As tensions intensified between Turkey and Russia over Idlib, defense ministers were in Brussels on Feb. 12 to discuss key issues that would shape the future of not just the treaty itself, but also the world at large. 

Criticism of NATO

The defense pact between Northern Atlantic members has lately come under criticism, first from the US President who has time and time again lashed out at European states for not meeting their military commitments, and then from French President Emmanuel Macron who has called it “brain dead”. 

But the allies, despite their infighting, have persisted for now in not only identifying new challenges as they arrive but also by evolving over time. Originating in response to the Cold War by bringing together all the Western allies and creating a military buffer against Russia, NATO has shifted its focus to new threats as they emerged. 

NATO’s Mandate Has Become Variable In The Post-9/11 World

First with the pivot towards the Middle East post 9/11 and then the War on Terror, the treaty has been rather fluid in its mandate. Even more recently, in December 2019, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged the challenges emanating from China’s continuous rise. 

At the latest summit, defense ministers gave particular focus to the Middle East, and reached a consensus to enhance NATO’s training mission in Iraq by taking on some of the global coalition’s training activities there. 

Another topic in the agenda was Afghanistan, but nothing new was brought to the table, especially with regards to the ongoing peace process. All that was communicated was related to how NATO will extend its support to US forces and called on the Taliban to reduce its violent activities if they are interested in a truce. 

Regarding the challenge posed by Russia’s deployment of SSC-8 missiles, which led to the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, allies took a unanimous stand and agreed to a “package of defensive measures while being committed to arms control”. 

The event was also attended by the European Union High Representative on Foreign Policy Josep Borrell for the first time since he took office. The allies further met with Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zahorodnyiuk to review the country’s reforms and extended NATO’s support for the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, a major criticism of the treaty ever since its failure to react strongly against Russia’s annexation of Crimea. 

As part of the Land Battle Decisive Munitions (LBDM), an initiative that provides a framework to acquire key munitions for land domain, the allies welcomed two new members — the Czech Republic and Sweden — bringing the total number of participating NATO states and partners to 23. 

The Growing NATO-US Split

While the summit saw western states gather and deliver a consensus on some key issues, one can’t help but notice the growing divergence between NATO and its most powerful member, the United States. Just a few weeks back, President Trump had urged the alliance to do more in the Middle East and even suggested that it be renamed NATOME — which includes the Middle East’s initials in its title.  

Even if one ignores the US President given his history of such outlandish suggestions and over-the-top remarks, a more serious crisis might be brewing within the EU involving France. Only days after the summit, Macron had proposed a strategic nuclear dialogue at a European level, thus hinting at his growing disillusionment with the alliance. Both Stoltenberg and the German Defense Minister quickly dismissed the suggestion, reaffirming their faith in NATO, but voices and perspectives such as Macron’s are only likely to grow with time. The alliance’s problems are only likely to continue. 

L'articolo NATO Perseveres Amid Its Internal Challenges And Struggles proviene da InsideOver.

As Angela Merkel’s tenure as Germany’s Chancellor ends, many journalists and historians will rush to write about her legacy. Politico’s Matthew Karnitschnig recently produced a piece on how Donald Trump is not entirely to blame for the German-American ‘affair’ ending. Equally, neither is the current Chancellor. When she was elected in 2005, she revived the alliance between her nation and the US.

Before her 2005 victory, the relationship between George W. Bush and Gerhard Schröder, Merkel’s predecessor, reached an all-time low during the 2003 Iraq War. In Oliver Stone’s film W, Bush criticises Schröder for supporting the conflict and then betraying his word to the then US President during Germany’s 2002 federal election. Karnitscnig said Germany’s opposition to the Iraq War left a wound that was never completely healed between both nations. Merkel’s predecessor also disagreed with the US over Guantanamo Bay.

But circumstances changed when Merkel was elected. Although she disagreed with Bush over Kosovo’s entry into NATO in 2008, he later described the Chancellor in his memoir, Decision Points, as one of his ‘closest allies.’ She even attended George H.W. Bush’s funeral last year as she met Bush Senior during his 2009 trip to Berlin to commemorate twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, the German-American alliance grew stronger. Reuters produced a series of photos that captured how close the former President and the Chancellor are to this day. When Obama visited Cologne and Berlin earlier this year to discuss Trans-Atlantic relations, Merkel hugged her former colleague. During his last international trip in November 2016, Obama described the Chancellor as one of his ‘favourite partners’ during his time in office.

