkey’s plans to buy Russia’s S-400 long-range air-defence system—a remarkable thing for a NATO member to do, considering it can’t be integrated into NATO air-defence networks. It’s a sign of the parlous state of relations between Turkey and its Western allies. As part of the US defence funding bill just signed by Trump, Congress blocked exports (section 1283) of JSFs to Turkey while the Pentagon assesses the impact of Turkey’s acquisition.

This imbroglio raises three risks for Australia. First, if Turkey is excluded from the JSF program, it would in turn cease providing components to the JSF production line. That’s why Secretary of Defense James Mattis opposed the proposal, arguing in a letter to Congress that, ‘If the Turkish supply chain was disrupted today, it would result in an aircraft production break, delaying delivery of 50–75 F-35s, and would take approximately 18–24 months to re-source parts and recover.’

The Royal Australian Air Force on a very tight timeline to achieve initial operating capability (pages 121–134) with 33 aircraft in just over two years’ time, so any interruption to aircraft deliveries could affect the schedule.

The second risk may not affect Australia directly, but it illustrates the challenges presented by a consortium approach. The JSF joint program office assigns participants responsibility for various maintenance and repair activities. Turkey was assigned responsibility for engine deep maintenance in Europe (to be supplemented later by Norway and the Netherlands). At the time, some in the UK raised concerns about the sovereign risk this presented. If Turkey is barred from or leaves the program, European consortium members will need a Plan B. While there’s probably enough time for them to develop an alternative, it highlights the extent to which participants are dependent on other consortium members to support a key military capability.

The third risk does have serious implications for Australia should Turkey receive aircraft while also realising its plans to acquire the S-400. The JSF was designed to defeat high-end Russian air-defence systems such as the S-400. Russia will be very anxious to understand the JSF’s electromagnetic signatures, in particular its radar profile. And as Serbia’s shooting down of a previous generation US stealth aircraft in 1999 using antiquated Soviet air-defence technology showed, tactics can be as important as technology. The Russian technicians who will be assisting the Turks to introduce and operate the S-400 will no doubt be collecting JSF signature data that can be used to develop tactics to defeat it.

In a ‘normal’ world one would expect the flow of information to go in the other direction, with Turkey sharing key signature and performance data on the S-400 with other NATO members. But when a NATO member is planning to acquire Russian air-defence systems, we’re not in a normal world anymore—not to mention Erdoğan’s threats to find new and different allies.

While it’s unlikely that Australian F-35s will be flying against Russian S-400s anytime soon, Russia is exporting S-400 systems, including to China. And offering JSF signature data to any country that might have an interest in defeating the JSF could potentially be a nice earner for a cash-strapped Russia.

So the tangled web of US–Turkish relations does have implications for Australia. With the first Turkish F-35 not scheduled to come home until late next year, there’s potentially time to find a solution. But as this example shows, in a world of inter-meshed supply chains, membership of a global network of operators is a double-edged sword.

Erdogan: all-powerful and alone

He has finally done it. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has won 12 electoral contests in a row since first coming to power with his neo-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, would now seem to be lord of all he surveys.

Last Sunday, faced with his first real challenge at the ballot box by an energised opposition that had banded together to block his path to one-man rule, he won decisive victories: re-elected as president under a new regime modelled more on Russia than on France or the US, and with a parliamentary majority he secured by allying with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Under the new presidential regime, the job of prime minister, in which Erdogan served three terms before being first elected president in 2014, is abolished. He will dominate not just the executive, appointing all ministers and chairing cabinet, but the judiciary and the legislature—even though the vitality of these elections and the reinvigorated opposition suggest that parliament will not easily turn into a rubber stamp and that this diverse country will not simply roll over.

Turkey remains a nation split down the middle. On one side are the conservative masses of Turkey’s Anatolian heartland to whom Erdogan and the AKP have given voice, marginalised as pious backwoodsmen by the Kemalist elites who ran the country as their inalienable inheritance from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded the republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago. His followers know it was Erdogan who included them for the first time and gave them new schools and hospitals, new roads and airports, and above all, dignity and identity. In his victory speech Erdogan vowed that he would make those who were once left out into ‘first class citizens’.

The opposition, led by the centre-left and secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), the party of Atatürk, took the Aegean coast and the big cities, while the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) won heavily in the predominantly Kurdish southeast and east.

Erdogan’s almost revivalist constituency held firm, giving him thumping majorities of over 70% in cities of the interior like Kayseri, Konya and Sivas—his so-called ‘Black Turks’ thumbing their noses at coastal and metropolitan clusters of privileged ‘White Turks’. The president did what he does best: he polarised the country, the tactic he employs to turbocharge his followers.

Over the past three years, since he briefly lost the AKP’s parliamentary majority in the first of two general elections in 2015, this neo-Islamist has turned to the ultranationalist right to swell his following. After a 30-year-old conflict reignited with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in mid-2015, the government fanned the flames as Erdogan launched a three-pronged attack on Kurdish rebels and insurgents—in southeast Turkey, across the border in Syria and, in the run-up to this election, inside Iraq—harvesting more than enough MHP votes to make up for AKP losses.

Just as Turkey is split, there have always been two sides to Erdogan. There’s the natural politician, richly gifted and sometimes reformist, a towering figure and an almost elemental electoral force. Then there’s the wilful and petulant would-be sultan, stalked by paranoia and hubris in his vast faux-Ottoman palace which would fit Versailles, the White House and the Kremlin. This is the man who has always said that a parliamentary system is too weak to bring Turkey to the greatness which is the birthright of Turks and which he alone incarnates.

