Turkey and the U.S. – Hearing But Not Listening
November 21, 2013 § 5 Comments
I spent the better part of last week in Istanbul talking U.S. and Turkish foreign policy under the auspices of the Hollings Center, and I came away with a lot to mull over, but if there was one big overarching takeaway, it is that the U.S. and Turkey have a serious and real communication problem. There are structural issues that are complicating the bilateral relationship as well, and I’ll save those for a different post, but much of the recent downturn in relations (and yes, the relationship at the moment is at an ebb, no matter how much spin and damage control came from Ahmet Davutoğlu prior to his Washington visit this week) is resulting from a lack on both sides of understanding the other country’s priorities. The U.S. and Turkey are hearing each other, but not really listening.
This has manifested itself in a few ways, but the easiest way of illustrating the problem is by looking at the contretemps over Turkey’s decision to chose a Chinese firm to partner with in order to build an anti-missile defense system. When Turkey announced the decision, the reaction from the U.S. and other NATO allies was swift and furious. In their eyes, Turkey was turning its back on the NATO alliance and going with a Chinese firm – one that is under sanctions, no less – simply because it was cheaper. Turkey’s reaction to U.S. displeasure was that the U.S. does not understand the “new Turkey” that is stronger and more independent than it has been in the past, and does not feel like it needs to be tied down to whatever U.S. preferences are in every situation.
The Turkish decision, the U.S. reaction, and the Turkish counter-reaction have been acutely felt in both places, but in both instances they are partially predicated on fundamental misunderstandings of decision making and preferences in each country. Starting with Turkey, the decision to go with the Chinese tender was not made on the basis of price alone, nor was it done to stick a thumb in NATO’s eye. As Aaron Stein very accurately pointed out at the time, the Chinese firm offered a complete technology transfer and a favorable co-production agreement, and co-production was the most important factor in the decision on which of the four bids to accept. As multiple of my Turkish colleagues stressed to me last week, the Turkish defense industry has been on a mission for years to become self-sustaining, and the anti-missile defense system is no exception. Prime Minister Erdoğan actually changed the tender process midway through in order to incorporate co-production agreements, which effectively eliminated the U.S. bid since there are export control laws against this sort of thing. The point was not, however, to put the U.S. at a disadvantage, but to benefit the Turkish defense industry to the maximum possible amount. Yes, this had the side effect of making the U.S. bid a surefire loser, but that was not what Turkey was purposely aiming to do. According to the Turks, this was a strategic decision at heart, and while the Chinese bid was the highest rated one on both cost and price, it was the technology transfer and the co-production that were the decisive variables. The U.S. is understandably and justifiably upset at a NATO ally going to China to purchase an anti-missile system that is not able to be integrated into existing NATO defenses, but the U.S. government seems to be misunderstanding how the decision was made and what factors were most important to Turkey.
On the flip side, the Turks are downplaying U.S. and NATO anger under a mistaken impression that this is about lost money for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin or a desire not to see Turkey pursue an independent defense policy. What Turkey does not understand is that accepting the Chinese bid is an enormous deal because the Chinese system cannot and will not be integrated into NATO combat management systems – can you imagine giving the Chinese access to such sensitive information? – and Turkey is now cut out of the NATO sensor system. Following the deployment of the X-Band radar on Turkish territory and Patriot missile batteries in Gaziantep, Turkish obtuseness on this issue is puzzling, to say the least. I was told that the defense industry committee that made the decision to accept the Chinese bid did not involve the foreign ministry at all, which makes the picture a bit clearer, as had there been any type of foreign policy aspect to this decision, the Chinese firm would have been eliminated from the start. To reiterate, this is a Chinese firm that is under sanctions for violating the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act, and by going with this firm, the Turkish defense industry is opening itself up to its own round of sanctions. U.S. anger on this is genuine, yet the Turks keep on insisting that the Chinese system will be compatible with NATO – which is incorrect – and that the penalties for cooperating with a firm under sanctions won’t apply to Turkey – which is also incorrect. Turkey is convincing itself that U.S. anger is about not wanting to see an independent Turkey, which is a load of utter nonsense, and is missing the point about the message that it sends to the U.S. and NATO, who do not see why a desire for co-production outweighs a defense alliance that is more than half a century old.
