TURKISH NAVY’S CHALLENGE WITH THE RULING PARTY
1.
Introduction:
In last 20 years, Turkish Navy has become a critical hard power as well as soft power. Unlike the budget cuts in western militaries, Turkish Navy did not experience any major defense budget cut due to the unresolved issues in surroundings seas that may ultimately require military solution. Therefore Turkish Navy continued its modernization programme almost as planned up until recent years. In last several years, AKP’s (current ruling party in Turkey) interference with military projects, corruption scandal about AKP’s top officials, rising doubts concerning the existence of superiority of law in Turkey seem to be affecting not only the Turkish democracy and Economy but also surprisingly Turkish Navy’s long term goals and strategies as well. This article is not about finding out whether or not Erdogan's AKP is guilty of corruption, but focuses more on the AKP's military modernization policies and how AKP's recent actions affected the future of Turkish Military, mainly concentrating on Navy. But before moving on to the Turkish Navy's issues, it would be helpful to give a quick background of current political environment in Turkey. 2.
Turkish Political Outlook of last 10 years:
After a series of short lived coalition governments and political instability in 1990s, Turkish democracy finally gave a birth to AKP (Justice and Development Party) in early 2000s. AKP was first established as a conservative but liberal party. Its policy "public over the government's own priorities" was perceived as a threat by the ruling elites and the Turkish Military since it might mean to change the regime of Turkey which was secularly formed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk back in 1923. Exhausted with the economic crisis and endless political instability, Turkish voters disregarded the doubts and elected AKP as a new hope. Before AKP came to power in 2002, Turkey had just undergone a major economic crisis in 2001 and Kemal Dervish, an experienced Turkish economist had been brought from United States of America to reform the macroeconomic structure of the state. However before he could harvest the results of his reforms, AKP came to power and continued his reforms as they were. In a short period of time receiving the good outcomes of economic reforms, constant flow of foreign portfolio investment (so called hot money) as well as increase in Foreign Direct Investments and booming world economy in general helped AKP to successfully decrease the inflation rate from 30% down to 8-10% and double Growth Domestic Product in real terms, thus leading for AKP to gain more public support and solidify its position. However as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of AKP, won
the elections in a row, he became more aggressive against any criticism even the constructive ones. His aggressive attitude became even more apparent during Gezi Park Protests which started peacefully just to protect the trees at the heart of Istanbul but ended bloody. During the protests some critics accused Erdogan of not being compromising and acting irresponsible instead. Right after Gezi Park, Corruption Scandal of December 17th and 25th broke out. During the operations it is claimed that some ministers took bribes from the businessmen. Before the investigation would go further and maybe include Erdogan himself, it was abruptly blocked by the government. Against the allegations, Erdogan reacted furiously, claiming that both operations were carried out intentionally aiming to topple his publicly supported legitimate government. Therefore according to him people who were involved in this coup would pay the price. In accordance with his claims he changed almost all senior police officers' positions and also fired some of them. Furthermore his party hastened to pass laws in parliament to fight against so called parallel organization (Erdogan blamed a cleric named Fethullah Gulen and “Hizmet Movement” for founding an alternative hierarchy especially in Police Force and Justice). On the other hand Erdogan's furious actions were perceived unlawful and protested by opposition parties, law firms, non-profit organizations and press media (domestic and international). So far Erdogan and his successor Ahmet Davutoglu are persistent that their public support legitimizes their “unlawful actions”. 3.