In the past five years, as Erdogan set his course for his Vladimir Putin–style presidency unfettered by checks and balances, it is the second half of this split personality he has most shown the world, as he treats Turks and Turkey as his patriarchal property, brooking no dissent and tolerating no other power centre, even inside an AKP he has purged of potential rivals and packed with sycophants.

It was in 2013 that Erdogan’s halo slipped. Until then he looked a plausible standard-bearer of an ostensibly modern Islamism marketed as a Muslim analogue to European Christian democracy. In mid-2013, secular and liberal Turks went into the streets of Turkey’s cities to demand an end to the government’s pious intrusions into the personal and public space of a very diverse society, and by year end Erdogan’s most valued allies within the system—followers of the shadowy Islamist movement of Fethullah Gülen—exposed massive corruption in his inner circle.

Those graft probes by erstwhile allies burrowed into the police and the judiciary flicked the AKP’s conspiracy-theory switch, and lit the country with an efflorescence of Erdoganist rage. The abortive coup of July 2016 that the government blames on Gülenists infiltrated in the military confirmed Erdogan in his thinking: there could be no surrender of any power whatsoever.

The government carried out vast purges, sweeping up dissidents and opponents as well as real or alleged Gülenists. It has jailed more than 50,000 and fired another 130,000: generals and police, judges and prosecutors, teachers and academics, civil servants and journalists. Dozens of leaders, MPs and mayors from HDP are in jail. Its control of the streets and media is total. These elections were to make de jure what is de facto, to legitimise powers Erdogan has already seized.

In his supreme moment of triumph, nonetheless, Erdogan’s unfettered power will not necessarily help him weather the storms ahead: a vulnerable, indebted and overheated economy with rising inflation and a falling currency; poisonous relations with Turkey’s traditional allies in the EU and NATO; and perilous military incursions into the neighbouring maelstroms of Syria and Iraq. When heading into storms of such ferocity, even the mightiest presidents need lightning rods—such as prime ministers—and Erdogan, by his will and choice, is alone.

Germany’s new power of the purse

Last week, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel interrupted his holiday on the North Sea to respond to Turkey’s jailing of a German human-rights activist. Gabriel warned German tourists about the dangers of visiting Turkey, and advised German firms to think twice before investing in a country where the authorities’ commitment to the rule of law is increasingly dubious.

This amounts to a new German policy towards Turkey, and it further confirms Germany’s status as an economic great power. Gabriel’s announcement sent shockwaves through the Turkish government, because it recalled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane in 2015. The sanctions that Russia imposed cost Turkey’s already-struggling economy $15 billion, and eventually forced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to offer a groveling apology.

Putin’s aggressive response came as no surprise. By contrast, Germany’s decision to respond in a similar fashion marks a break from its generally more accommodating diplomatic style.

Retired German diplomat Volker Stanzel told me that Gabriel’s latest move is in keeping with his personality and knack for political calculation. In anticipation of Germany’s national election this September, Gabriel knows that his Social Democratic Party has nothing to lose by standing up to Erdoğan, who has alienated Germans with his authoritarian personality, Islamist leanings, and flippant allusions to the Holocaust.

Stanzel also points out that Gabriel, who is influenced as much by the media as by other diplomats, wants to craft a more public-facing style of diplomacy for the twenty-first century. And, because his previous government post was in the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, it is natural that he would use economic pressure as a measure of first resort.

Still, Germany’s changing global posture predates Gabriel, who is a relative newcomer at the foreign ministry. During the euro crisis, Germany deployed economic means for economic ends within Europe. But in its policies towards Russia, Turkey, China and the United States, Germany has increasingly been using its economic strength to advance larger strategic goals.

After Putin annexed Crimea in March 2014, the West’s response was led not by the US, but by Germany, which spearheaded diplomacy with Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate the conflict. Germany then persuaded the rest of the European Union to agree to unprecedentedly tough sanctions against Russia to deter further aggression.

Germany has maintained that united European front for three years, defying all expectations. And now that Russia-related scandals loom large over US President Donald Trump’s administration, Europeans are increasingly looking to Germany to continue its leadership on this issue.

Germany also negotiated a deal with Turkey to reduce the flow of Middle East refugees to Europe, effectively recasting the EU–Turkish relationship. Rather than maintain the fiction that Turkey is still a viable candidate for EU accession, Germany has forged a more realistic strategic bilateral relationship. Europe can still work with Turkey to advance common interests, but it can also raise objections to Erdoğan’s increasing authoritarianism.

Of course, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s willingness to confront Trump may be the most surprising foreign-policy change of all. Shortly after meeting with Trump at the G7 summit in Sicily this May, she delivered a speech calling on Europe to ‘take our fate into our own hands’. That alone marks a departure from decades of German diplomacy.

So far, the rupture in German–US relations has been mostly rhetorical. But Merkel is also shoring up Germany’s geopolitical position by diversifying its global partnerships, especially with China. According to Stanzel, who previously served as Germany’s ambassador in Beijing, ‘Merkel has no illusions about China, but she sees it as a partner on climate, trade, and the politics of order.’