Following Trump’s election, this partnership has strayed into new territory. During last week’s UN General Assembly meeting, both the Chancellor and the current President seemed to avoid each other. Trump has been persistent from the start of his presidency that Germany must meet its NATO defence spending targets, and Merkel’s heir-apparent, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, will not escape scrutiny over this matter considering she has presided over defence since her appointment in July.

According to Politico, Berlin is so terrified about the deterioration in the ties with its biggest trading partner that the German Foreign Office is sponsoring a special initiative called ‘Wunderbar Together’, a yearlong series of events across the US intended to remind Americans how much the two nations truly like each other. DW discovered that the Germans they polled universally dislike Trump whilst most Americans quizzed by Fact Tank were mostly positive about Germany.

With the Trump administration engaged in preventing refugees from entering America, Merkel is perceived among some in the White House as a villain who enabled ‘floods of immigrants’ to enter Europe. Washington and Berlin disagree over trade, Iran, climate change and defence spending. Considering the current President is also an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit compared to his German counterpart, his offer of a UK-US trade deal has also caused a rift between both sides.

Both the Bush and the Obama administrations urged Germany to increase its defence spending, but Trump’s efforts have gotten Berlin’s attention to a certain extent. Recent suggestions by US officials that Washington might transfer its German-based troops to Poland were met with no resistance. Some joked it might mean this would keep them off Trump’s radar. It makes strategic sense to relocate American soldiers closer to the Russian border, but with the threat of Putin looming, Germany still requires protection.

Tragically, the American-German relationship has reached a new low, but neither Trump nor Merkel are entirely to blame for that. For years, Germany has been refusing to increase its defence spending and Berlin has made no effort to meet Washington halfway here. Policy differences between the Chancellor and the current President were inevitable given they are polls apart on many issues. But the Iraq War caused this partnership to deteriorate, and Merkel can say she revived it albeit briefly between 2005-16. With Russia and China growing stronger, the world needs this alliance to survive, especially when both countries are influential NATO states.

L'articolo Is Merkel Really To Blame For The fractured German-American Alliance? proviene da InsideOver.

Much ink has been spilled lately around the S-400 crisis, as academics and analysts seek to explain the rationale behind what seems to be a reckless Turkish foreign policy. However, this claim might be rather inconsistent with the carefully planned long-term strategy of the AK party; a strategic plan that has been strictly followed since the moment that the party rose to power. A series of major political and economic changes led to the re-emergence of Turkey as a considerable geopolitical player, in a position of questioning the US demands, and ready to work alongside long-time foes of the States. Those political-economic changes and the ensuing correlation with the ever-growing Turkish defense industry will be examined in this article.

Economic growth and political reshuffling

The starting point of our analysis should be traced back to the 2000s, when the newly formed AKP emerged as the ruling party in Turkish politics and formed its first government, in 2002. The former Mayor of Istanbul and party leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would be officially appointed to the Presidential Office with some months delay, due to obstructions ensuing from a recent conviction, for provocation of religious hatred.  It is worth noting that this clearly politically motivated charge had practically boosted Erdogan’s popularity within Turkey and the new Prime Minister would slickly capitalize on his gains. The new government, immediately, started materializing a long-term calculated economic program of reforms, with ultimate purpose the stimulation of the country’s suffering economy, following the 2000-2001 crisis. Since the AKP came into power, Turkey has been experiencing a steady annual growth of an impressive 7% average each year, while the government debt has been reduced by almost three times. The unprecedented growth, that has been noted in Turkey under the AKP rule, skyrocketed Erdogan’s approval and entrenched his position as the Head of State, consistently until today.

Erdogan’s power grip has not been an easy task, though; The Turkish President had to implement a plethora of political reforms in order to consolidate his reign. While AKP ideologically has been quite close to the neo-Ottomanism doctrine –albeit Ahmet Davutoglu has denied this designation- AKP managed to secure the support of MHP in 2018 and formed a coalition, the People’s Alliance, that granted them the victory in the last elections. Apparently, Erdogan’s political tacticism achieved a political alliance of two diametrically opposed entities, considering the traditional Kemalist nature of MHP. Since the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the government has enforced several measures to drastically reduce the role of the armed forces in the political life of the country, while the constitutional referendum expanded and strengthened further the authorities and capabilities of the President.