The fallout from this decision is going to reverberate, and hopefully going forward each side will do a better job of realizing the core interests of the other. In the meantime though, if Turkey thinks it can smooth things over by referring ad nauseam to the countries’ shared values and pretending in hindsight that it welcomed the Gezi protests, then there is a delusion at the heart of Turkish foreign policymaking these days that is worse than I thought.
Why Isn’t Russia Freaking Out Over NATO Patriots In Turkey?
December 5, 2012 § Leave a comment
Following a meeting of foreign ministers yesterday, NATO gave its ok to deploy Patriot missile batteries to Turkey in order to guard against a missile attack emanating from Syria. While this is welcome news in Ankara, it is a move that Russia has been complaining about and trying to sandbag ever since Turkey made its initial request for Patriots last month. Russia’s concerns over deploying Patriots to the border with Syria are twofold and both fairly obvious. First, as Syria’s external patron, Russia wants to avoid intervention by any outside actors, and it has been afraid that sending Patriot missiles to Turkey is a precursor to wider action on the part of outside powers. Second, the fact that the Patriots are coming from NATO adds to Russian paranoia. NATO is and always has been a sore spot for Moscow, and understandably so. The organization that was formed during the Cold War as a way of containing the Soviet Union did not disband once the USSR broke apart and its raison d’être no longer existed, but actually expanded and in the process encircled Russia even more. Despite repeated American and Western assurances that this was not aimed at tamping down Russian power, Russia has never quite believed this version of events, and so it reflexively opposes any increased NATO presence in its backyard or in any situations in which it is intimately involved.
Nevertheless, following NATO’s decision to send Patriots to Turkey, Russia actually downplayed its criticism. At a press conference in Brussels after a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia did not object to the Patriot deployment but that it did not want the situation with Syria to escalate any further. Lavrov was clear that Russia differs with NATO on issues of missile defense, but Moscow has apparently decided not to take a hard stand in this particular instance. The reason for this is partly because NATO has made it abundantly clear that placing Patriots on the Syrian border is not in any way a harbinger of an eventual NATO intervention, but is rather a measure designed to placate and reassure a skittish Turkey. The Patriots have been programmed so that they can only intercept missiles crossing over into Turkish airspace and cannot cross over into Syrian territory preemptively. If it had not already been clear enough, the NATO foreign ministers issued a statement emphasizing that the Patriots would not be used offensively in any way and will not be linked to any theoretical no-fly zone. While Russia is still not thrilled with the development, the effort to reassure the Russians that the Patriot missiles do not herald Western states actively intervening on behalf of the rebels in the Syrian civil war seems to have paid off.
There is, however, another reason that Russia is all of a sudden displaying a more pliant side, and it has to do with Turkish energy demands. As sanctions have kicked in on Iranian oil, Turkey has been meeting its vast and ever growing energy needs with Iranian natural gas, and it has been buying that gas with gold in an effort to evade the ban on financial transactions with Iranian banks. In response to Turkey’s end around, the Senate is considering a new sanctions bill that would cover the sale of precious metals to Iran, and while Turkey insists that it will continue buying up to 90% of Iran’s natural gas exports, at some point the White House is going to be forced to take a tougher line with Turkey given the pressure from Congress over the issue. As I wrote back in April when looking at Turkey’s energy trade with Iran, Turkey’s biggest oil supplier is not Iran but Russia, and if Turkey is forced to look elsewhere for its natural gas needs, Russia is the logical partner. There are signs that Turkey is preparing for this very eventuality, as it has asked Russia to increase its natural gas sales to Turkey by 3 billion cubic meters per year, which does not entirely replace the 10 billion cubic meters per year that Turkey gets from Iran but significantly cuts into it. Russia wants Turkey to buy more of its gas at Iran’s expense, and this may partially explain Russia’s backing down from its strident stance on NATO deploying Patriot missiles in Turkey. Russia wants to keep Turkey as a happy client, and if placing some defensive missile batteries along the border with Syria are the price of doing business, Russia has concluded that the pros outweigh the cons.