Germany’s new approach to great-power politics has evolved incrementally, and in response to seemingly unrelated events. But even if Germany isn’t following a master plan, its core strengths have enabled it to leverage its economic power, use EU institutions and budgets as a force multiplier, and build international coalitions in pursuit of strategic goals. Moreover, Germany’s changing diplomacy represents a continuation of the ‘normalisation’ process that began with German reunification in 1989, spawning major domestic debates about the use of military force and the importance of Germany’s relationships with the US, Russia and other European powers.

All of this suggests that Germany may finally be escaping from two ‘complexes’ that have long constrained its strategic thinking. The first is its psycho-historical complex, which forces German leaders to bend over backwards to reassure foreigners about their intentions. This explains why Germany has long insisted on ‘contributing, not leading’ or ‘leading from the middle’, and now embraces the idea of ‘servant leadership’.

The second complex concerns the country’s military posture. Germany still spends a modest 1.2% of its GDP on defence, and its internal debates about power tend to be driven by concerns about military budgets, troop deployments and foreign interventions.

At the same time, the consensus within the German security establishment about the use of force is changing. Germany has been building bilateral military ties with countries ranging from Norway and the Netherlands to Japan. It has also begun taking a more active role in various theatres of operation, by deploying troops in Afghanistan and Mali, and providing support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq. And it has been leading an effort, alongside France, to create an EU defence fund.

These are all important developments. But they are nowhere near as important as Germany’s decision to bring its massive economic power to bear on the world stage. Gabriel’s recent response to Turkey is a step in that direction. Why send troops abroad when you can have a larger impact by keeping tourists and world-class companies at home?

Turkey’s year of turmoil

It has been one year since the failed coup in Turkey, and questions about the country’s future still abound.

Last year’s attempted coup was nothing if not dramatic. Mutinous F-16 fighters bombed the Turkish parliament, and 249 people lost their lives. But the putschists failed to detain President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who then mobilised his own supporters and sealed the coup’s fate. If the coup had not been stymied within the first 48 hours, Turkey probably would have fallen into a devastating and violent civil war, the consequences of which would have extended well beyond its borders.

Today, it is difficult to find anyone in Turkey who doubts that the coup was instigated by forces loyal to the enigmatic Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. All of the available evidence seems to support this conclusion. When Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power democratically in 2002, they joined forces with the Gülenists to roll back Turkey’s old authoritarian establishment, and to shore up Turkish democracy with a bid to join the European Union.

But the Gülenists had deeper ambitions—and a tradition of secrecy born in an era of military dictatorship, when many religious activities in Turkey were forced underground. After 2002, the Gülenists’ infiltration of the police and the judiciary was well known, and they used their position to stage show trials and imprison their adversaries. Less well known was the extent to which they had also infiltrated the Air Force and the Gendarmerie.

In 2013, the AKP and the Gülenists parted ways, and then began waging a silent civil war. Given that ongoing standoff, it is not unreasonable to conclude that last year’s failed coup was a dramatic effort by Gülenists to take power before they could be purged from the military.

The Turkish state, which should never have been so thoroughly infiltrated by subversive elements in the first place, undoubtedly needs to cleanse itself. But if Turkey’s democracy is to have a future, the process of removing internal threats must adhere to the rule of law and human rights, and have broad support within Turkish society.

Unfortunately, some elements of Erdoğan’s response to last year’s coup attempt raise serious concerns. Of the 100,000 people who have been detained, more than 50,000 have been formally arrested. These include at least 169 generals and admirals, 7,000 colonels and lower-ranking officers, 8,800 police officers, 24 provincial governors, 2,400 members of the judiciary, and 31,000 other suspects.

At the same time, countless people have been dismissed from their jobs, with no prospects for the future. Numerous independent media outlets have been shuttered as well, and, in just the past few weeks, prominent human-rights advocates—including the director of Amnesty International in Turkey—have been arrested for supporting ‘terrorism’, a charge that defies belief.

In the aftermath of the failed coup, Turkish society united behind Erdoğan. But the government’s actions since then have increasingly polarised the country. In its effort to purge Turkey’s state of security threats, the government has cast its net ever wider. And in April, it pushed through constitutional changes in a referendum that was strongly opposed by almost half the country, including most young, urban voters. When the changes take effect, Turkey’s political system will be transformed into one in which the president wields highly concentrated power.

This is a departure from the first decade of AKP rule, when Turkey modernised its economy, developed its democratic institutions, and moved towards granting its Kurdish citizens full civil rights. Turkey’s impressive progress during this period strengthened its prospects for EU admission.

But now the future is more uncertain. If the Turkish government does not start respecting human rights and the rule of law by early next year, what remains of its EU accession bid could become unsalvageable. Turkey’s membership chances already took a hit from the failed peace and reunification talks with Cyprus—a failure for which Turkey alone cannot be blamed. And so much rhetorical abuse has been heaped on the EU that Turkey has made itself politically toxic in many key EU member states, not least Germany.

Without the political anchor provided by the EU accession process, Turkey’s modernisation process could go into reverse. And if that happens, the country could be dragged steadily down into the Middle East quagmire. Turkey is already admirably struggling to accommodate millions of refugees from the conflict in Syria, in which Turkish forces are now participants; and it is a constant target of terrorist attacks by the Islamic State. Moreover, Erdoğan has now decided to insert Turkey into the ongoing diplomatic contretemps between Qatar and other Gulf states.