This political “flexibility” of AKP and its well-planned balancing between Islamism and secularism, enabled Erdogan and his close allies to proceed in repositioning Ankara within the international arena. Since the mid-2010s, Turkey has been steadily putting in question the decades-long narrative of being an unquestioned stronghold of the “Western Bloc”. The reemergence of Turkey as a regional guarantor of the Muslim countries and a major global geopolitical player brought turbulence to the relations with the US and realigned the interests with traditionally anti-Western powers, like Russia and Iran. Elements of this deviant policy can be found within several parameters of Turkish foreign policy. For instance, Ankara has not only been fiercely supporting Qatar -a fellow Muslim nation and a close economic partner- since the 2017 diplomatic crisis but the Turkish military presence in Doha, as a part of the Qatar-Turkey Combined Joint Force Command, is about to expand. Same goes for Erdogan’s harsh rhetoric against Israel and the open support to Palestinians or the gradual coordination with Iran and Russia over the Syrian conflict. On the top of that there is a worrying friction with the US, the tipping point of which has been the US talks for the establishment of an internationally recognized Kurdish state entity  in the Turkish border and further escalated with the Brunson case, the alleged role of Fethullah Gullen in the 2016 attempted coup attempt and the continuous requests for extradition and apparently the latest acquisition of the S-400 missile system from Russia.

The promising Turkish defense industry under the AKP Rule

The progressive growth of the country’s defense industry is a critical parameter related to the overall progress in Turkey and tightly connected to the economic and political developments, that have been discussed so far. The defense industry has been significantly contributing to the domestic economy directly, through the exports of weapon systems and cost-effectiveness in the defense budget and indirectly through the creation of numerous new vacancies both in the public and the private sector. There is a set target for Turkish defense exports to reach $25 billion per annum by 2023. Considering that Turkish defense exports recorded an impressive 17% annual growth in 2018, which can be translated in $2.035 bn, the $25 billion target might seem far from possible; however, the notable revenue that Turkish defense industry is bringing into the country cannot be overlooked. We should not be looking at the annual earnings to understand the strategic significance of the ever-expanding Turkish defense industry, though.

The most important aspect –and the one closely related to the S-400 acquisition- could be found in Erdogan’s long-term plan to shape a context, where Turkey will not be relying exclusively on the major powers to cover the permanent needs in weapon systems but will be capable of achieving a relative autonomy. For the time being, a considerable amount of the domestic demand in lightly-armored and armored vehicles is already being covered by the Turkish defense industry; the Cobra APC and Altay tank, two of the most recognizable Turkish weapon systems, are both designed and produced by Otokar (as the main contractor) within Turkey.

Simultaneously, there have been remarkable developments in the Air Defense and Airspace Industry. The T129 ATAK Multirole Combat Helicopter has been a joint project of Turkish Aerospace (TA) – former Turkish Aerospace Industries or TAI – and Leonardo Helicopters – former Italian AgustaWestland; TA has also developed the T625 Multirole Helicopter, the first Turkish indigenous helicopter, expected to go into mass production by 2021. Also, a promising project, the Turkish Fighter Experimental (TFX), has been ongoing since 2015, when Turkey started developing a fifth-generation combat jet. Turkish defense industries Undersecretariat (SSM) has engaged TA for the initial phase of research and design, while BAE Systems was chosen after a bid for strategic cooperation and overall support of the project. The research and development for the engine of the widely known as Turkish Fighter (TF) has been overtaken jointly by Rolls-Royce and the Turkish Kale Group in 2017. Even though there have been serious concerns, over intellectual property issues and Rolls-Royce might step down of the deal,according to a Janes report, the Turkish Air Force plans the TF to enter service in 2029 and eventually replace the current F-16 fleet; SSM is looking at a total production of 150 TFs by 2039, which could potentially be exported abroad.

Conclusions

Turkey’s participation in the S-400 program should not be perceived as an unexpected event that caught everyone by surprise. Over the last two decades, Ankara has been methodically and patiently laying the foundations that the “refurbished” Turkish state would be based upon. The AK party, and especially Erdogan’s inner circle, have proved that the political will to bring groundbreaking changes within the country is a fact. This has triggered the gradual isolation from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the alignment with “anti-Western” powers – or vice versa. Erdogan has been steadily investing in Turkey’s geopolitical fortification, through progressive economic growth, the build-up of a robust domestic defense industry and an aggressive foreign policy; now that these conditions have been fulfilled, it’s time for him to earn the high returns of this stake.

L'articolo The New Face of the Turkish Defense Industry proviene da InsideOver.