Why Is Erdoğan Needling The EU?
November 14, 2012 § Leave a comment
Prime Minister Erdoğan seems to be going out of his way lately to push the European Union’s buttons. First, while in Berlin for meetings with Angela Merkel, he gave the EU an ultimatum that Turkey would halt its accession talks for good if it was not granted EU membership by 2023. Turkey’s frustration at being strung along is quite understandable, but there’s no doubt that Erdoğan’s threat to drop out of the process ruffled some European feathers. While in Germany he also made a strange reference to Turkey not adopting the euro but setting up its own “lira zone” which would presumably compete with the euro zone, thrilling a segment of Turkish nationalists who are convinced that the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU but leaving many observers scratching their heads as the lira has a low trading volume and it is unclear which countries, if any, would ever join such a project.
The biggest salvo aimed at the EU, however, has been the prime minister’s recent comments on the death penalty. Erdoğan has now hinted that Turkey should reinstate the death penalty in a number of different forums, including an AKP meeting, a press conference, and on twitter, where he said that the state is not entitled to forgive a killer and that some killings may warrant the death penalty. Ahmet Davutoğlu and Sadullah Ergin both insist that Erdoğan was only referring to the Norwegian mass murdered Anders Breivik and that no preparations are being made for Turkey to reinstate the death penalty, but the issue rankles the EU nonetheless. While Turkey has not executed anyone since 1984, it officially abolished the death penalty in 2002 as part of its reforms aimed at joining the EU, and this issue is associated with EU reforms perhaps more than any other. That Erdoğan is now bringing up the death penalty is seen as a direct affront to the EU and is being taken by some as a signal that Erdoğan is trying to put some distance between Turkey and Europe. The prime minister’s comments prompted a swift response from Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, who stated in no uncertain terms that a Turkish move to reinstate the death penalty would deliver an enormous blow to Turkey-EU relations.
It seems strange that Erdoğan is going out of his way to upset the Europeans, and while the death penalty row is a patented Erdoğan technique for deflecting attention away from the government’s missteps by bringing up a controversial issue (see his comments on abortion sweeping the Uludere airstrikes right off the front pages over the summer), this time it fits into a larger pattern of implicit and explicit EU-bashing. I actually don’t think that what is going on is about the EU at all, but is a misguided effort on Erdoğan’s part to pressure European countries into being more active in solving the Syria mess. Erdoğan has been trying in vain to get the U.S. or NATO to intervene, so far to no avail, and not only has he not made any progress but has managed to annoy both the U.S. and NATO by keeping up the rhetorical pressure in public and constantly bringing up intervention in private. Instead of recognizing that this strategy has failed and coming up with a new approach, I think Erdoğan is trying something similar now with the EU but from a different direction. Ankara has made it clear that Syria is its absolute top priority right now, and Erdoğan is playing on European fears that the West is going to “lose” Turkey. By threatening to withdraw from the EU process and by implying that he will consider reinstating the death penalty, Erdoğan is trying to do whatever he can to get European states to act to bring back Turkey into the fold – a fold that Turkey has never actually left – and the easiest way to do that is to give Turkey a helping hand on Syria. Deploying Patriot missiles along the Syrian border is the U.S. and NATO response to keeping Turkey happy and by taking constant digs at the EU, Erdoğan is trying to coax some European action in order to pacify Turkey, whether it be greater rhetorical pressure on Syria and recognition of the Syrian opposition (as France did yesterday) or a renewed push in the Security Council for some sort of action. The question is whether Europe is going to play along or call Erdoğan’s bluff, and that remains to be seen. In any event, I don’t think that the recent attempts to imply distancing from Europe is about Europe at all, but like so much else going on with Turkey these days, is actually about what’s taking place with its next door neighbor.