The future of Turkey is of profound importance. Turkey straddles Europe and the Middle East. It will soon have a population of 100 million, and has impressive economic potential. The history of Europe can’t be written without Turkey any more than Turkey’s future can be extricated from Europe’s. If it is put on a credible path towards EU participation, it can help to bridge divides in culture and tradition that could otherwise threaten all of Europe.

But Turkey’s internal political wars are now jeopardising this future. The aftermath of the coup attempt could have been healing. Instead, it has so far been divisive. It is still not too late to take another path—but time is running out.

Cyber wrap

Image courtesy of Pixabay user 3dman_eu.

The US Department of Justice has charged four Russians—two intelligence officers and two private hackers—with over 47 counts of computer crime, fraud and identity theft, for their role in the compromise of over one billion Yahoo! user accounts in August 2013 and 2014. The indictment found that the compromise enabled direct unauthorised access to Yahoo! Accounts, targeting the personal information of Russian journalists and opposition politicians, as well as stealing financial information, and conducting mass spam campaigns using the compromised, but otherwise legitimate, e-mails. Perplexingly, one of the Russian intelligence officers charged by the US was arrested last December by Russia for undisclosed treasonous actions on behalf of the United States.

The US has earmarked US$1.5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to build better tools for protecting federal networks and critical infrastructure in its 2018 budget blueprint. The Trump administration isn’t letting other departments off the hook either, developing metrics to track federal agencies’ compliance with the NIST cybersecurity framework. The White House has also brought on Rob Joyce, previously Chief of the NSA’s offensive ‘Tailored Access Operations’ team, to manage the federal government’s cybersecurity policy.

Personal information has continued to drip like a tap this week, with a database from Dun and Bradstreet, a business services company, being released by an anonymous source to web security expert Troy Hunt, who currently runs the public data breach notification service Have I been pwnd?. The database holds personally identifiable information which includes the names, job titles, emails, phone numbers and work addresses of over 33 million people, 101,013 of whom are employees of the US Department of Defense. Jamaica felt the pain of data breaches as well, reporting US$100 million lost over 200 reported cases of cybercrime in 2016.

Here in Australia, Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne launched the ‘Next Generation Technologies Fund’ this week, which will allocate $730 million in investments for innovators and researchers working on developing Australia’s future defence capabilities, including in cybersecurity. The fund is part of a wider initiative to improve Defence Innovation collaboration and connections. An expanded write-up of that initiative is here. Qantas has announced a similar approach to coaxing innovations from small businesses and start-ups, launching the ‘Avro’ accelerator program and offering 10 start-ups the chance to work with Qantas and other big corporates for 12 weeks, while earning $150,000 along the way.

Some innovation efforts that took place in the Middle East are also worth making note of. The Israeli Defence Force hosted a Pokémon-themed training exercise for IDF cyber cadets to ‘catch ‘em all’, with “‘em” in this case being malware hidden deep within a network they were assigned to protect. Talk about great news for Israeli Pokémon fans who fancy a career in cyber! Or maybe not, with the IDF’s security division banning Pokémon Go on-base, fearing that the interactive game would lead to the leaking of photographs on-site and base locations.

The ongoing spat between the Netherlands and Turkey regarding the impact of Turkish President Erdogan’s political campaign in the Netherlands’ Turkish communities spilled online this week. Several prolific Twitter accounts, including BBC North America and Forbes, were hijacked, having their display pictures switched to the Turkish Flag, and tweeting out swastikas and Turkish hashtags #Nazialmanya and #Nazihollanda, comparing ‘Nazi Germany’ with ‘Nazi Holland’. The accounts were compromised after the third party analytics service, Twitter Counter, was hacked, providing a stark reminder that an account’s security is only as strong as its chosen third party app’s.

In other news, the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s 2017 Conference wrapped up in Canberra this week. Among its all-star line-up, among others, was our favourite @Cyber_Roo, as well as the Australian Federal Police’ David McLean hinting that ‘interesting developments’ had taken place in the hunt for perpetrators of DDoS attacks that contributed to #censusfail. Strangely enough, the ACSC gig coincided with hacker conference BSides Canberra 2017. It’s hard to say which crowd had more fun, but the conference swag game definitely goes to BSides, which handed out fully programmable badges with customisable displays to its delegates.

Erdogan’s tragic choice

Ever since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won his first general election in late 2002, he’s been obsessed with the idea that power would be wrested from him through a coup. He had good reason to worry even then. Turkey’s ultra-secularist establishment, ensconced in the upper echelons of the judiciary and the military at the time, made no secret of its antipathy toward Erdogan and his political allies.

Erdogan himself had been jailed for reciting religion-laced poetry, which prevented him from taking office immediately when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed office in November 2002. In 2007, the military issued a statement opposing the AKP’s candidate for president—then largely a figurehead. And in 2008, the party narrowly escaped being shut down by the country’s top court for ‘anti-secular activities’.

The old guard’s efforts largely backfired and served only to augment Erdogan’s popularity. His strengthening grip on power might have mollified him and led to a less confrontational political style. Instead, in the ensuing years, his then-allies the Gülenists—followers of the cleric-in-exile Fethullah Gülen—managed to whip Erdogan’s obsession into paranoia.

From 2008 to 2013, Gülenists in the police, judiciary, and media concocted a series of fictitious conspiracies and plots against Erdogan, each more gory than the last. They ran sensational show trials targeting military officers, journalists, NGOs, professors, and Kurdish politicians. Erdogan may not have believed all of the charges—a military chief with whom he had worked closely was among those jailed—but the prosecutions served their purpose. They fed Erdogan’s fear of being toppled, and eliminated the remaining vestiges of the secularist regime from the military and civilian bureaucracy.