Turkish Navy Outlook:
Turkish Navy has always been a strong regional navy. Turkey's geostrategic location, maritime issues with Greece in Aegean Sea, rich carbon resources but nonexistence of multilaterally agreed Exclusive Economic Zones in Eastern Mediterranean Sea, political turmoil in Black Sea Basin and increasing rate of maritime security issues (illegal migration, smuggling, terrorism and piracy at Sea) require Turkish Navy to become agile and maintain high level of operational readiness in the region. In this respect considering 20-50 years of warship's lifetime and light-speed change in technology, just like any other navy, Turkish Navy needs to upgrade its equipments and vessels' capabilities constantly. Therefore Turkish Navy took modernization rigorously especially after 1960s when Cyprus Crisis broke out between Turkey and Greece. But its renewal of the fleet had a great leap forward with the brand new German design Meko Class Frigates starting in 1987 when Turgut Ozal was the Prime Minister. These frigates were perceived as spaceships compared to the Fleet's World War II design ex-US warships. In 1990s relatively new ex-US warships (1970 and 1980 design Knox and Perry Class Frigates) kept being transferred and new Meko Class Frigates continued to be co-built by State owned shipyard and German Blohm Voss Company. In 2002 before Erdogan took office, Turkish Navy’s main force was almost completely modernized and composed of 20 frigates, 6 corvettes and 13 submarines. Moreover various modernization programmes were still ongoing. Of all the programmes, modernization of command and control system (GENESIS) of Ex-US Perry Class Frigates, acquisition of four Diesel Submarines and MILGEM class National Design
Corvette programmes were the significant ones. GENESIS programme was designed to upgrade the Perry Class Frigates' command and control system with the domestic software and hardware. The project was first initiated by Turkish Naval Research Center in 1997 and just recently completed. Second important programme was to build 4 diesel submarines which started in 1990s and completed in 2007. Last important one was MILGEM corvettes which officially started in 2000. MILGEM project along with the GENESIS became the cornerstone for Turkish Navy to move forward since they were domestic design with the goal of making Turkish Navy less dependent on foreign suppliers, thus increasing the operational flexibility at Sea. From the major leap forward in 1980s to 2010s Turkish Navy started to become a major player not only in the region but beyond. First its quick reaction to the crisis in Libya in 2011 and taking part in the evacuation of 25,000 Turkish citizens from the region were greatly admired by other navies. Besides Turkish Navy's capability to deploy 6 warships at a time in Libya Operation contributed tremendously in the success of NATO's Libya operation. In addition to Operation in Libya, Turkish Navy is currently active in other NATO operations such as Operation Active Endeavor initiated right after 9/11, SNMG-2 (Standing NATO Maritime Group-2), SNMCMG-2 (Standing NATO Mine Counter Measures Group-2), and fighting against piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Along with the NATO operations, Turkish Navy also formed Turkish Maritime Task Group composed of 4-5 warships. The Task Group first sailed in Mediterranean Sea in 2010, then to Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and all the way to Japan in 2011. These two operations demonstrated the Turkish Navy's capability to set sail a Task Group to further distances with the full logistical support. In 2014, Turkish Maritime Task Group was activated again and sailed all around Africa for the first time in the history of Turkish Navy, visiting 24 African countries, exercising with African navies and carrying aids to some African States. During the deployment humanitarian aids and official port visits to untouched places drew much attention from national and international press, proving that Turkish Navy has become a critical soft power tool for the Turkish Foreign Policy so to win hearts and minds of people. In the meanwhile Turkish warships' successful missile firings on South African Missile Firing Range under the complicated scenarios with the high speed drones drew NATO's and other major Navies' attention. 4.
Modernization Programmes After AKP:
In spite of better economic outlook and enormous cash flow to Turkey since 2002, Turkish military expenditure did actually decrease in terms of GDP ratio from 4% to 2%. With this ratio Turkey barely meets the NATO's 2% military expenditure requirement. However compared to European counterparts, Turkish Military did not experience any major budget cuts and continued to modernize its force. Considering
multi-threat environment where Turkey is located, Turkish State does not seem to have any other choice but finance the military modernization. Regardless of receiving relatively smaller share then Army and Air Force, Turkish Navy seems to successfully finance already ongoing modernization projects such as GENESIS and MILGEM during AKP administration. New significant projects for the navy were also kicked off such as AIP (Air Independent Power) diesel submarines and LPD ship (Amphibious Landing Ship). First one, Diesel Submarine Project consists of six submarines, worth 3.5 billion dollars in total. German company Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems won the contract in 2009. The project aims to co-produce the submarines and first one should be delivered by 2015. With the AIP submarines Turkish Navy hopes to acquire the Air Independent Power Capability, allowing the submarines to stay underwater up to 15 days without surfacing to recharge the batteries. Another important project is the acquisition of LPD amphibious ship. LPDs are large amphibious ships capable of carrying at least 4 helicopters, various type of armored vehicles and marine infantry up to a battalion size. Its large size enables the navy to carry out amphibious as well as peace support operations far away from home port, making the platform a crucial asset for Turkish Navy's recent outgoing naval strategy. While AIP diesel submarines and LPD are important projects, unfortunately they have not been realized yet. After Erdogan took office, other than continuing to already ongoing project, there is no new naval project completed. While almost every other year there was a brand new Frigate joining the service during 1990s, since 2002 no new Frigate has been built by the Turkish Shipyards except two corvettes. As a result, the number of Turkish Navy's Frigates is down to 16 compared to 20 in 2002 (4 old-aged Frigates had to be decommissioned and no new Frigate has been built to replace them). Furthermore average warship age rose to 27.6 from 18.7 in last 12 years. Decreasing number of platforms means more tasks for the remaining ones and along with the increasing age of warships it is unavoidable for Turkish Navy to face with major maintenance issues in the near future. 5.