Patriot Games
November 8, 2012 § 6 Comments
I was talking with my good friend and colleague Steven Cook about the news that Turkey was planning to request that NATO deploy Patriot missiles along the Syrian border, and since we both had nearly identical thoughts on the subject, we thought we’d link O&Z and From the Potomac to the Euphrates together and write a joint post. You can read it here or on Steven’s blog (where he has a cool picture of a Patriot missile battery up top).
Wednesday saw a strange confluence of events surrounding Turkey and its oft-stated determination to intervene in Syria with the help of its Western allies. It began with an unnamed Turkish Foreign Ministry official – presumably Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu – revealing that there have been talks between Turkey and the United States about deploying Patriot missile batteries on the Syrian border. According to this report, the purpose of the Patriots would be to create a safe zone inside of Syria as a way of supporting a limited no-fly zone. This report would have been unusual by itself given that Patriot missiles are an odd vehicle to use for creating a no-fly zone, but it was particularly puzzling given Prime Minister Erdoğan’s statement the day before explicitly disavowing any Turkish intentions to buy Patriot missiles. More drama ensued after Davutoğlu was identified as the official claiming that a NATO deployment of Patriots was imminent, with the Foreign Ministry subsequently denying that Davutoğlu had ever made such a claim.
There are a couple of things here that don’t quite seem right. First, Patriot missiles are not what one would typically use to enforce or support a no-fly zone. Patriots are defensive weapons, designed to shoot down incoming missiles and not fix-winged aircraft or helicopters. Their deployment would only make sense if Ankara were concerned about a barrage of Syria’s Scud missiles tipped with chemical weapons—a largely theoretical threat. Second, despite the calls for intervention in Syria from some quarters of Washington, the Obama administration has been reluctant to get involved in Syria beyond technical support that may or may not include small arms. Anonymous reports coming out of Turkey the day after the election claiming that the U.S. and NATO are now about to prepare for staging a no-fly zone seem a little more than idle chatter. Neither the White House nor the State Department nor the Pentagon have demonstrated any appetite for getting involved in Syria, with its layers of political, sectarian, and regional complexities that could suck Washington into yet another long-term military and diplomatic commitment in the Muslim world. Against this backdrop, the recent meeting that the United States orchestrated in Doha to broaden the Syrian opposition was an effort to preclude a greater American involvement in Syria’s civil war.
The deployment of the Patriots is likely a precursor to no new initiative, but rather has more to do with U.S. and NATO relations with Turkey. Ankara, incapable of managing the Syrian crisis on its own, has continually sought to involve Western powers in a greater way. For much of the past year, Prime Minister Erdoğan has been attempting to drum up support for outside intervention by threatening to unilaterally create a buffer zone inside Syria, making noise about invoking NATO Article 5, calling out the U.S. for dragging its feet while Assad butchers his own people, and implying that NATO is in danger of losing its credibility as the Syrian civil war drags on. Despite a combination of public and private cajoling, Erdoğan has made little headway, and Wednesday’s barrage of leaks and half-truths fits into the pattern of doing anything possible to pull the U.S. into Syria one way or another. By making it seem as if a no-fly zone is a fait accompli, Ankara is hoping to create enough momentum to spur some real action. Yet rather than respond to the Turkish government’s posturing and efforts to shame the United States and NATO into taking Turkey’s preferred course, Ankara’s allies have sought to placate it with a symbolic dispatch of largely useless weapons.
Overall, the announcement that Patriots will be deployed to Turkey fits a pattern that has developed in Turkey’s relations with its traditional partners, who have sought to keep Ankara minimally satisfied without actually having to commit much of anything to Syria. If scattering Patriot missile batteries along the Turkish-Syrian border is the price of keeping Turkey temporarily happy, it’s a pretty small price to pay, and certainly nothing compared to the cost of actually intervening in Syria.