The Gülenists had another motive as well. They were able to place their own sympathisers in the senior ranks vacated by the military officers targeted by their sham trials. The Gülenists had spent decades infiltrating the military; but the commanding heights had remained out of reach. This was their opportunity. The ultimate irony of July’s failed coup is that it was engineered not by Turkey’s secularists, but by the Gülenist officers Erdogan had allowed to be promoted in their stead.

By the end of 2013, Erdogan’s alliance with the Gülenists had turned into open warfare. With the common enemy—the secularist old guard—defeated, there was little to hold the alliance together. Erdogan had begun closing Gülenist schools and businesses and purging them from the state bureaucracy. A major purge of the military was on the way, which apparently prompted Gülenist officers to move pre-emptively.

In any case, the coup attempt has fully validated Erdogan’s paranoia, which helps explain why the crackdown on Gülenists and other government opponents has been so ruthless and extensive. In addition to the discharge of nearly 4,000 officers, 85,000 public officials have been dismissed from their jobs since 15 July, and 17,000 have been jailed. Scores of journalists have been detained, including many with no links to the Gülen movement. Any semblance of the rule of law and due process has disappeared.

A great leader would‘ve responded differently. The failed putsch created a rare opportunity for national unity. All political parties, including the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), condemned the coup attempt, as did the vast majority of ordinary people, regardless of their political orientation. Erdogan could have used the opportunity to rise beyond Islamist, liberal, secularist, and Kurdish identities to establish a new political consensus around democratic norms. He had a chance to become a democratic unifier.

Instead, he has chosen to deepen Turkey’s divisions and erode the rule of law even more. The dismissal and jailing of opponents has gone far beyond those who may have had a role in the putsch. Marxist academics, Kurdish journalists, and liberal commentators have been swept up alongside Gülenists. Erdogan continues to treat the HDP as a pariah. And, far from contemplating peace with the Kurdish rebels, he seems to relish the resumption of war with them.

Unfortunately, this is a winning strategy. Keeping the country on high alert against perceived enemies and inflaming nationalist-religious passions serves to keep Erdogan’s base mobilised. And it neutralises the two main opposition parties; both are highly nationalistic and therefore constitute reliable allies in the war against the Kurdish rebels.

Similarly, Erdogan’s offensive against Gülen and his movement seems driven more by political opportunism than by a desire to bring the coup’s organisers to justice. Erdogan and his ministers have endlessly griped about the United States’ reluctance to extradite Gülen to Turkey. Yet, nearly two months after the coup, Turkey hasn’t formally submitted to the US any evidence of Gülen’s culpability. Anti-American rhetoric plays well in Turkey, and Erdogan isn’t beneath exploiting it.

In his testimony to the prosecutors investigating the coup, the army’s top general has said that the putschists who took him hostage offered to put him in contact that night with Gülen. This remains the strongest evidence that Gülen himself was directly involved. A leader intent on convincing the world of Gülen’s culpability would’ve paraded his military chief in front of the media to elaborate on what happened that night. Yet the general hasn’t been asked—or allowed—to speak in public, fueling speculation about his own role in the attempted coup.

And so Turkey’s never-ending cycle of victimisation—of Islamists, communists, secularists, Kurds perennially, and now the Gülenists—has gained velocity. Erdogan’s making the same tragic mistake he made in 2009–2010: using his vast popularity to undermine democracy and the rule of law rather than restoring them—and thus rendering moderation and political reconciliation all the more difficult in the future.

Erdogan’s twice had the chance to be a great leader. At considerable cost to his legacy—and even greater cost to Turkey—he spurned it both times.

How to stop terrorism in Europe

Image courtesy of Flickr user faungg's photos.

Europe is under pressure. Integrating asylum-seekers and other migrants—1.1 million in Germany alone in 2015—into European society poses a major challenge, one that has been complicated by a spike in crimes committed by new arrivals. Making matters worse, many European Muslims have become radicalized, with some heading to Iraq and Syria to fight under the banner of the so-called Islamic State, and others carrying out terror attacks at home. Add to that the often-incendiary nativist rhetoric of populist political leaders, and the dominant narrative in Europe is increasingly one of growing insecurity.

Many European countries are moving to strengthen internal security. But their approach is incomplete, at best.

Germany and others have introduced new measures, including an increase in police personnel, accelerated deportation of migrants who have committed crimes, and the authority to strip German citizenship from those who join foreign ‘terror militias.’ Other steps include enhanced surveillance of public places and the creation of new units focused on identifying potential terrorists through their Internet activities.

The pressure to reassure the public has driven Belgium, Bulgaria, France, and the Netherlands, as well as the Swiss region of Ticino and the Italian region of Lombardy, to ban the burqa (the full-body covering worn by ultraconservative Muslim women) and other face-covering veils in some or all public places. Several French coastal cities have also banned the burkini, the full-body swimsuit some Muslim women wear to the beach.

Even Germany, whose Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière initially rejected such a ban, has succumbed to pressure from allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel and proposed a ban on face-covering veils in public places where identification is required. Such clothing, the logic goes, is not conducive to integration.

But no internal security measures, much less clothing requirements, can guarantee Europe’s safety. To find a real solution, European leaders must address the ideological roots of the security challenges they face.