Negative Impacts of Government's Actions to Turkish Navy:
Ruling party's unlawful acts even worsen the situation for the aging Turkish Naval Force. Nationally built corvettes were supposed to be handed over from state owned shipyard to the private industry so that private naval industry would gain know-how experience, improve its design capability and serve for the Turkish Navy’s needs in the long run. Moreover it is obviously hard for the state owned shipyards to keep investing in R&D and sell the MILGEM Corvettes to the foreign navies since state owned shipyards have limited funds, little incentive to advertise and no marketing or business experience. Therefore for the sake of long term goals of Turkish Navy, next phase MILGEM Corvettes were planned to be built in private shipyards. Just as planned, the project was decided to be handed over to RMK shipyard owned by Koc Conglomerate, but Erdogan vetoed the decision and canceled the deal due to his personal animosity to Koc
Conglomerate most likely originating from Koc's support to Gezi Park Protests. According to the business experts, Erdogan's decision to veto the handover of the project to private industry just because of his personal revenge ruined the long term goals of the Turkish Navy. It is likely that Turkish Navy will face late deliveries of next 2 corvettes and will also face challenges on designing its new National Frigates which is supposed to be based on the experience acquired by building the MILGEM Corvettes. Other major project, LPD was surprisingly granted to Sedef Shipyard whose owner is known to have good relations with Erdogan. Other bidder on the project was Koc's subsidiary company RMK Shipyard. Nobody was expecting Sedef's proposal to win since their proposal was to partner with Navantia Systems from Spain for technology transfer as opposed to RMK's unique design. But it seems that Erdogan's desire to punish Koc Conglomerate for not supporting him politically mattered the most in the final decision. In addition to MILGEM and LPD projects, Erdogan's footprint was recently felt in AIP Submarine Project. AIP Submarine project is currently facing some setbacks and according to the international defense journals there are some disagreements between the German company and Turkish Defense Ministry over the specifications. First submarine was planned to be completed by 2015 but production phase has not even started yet. Interestingly according to the international sources, Turkish Defense Ministry is unable to press harder for their requests or impose sanctions on the German company since it felt threatened by wiretapping of German Intelligence over Erdogan and his top officials. This might seem to be just a conspiracy theory at first glance. However it is the fact that Der Spiegel, respected journal in Germany revealed wiretapping scandal in August, implying that German intelligence knows all wrongdoings of Erdogan and his party. And Erdogan's low profile somewhat verifying comment on the scandal was surprising enough. Furthermore German authorities did not officially deny the scandal. To make the story short it is hard to eliminate tapes vs submarine delay deal in the AIP Submarine Project. As a result effects of daily politics and awarding political loyalty in this kind of long term naval projects will probably deter small national defense companies attempting to grow, thus preventing a well founded and self-sustainable Turkish private naval industry to be established in the near future. Furthermore by acting unlawfully on almost every government activity, AKP deviates from the decisive path of full democracy and transparency, thus setting up a non-marketing environment instead of an economic environment ruled by law and justice. Non-marketing environment where foreign firms feel insecure and less reluctant to invest will likely do much harm on almost all fields of Turkish Economy, but even more on the technology driven defense industry that is in urgent need for technology transfer and foreign partnerships to develop and grow. 6.
Conclusion:
Analyzing Turkish Navy, there are two different pictures. On one side Turkish Navy strives to acquire new capabilities (LPD, AIP Submarines etc.), modernize its
equipments (GENESIS, MILGEM Corvettes, TF 2000 Frigates), become more involved in NATO and active in the region in order to defend the national rights at sea especially in Eastern Mediterranean and finally define new areas of interests such as Africa and Indian Ocean as part of its outgoing Naval Strategy. On the other side AKP's daily political decisions and use of lucrative naval projects as an award in exchange of political loyalty seem to jeopardize Turkish Navy's future plans to acquire new capabilities and gain operation flexibility with a strong domestic naval industry. Moreover creating a nonmarketing environment will do even more harm and even if AKP steps down from power in the near future, making foreign firms believe that Turkish Government always binds itself with the laws will take years.