What Can A Retired Sailor Teach Us About Turkey?
Contents
- This past spring, a relatively obscure admiral, Cihat Yaycı, made headlines by leaving the Turkish Navy
- Yaycı was the architect of the the "Blue Homeland" doctrine that underlies Turkey's more aggressive naval posturing of recent years
- This resignation was seen as a sign of Erdoğan's more autocratic rule - distrust of senior officers that were becoming too politically prominent
- Led to rumors that Blue Homeland doctrine would be abandoned
- However, lately Yaycı has been giving interviews
- Interviews give insight into Turkish naval policy
- Also give us a peek into how Kemalism continues to provide common ground for Turkey's fractured elite
Partisanship Inside the Turkish Officer Corps
- Lately many senior members of Turkey's armed forces have been appearing in the news
- This is partly warranted - Turkey's armed forces have many more foreign commitments than before
- Syria
- Libya
- Azerbaijan
- Eastern Mediterranean
- However, this media presence is ironic given the historical hostility between Erdoğan AKP party and the military
- AKP is an Islamist party
- Military sees itself as the guardian of the secular state
- This historical hostility was altered after the abortive coup of 2016
- Widespread purges inside the armed forces of those suspected to have been involved in or sympathize with the coup plotters
- Military and AKP are united by suspicion and hatred for Gulenist faction
- However, while many military leaders have become professional commentators in the news, it is unclear to what extent their thinking is representative of current Turkish military doctrine
- Turkish military officers are thought to fall into one of three camps
- Atlanticists
- Oldest and most established faction
- Favor a collaborative approach with the United States and Europe
- Eurasianists
- Largely associated with the right-wing Fatherland party
- While Kemalist in outlook, the Eurasianists reject the "imperialist order" of the United States and Western Europe
- Favor closer ties with Russia and other central Asian powers
- Religious conservatives
- Reject Kemalist secular outlook
- Feel that Turkey ought to be an Islamic state and that the military should reject its role as the guardian of a secular Turkey
- Have recently forged an alliance with the Eurasianists to support a more muscular, aggressive foreign policy
- Both Eurasianists and religious conservatives feel that Turkey should have more influence in its near abroad
- Yaycı’s writings both confirm and complicate this categorization
- Yaycı emphasizes the elements of consensus in the military, rather than points of disagreement
Parsing the Admiral's Thoughts
- Yaycı has repeatedly stated that he holds no ill-will towards Erdoğan over his forced departure from the Navy
- Does so by emphasizing his loyalty to the state
- This allows him to burnish his Kemalist credentials without alienating the government
- Refused to criticize the government's conversion of the Hagia Sofia back to a functioning mosque
- When pressed he emphasized the fact that this conversion was well within the sovereign rights of the government
- When asked about the Treaty of Lausanne, he stated that the treaty itself was a victory for Turkey, but the problem was Greek noncompliance
- Yaycı goes out of his way to emphasize the "threat" that Greece poses to Turkey
- Talks about Greek rearmament of its eastern islands in violation of the Treaty of Lausanne
- Speaks of Greece being the true revisionist power in the Eastern Mediterranean
- Accuses Greece of preventing Turkish access to the Mediterranean and natural resources
- Yaycı pitches Blue Homeland as a "second war for independence" against Greece
- Argues that the Eastern Mediterranean was at its "most tranquil" when the Ottoman Turks held unquestioned naval superiority
- This is a justification for modern Turkey to pursue the same end
- To this end, Yaycı advocates for Turkey to pursue bilateral agreements with Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority in order to sidestep Greek claims to the waters and the economic resources of the Mediterranean
- However, both Israel and Egypt have been leaning towards Greece in their foreign policy
- However, Israel has not been hesitant about selling arms to Turkey for it to use in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, so perhaps Turkey can persuade Israel to change its official policy?
Blue Homeland and the Forging of Turkey's Foreign Policy Consensus
- It is tempting to overanalyze Yaycı's pronouncements
- This, however, just leads to Kremlinology, where innocuous statements are assigned profound significance
- Instead it is important to see how Yaycı's statements show the extent to which all the disparate factions in Turkey are united on certain issues
- All factions want a stronger foreign policy
- All factions are united in their suspicion of Greece
- While there are some differences in their attitudes toward the United States, the unity of thought towards Turkey's near abroad generally and Greece in particular indicates that we should continue to expect an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy from Turkey