The problem is not Islam, as many populists claim (and as the burqa and burkini bans suggest). Muslims have long been part of European society, accounting for about 4% of Europe’s total population in 1990 and 6% in 2010. And previous waves of immigration from Muslim countries have not brought surges in terrorist activity within Europe’s borders. For example, beginning in the 1960s, roughly three million migrants from Turkey settled in Germany to meet the booming economy’s demand for labor, without posing any internal security threat.

Today, that threat results from radical Islamism—a fundamentalist vision of society reordered according to Sharia law. Beyond enduring untold suffering and violence, many of today’s refugees, from war-torn countries like Iraq and Syria, have imbibed radical Islamist ideology and, specifically, calls to jihad. Some might be Islamic State fighters who have disguised themselves as asylum-seekers, in order to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe. US intelligence officials have repeatedly warned of this possibility.

Even for the majority of asylum-seekers, who are genuinely seeking safety, the violence and Islamist rhetoric to which they have been exposed may have had a powerful psychological impact. After living for so long in a conflict zone, assimilating to a peaceful society governed by the rule of law requires the newcomers to develop a new mindset, one that enables them to face genuine challenges without resorting to criminality.

And this does not even account for the deep psychological scars that will afflict many of the refugees. Research indicates that more than 50% of the men and women who have spent time in war zones experience at least partial posttraumatic stress disorder, which is associated with an increased risk of violence.

To many in Europe, these factors suggest that the key to keeping Europe safe is controlling the flow of refugees, including through improved vetting procedures. (Such procedures have often been lacking, owing to the sheer number of refugees pouring in.) And there is a case for keeping the refugees in the Middle East, though a key mechanism for doing that—the European Union’s deal with Turkey—is now at risk, owing to political turmoil following last month’s failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

But not even constructing a Fortress Europe would eliminate the terrorist threat. After all, some attacks, including in Brussels and Paris, have been carried out by Muslim European citizens who became radicalized in their own bedrooms. According to Rob Wainwright, who heads Europol, some 5,000 European jihadists have been to Syria and Iraq, and ‘several hundred’ are likely plotting further attacks in Europe after returning home.

The only way to address the threat of terrorism effectively is to tackle the radical Islamist ideology that underpins it. This means working to stop the religious-industrial complexes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and elsewhere in the Gulf from using their abundant petrodollars to fund the spread of extremist ideology.

It also means launching a concerted information campaign to discredit that ideology, much like the West discredited communism during the Cold War—a critical component of its eventual triumph. This is a job for all major powers, but it is a particularly urgent task for Europe, given its proximity to the Middle East, especially the new jihadist citadels that countries like Syria, Iraq, and Libya represent.

To take down the terrorists requires delegitimizing the belief system that justifies their actions. Burqa bans and other measures by European authorities that target Islam as such are superficial and counter-productive, as they create divisions in European society, while leaving the ideological underpinnings of terrorism unaddressed.

National security wrap

Image courtesy of Flickr user Kurdishstruggle

The Beat

Feds seek to police the police

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has concluded a 14-month investigation into the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) and its findings are damning. The investigation was launched following the highly publicised death of Freddie Gray under police custody in April 2015, and the civil disorder that ensued in Baltimore. The report doesn’t mince words, accusing the BPD of routinely violating either the US constitution or federal laws. Baltimore has entered into an ‘agreement in principle’ with the DOJ, which identifies problem areas in need of reform, principally in police training and practices. The agreement paves the way for a planned court-enforceable consent decree and an eventual federal court order. This arrangement aims to increase federal oversight of state and local police in the US, which is in line with recommendations from the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing report released in May 2015.

Argentine civ-mil tensions

Argentina’s new PRO administration continues its militarisation of domestic security. In January President Mauricio Macri decreed a ‘public security emergency’ authorising the air force to shoot down planes in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking. Following this policy, on 3 August, Argentina inked an arms deal to purchase 24 military aircraft for $US300 million, the largest US-Argentine arms deal in a decade.

CT Scan

The long march to Mosul

Prominent former members of the US defense establishment—including David Petraeus and Eric Olson—have stepped forward in the past week with concerns over post-Mosul Iraq. Military offensives are bringing anti-ISIS forces ever closer to the city and the question on everyone’s mind is what next? With the amalgamation of various groups of fighters set to take part in the operation, it’s unclear whether alliances of convenience will hold. As for ISIS post-Mosul, some analysts aren’t so convinced territorial losses will have a significant impact on the group’s operations abroad.

Resilience and CT

With the uptick in terror attacks on the West, is it time to re-think our approach to CT? Uri Friedman, writing for The Atlantic, argues the importance of building resilience in Western societies—‘the goal is for societies to determine the lengths they are willing to go to try and stop terrorist attacks, and then to find ways to reconcile with the risk that remains by minimizing the costs of terrorism’—part of that means being realistic about the nature and extent of the threat. Anthony Cordesman pushes a similar line in a recent CSIS Report, arguing that terrorism is just something we’re going to have to learn to live with (PDF).

Checkpoint

Turkey wrangles over EU border deal

Turkey has again threatened to cancel its promise to limit refugee flows into Europe if the EU does not grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel within the bloc by October. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cauvsoglu expressed dissatisfaction over ongoing negotiations with the EU and the Western response to July’s failed coup attempt. Brussels has baulked at extending the Schengen Area into Turkey in light of Ankara’s heavy-handed post-coup crackdown and its steadfast refusal to circumscribe its expansive anti-terrorist laws. Over 60,000 individuals in the military, education and public sectors have been dismissed, suspended, detained, or investigated—including a third of Turkey’s generals and admirals. The West’s delayed condemnation of the attempted putsch has done little to dampen domestic disquiet over its perpetrators, with one poll suggesting 70% of Turks believe the US was involved.

Tensions in Kashmir region

Last week Kashmiri Islamist separatist terrorists from Hizbul Mujahideen attacked and killed three Indian Border Security Force soldiers posted in Jammu and Kashmir. On Tuesday further clashes in the region left five dead and 18 injured. The mounting unrest follows the death of former leader, Burhan Wani, at the hands of Indian Security forces on 8 July.

First Responder

Financial resilience

An article in The Japan Times recently highlighted the risk posed by natural disasters to ports in Japan, China and the US. According to risk-modelling firm, RMS Inc., those ports were ill-prepared to manage any financial fallout. Gloria Grandolini, writing for the World Bank, notes the importance of ‘far-sighted preparations’ in mitigating the financial impact of natural disasters—particularly ‘as climate change intensifies extreme weather events across much of the planet’.

Morrison says no to Ausgrid lease

And finally, the blocked sale of NSW electricity distributor Ausgrid to Chinese buyers over national security concerns generated a media frenzy last week. ASPI’s Peter Jennings and Paul Barnes both chimed in on the issue—Peter highlighting the national security dimensions of foreign investment in critical infrastructure, while Paul examined the economic side of the equation. Allan Behm also weighed in on The Strategist. Check out two pieces over at The Diplomat and The Interpreter for how the decision played out and its potential impact on the Australia–China economic relationship.

ANU’s East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges have urged greater economic cooperation with China—the duo has outlined a potential roadmap in a major new study, the Australia–China Joint Economic Report: Partnership for Change (PDF).

Taking Turkey seriously

Image courtesy of Flickr user Fred Murphy

Istanbul, in western Turkey, is one of Europe’s great cities. As Constantinople, it was the capital of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and after its capture and renaming by Mehmed II in 1453, it served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire for nearly another 500 years.

Throughout its history, the city on the western side of the Bosphorus Strait separating Europe from Asia has been an epicenter of the relationship between the geopolitical West and East. And Istanbul will most likely continue to play that role, given the current importance of mostly Christian Europe’s relationship with the wider Muslim world.

Turkey itself emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and Turkish political life has often been tumultuous, marked by competing visions and aspirations, successes and setbacks. Still, during the last two centuries, reformers seeking to modernize Turkey have looked to Europe for inspiration.

This was certainly true of Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who pushed through authoritarian reforms in the 1920s and 1930s to secularize the country; and it has been true for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who, over the past 13 years, first as Turkey’s prime minister and now as its president, has emerged as a towering personality on the world stage.

Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) spent their first decade in power pushing through impressive economic and, yes, democratic reforms. Turkey, whose membership in the European Union Customs Union was already supporting its economic transformation, moved closer to eligibility for eventual EU membership—a process that reinforced the country’s motivation to make progress on democratic reforms. Hope that the country had finally overcome its checkered history of military dictatorships was gaining strength.

However, much changed in the last few years. Turkey’s accession talks with the EU have ground almost to a halt, owing partly to outright hostility against Turkey in some EU member states. The motives behind this animus vary, but the overall effect has been to alienate many Turks, who now feel rejected by a Europe that once inspired them. Not surprisingly, some Turks now look for inspiration and opportunities elsewhere.

Moreover, the situation inside Turkey has worsened in recent years, with Turkish society becoming dangerously polarized under the strain of the escalating conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Threats from militant Kurdish factions have resurfaced after a long ceasefire, and the Islamic State has launched a series of terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Ankara. It is a testament to Turkey’s resiliency that, under such conditions, it has still managed to host up to three million refugees.

Turkish politics since 2013 has also suffered from a ruthless and increasingly destructive silent civil war between the AKP and its former allies in the Gülenist movement, an Islamic community nominally led by the exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, who now lives in the United States, outside Philadelphia.

The AKP and the Gülenists were once united in seeking to eradicate the Kemalist ‘deep state’—an alleged network of anti-democratic, nationalist agents embedded in the state’s security structures with a mission to uphold Atatürk’s secular vision. Part of this united effort involved, in 2007, show trials of senior Turkish generals that were based on fabricated evidence—an episode that many now agree led the country astray.

The years since then have been marked by warnings of Gülenist infiltration of the police force, the judiciary, and parts of the military. This silent civil war has significantly degraded the country’s democratic development, with the elected government resorting to more authoritarian measures to respond to the perceived threat of Gülenist subversion.

The silent civil war became audible with the failed coup in July, which most observers believe was orchestrated by Gülenist forces, though Gülen himself has denied any involvement. If the coup had succeeded, Turkey likely would have descended into open civil war with no end in sight, and with all hope for democracy extinguished.

One silver lining of the recent putsch is that, after years of division, it has united Turkey’s democratic political parties around the shared goal of defending democracy against future internal threats. The West’s lack of empathy for Turkey during this traumatic period has been astonishing; it can be in no Western country’s interest that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first to meet with Erdoğan in the episode’s aftermath.

No one should be surprised that Turkey is now trying to purge Gülenists from positions of power. Any state faced with insurrection from within would do the same. To be sure, we should not ignore abuses in the immediate post-putsch crackdown; but we should put ourselves in the authorities’ shoes. It is hard to know at this stage if the government is casting the net too wide or not wide enough, but erring in either direction will only create new problems.

For what it’s worth, senior Turkish officials, in a meeting with Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjørn Jagland, have promised to uphold the rule of law in accordance with Council membership. In any case, there will be opportunities for the Council to address abuses after the immediate furor has subsided.

Turkey is at a historical crossroads, but it is still too early to tell where the country is headed. If the previous trends toward polarization and authoritarianism continue, the country could eventually reach a breaking point. But if national unity, based on shared commitment to democracy, ultimately prevails, Turkey’s political climate will improve, allowing for a resumption of the Kurdish peace process, further progressive political reforms, and new hope for future integration with Europe.

And make no mistake: the West’s attitude toward Turkey matters. Western diplomats should escalate engagement with Turkey to ensure an outcome that reflects democratic values and is favorable to Western and Turkish interests alike.

A democratic and European Turkey could be a bridge to deliver reform and modernity to the Muslim world; an alienated and authoritarian Turkey could bring conflict and strife back to Europe’s eastern borderlands. What happens on the Bosphorus affects us all.

Erdoganism (or why Turkey is leaving the West)

Image courtesy of Flickr user Allan Watt

It’s hard to avoid the common narrative surrounding key individuals in Turkish politics. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the charismatic strong man using political Islam as a tool to facilitate a shift to authoritarianism, while Fetullah Gulen is the reclusive and mysterious adversary plotting from abroad.

Those caricatures help simplify analysis of a complex political system, but the tendency of commentators to focus on individual agency misses many of the variables shaping Turkish politics. Consequently, those wanting to understand what the failed coup means for Turkey should look to the regional security environment for richer descriptions.

It helps to first reassess Turkish security in the historical context of the Kemalism, the dominant state ideology for most of the 20th century. The prevailing historical narrative frames Kemalism as a nationalist project, where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of Turkey, implemented a series of reforms following the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire. These were designed to protect ‘Turkishness’ via a mix of militant secularism, republicanism and modernisation.

A security-based assessment of Kemalism uncovers a different story. Here, the foreign policy isolationism of Kemalism made sense in the post-World War I order. Similarly, modernising by linking to European values functioned as an important security currency, as it differentiated Turkey from the states of the Middle East.

That position was justified when Turkey emerged free of hostilities after World War II. More importantly, isolationism allowed it to avoid the security competitions that troubled the Middle Eastern security architecture. Post-1945, Kemalism again helped Turkey to navigate a complex environment effectively, despite being at the frontier of US–Soviet activities.

More recently, this strategic interpretation helps to understand the AKP’s rise in 2002. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of al-Qaeda, Salafi radicals recast Kemalism as a force that was corrupting Turkish Islam. The rise of radical voices after the US occupation of Iraq made Turkey vulnerable to a range of entrepreneurs who sought to capitalise on the changing regional order. First al-Qaeda, then Daesh, threatened to take their messages across Turkey’s porous southern borders.

Turkey’s shift towards political Islam and away from Kemalism isn’t simply the result of Erdogan and his personal aspiration. Instead, Erdogan’s use of Islamist rhetoric is an instrument for the state to recapture those problematic narratives from radical opportunists.

That reading often gets lost because the political commentary delivered to the West about Turkey comes from progressive voices in Istanbul—which are framed through a European lens. And while genuine and informative, those voices often cast aside the fundamental fact that Turkey remains a highly conservative and religious state, especially outside of its major cities.

Other European voices equate Turkish security as dependent on integration with the West. But even here, Turkey has reasons to be wary. For example, NATO has been ambiguous around its Article 5 commitments when Turkey’s territorial integrity has been threatened, as happened during the Gulf Wars and the recent Syrian Crisis.

In that context, the incentives to stay with the West are less critical than often advertised. And problematically, adhering to the EU’s democratic principles leaves Turkey’s domestic environment open to exploitation in the absence of neat political cleavages by a range of diverse actors, including the Gulenists, hard-line political Islamists, pan-Turkists and the Kurds.

That means Erdogan’s rhetorical shift towards political Islam provides a buffer against the most extreme voices projected into the southeast of the country from Syria and Iraq. At a broader level, the corresponding shift of security policy east also prevents exploitation of their geostrategic position by a range of opportunists, including Russia and the US. For example, Gulenists trying to please Washington have been linked to the downing of a Russian jet on the Turkish border in November 2015.

Consequently, a considered shift east does provide some advantages to Turkish security. While NATO membership is likely to remain a pillar of Turkish strategy, the departure of Turkey from a wider set of European institutional pathways (such as the ECHR and the EU Acquis process), isn’t likely to reduce their military importance given that Ankara remains central to the US’s own regional security interests.

Another prime incentive for Western engagement—trade—is also less important than in previous decades. In fact, Turkey’s economy remains strong despite its lack of EU membership and it sits astride a number of strong and growing trade routes, crossed by Central Asia, China, Iran and Russia.

When viewed together, this suggests that the shift away from Kemalism—to what might be called ‘Erdoganism’—is a broader response to the new security environment, rather than personal ambition or individual agency.

Of course, this interpretation provides little comfort for those currently under detention due to tentative links to Gulen. And it doesn’t excuse the purge of thousands of government employees following the events of 15 July. Instead, it seeks to understand the wider forces at play in a highly complex situation and the thinking that will drive the new, post-coup Turkey.