TURKPULSE No: 40 ..................... JUNE  11^th,  2001

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE – TURKEY`S ROLE IN STAR WARS

US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld’s visit to Ankara was hardly concerned with the missile defence project Pres Bush re-energised on May 1^st which paradoxically was the 41^st anniversary of the U-2 espionage scandal in 1960. Washington and the EU’s attention concerning Turkey and the West’s defence issues are focused on the Turkish veto of ESDI, and of course Iraq was very much on the agenda. Turkey, with its past experience in its vitally important strategic location, is 40 years ahead of the new missile defence questions brought up by the new American administration. “How come?” For the answer and for Turkey’s plans, with that experience, for dodging the West’s ESDI initiatives please see the following article. 

On the eve of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 13^th, where both President Bush and PM Ecevit will be present among a score of other top rulers of the western alliance, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, paid official visits to Ankara last week.

Rather than missile defence, ESDI and Iraq were topical in Ankara

Before Rumsfeld’s arrival in Ankara for talks with top Turkish rulers on June 4^th, a Washington datelined dispatch revealed the USA`s expectations of Turkey - Turkey`s role in missile defence.

According to this dispatch, President Bush is planning to deploy an anti-ballistic missile defence system in eastern Anatolia to intercept ballistic missiles to be launched from Iran and Iraq that may target the US and Europe. Unlike the other allies, Turkey has a sympathetic stance concerning the US missile shield. In return, for deploying the interceptor missiles on Turkish soil, the US will provide Turkey with Patriot and Arrow missiles for protection against missile attacks from rogue countries, reads the dispatch.

In fact, it is doubtful that Rumsfeld spent any time in Ankara on this issue, as it is like being a lawyer attending an already lost case. Rather than missile defence, he devoted his attention to ESDI (European Security and Defence Identity) and Turkey’s expanding economic relations with Iraq. On the first issue, the US Defence Secretary found himself up against the TGS (Turkish General Staff) that issued a press release on ESDI and there was a “precipice” between the Turkish military’s outlook and what Rumsfeld was advocating on this issue. Certain diplomatic quarters in Ankara wanted to interpret it as the TGS’s hard-line policy, not in conformity with the civilian Turkish Government, but this was not the case. The Turkish Government was unanimous in defending the views expressed by the military on this crucial defence issue.

On the Iraq question, PM Ecevit was personally telling the American Defence Secretary that Washington should change its embargo policy on Iraq and respect its territorial integrity, let alone listening to any suggestions about rupturing relations with Iraq. Turkey did not have any patience or intention of listening to arrangements that cost the country $35 billion in the last 10-year embargo period on Iraq.

The reasons for Turkey’s rejection of Star Wars

As for the fallacy of the above dispatch from Washington, it simply means going back half a century for Turkey to accept the deployment of any American missiles in eastern Anatolia against its neighbours for the following reasons:

• As a strange quirk of fate, May 1^st, when President Bush launched his new Star Wars project by saying, “We must now move beyond the constraints of the 30-year old ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty” of 1972, he was talking of the “far distant past of 30 years ago”, but some Turkish diplomatic analysts’ minds were going a decade further back and remembering May 1^st, 1960. On that day the world media was banner headlining that an American spy aircraft, a U-2, piloted by Gary Powers, had gone to Peshavar in Pakistan, from Incirlik in Turkey and was shot down by Soviet missiles in the heart of the Soviet Union, Sverdlovsk near Lake Aral. It was bound for the Bodo military air base in Norway, after passing over and filming the military installations in Kirov, Arhangelsk and Murmansk. Turkey, along with Pakistan and Norway, promptly received protest notes from Moscow over this espionage totally in contravention to International Law.
• At that time, Turkey had American Jupiter missiles on its soil, which were supposed to defend it heroically against a potential communist aggression. Two years after the U-2 event, during the Cuban crisis in November 1962, these Jupiters were dismantled from Turkey as a result of the superpower horse-trading behind Turkey’s back. President Kennedy said of the Jupiters at that time that they were replacing “these sitting ducks” by “wasps” (the submarine launched Polaris missiles). Who would accept new sitting ducks after so much water had run under the bridge.
• All right let’s not go as far back as 40-41 years and stay at President Bush’s 30 years back. After the March 12^th, 1972 military coup in Turkey, a journalist (who happens to be today’s Foreign Minister Ismail Cem) went up to the deposed Foreign Minister Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil with a recommendation from a common friend and told him that he was writing a book on military interventions in Turkey. He believed that they were all the CIA’s machinations. Could he provide him with some information about it? Among other episodes, Caglayangil confided to Cem that shortly before the military takeover, the Supreme Commander of NATO came to him upon Turkey’s ban of U-2 flights and told him that the Sputniks orbiting the earth had nuclear bombs aboard. The Soviets could drop these bombs on any city in the world whenever they wanted - a technology that NATO did not have. To intercept them in the air, the United States had to monitor them constantly with aircraft taking off from the American airbases in Turkey, Libya and Norway. If Turkey prevented these flights they would have to make much more difficult arrangements elsewhere. Caglayangil and Demirel paid for their non-compliance with the military intervention shortly afterwards. The question now is what happened to these bombs in space? What will Pres. Bush’s missile defence system do about them?
• Coming forward a few more decades, the Patriot and Arrow missiles that the Americans are now dangling before Ankara’s eyes in order to persuade it to accept the interceptors, Turkey did have Patriots for a short while during the ten years that pursued the outbreak of the Gulf War. Where are they now? As for the Arrows, Turkey and Israel made arrangements for jointly manufacturing Arrow and Popeye missiles. Netenyahu was sincerely following a policy of strategic cooperation with Turkey much to the interest of both countries. Because he would not heed the American warnings that he was going too far, Washington went out of its way and toppled Netenyahu with the claim that he was a hardliner on the Palestine issue. And what is this bloodshed in Israel and Palestine today under the present Sharon Administration, while Turkish-Israeli cooperation and joint ventures for missiles suffered drastically after Netenyahu?

It is not certain that Pres. Bush’s NMD is land-based

Besides, President Bush’s NMD (National Missile Defence) is still very much in the air. Even its title is changing because to win supporters over the Americans tend to drop the word “National” and call it missile defence or missile shield only.

Neither are they clear about where to station these interceptor missiles. President Regan’s original plans in the early eighties involved a very expensive and ambitious base in space for the missile launchers. Today President Bush seems to have waived the idea of space-based, sea-based interceptors and toys with the idea of land-based interceptor on American soil. Spreading them further afield, Turkey and other countries will definitely be considered as preparations progress.

At the moment Washington considers Turkey, not for the NMD, but for its second leg, the TMD (Theatre Missile Defence), that is for a local battle and mid-course tracking data on the incoming missile, which would be used to cue other radars, based in the US that would guide an interceptor missile to the target. Are they realistic expectations of Turkey on the part of the United States?

Ankara is definitely not enchanted with Iran’s successful long-range missile tests that coincided with Rumsfeld’s visit and loudly expressed this dissatisfaction with an MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) press release. It concerned the first guided missile, Conqueror 110, that Iran successfully tested on the first days of June with great precision. But its exact range and details are still confidential.

Even though Ankara is not pleased with this development, it is not so much as to be alarmed against the so-called rogue countries.

That is why this issue is still as precarious as Washington’s new missile defence system is. For that reason neither at the talks with Rumsfeld, nor at the NATO summit in Brussels on June 13^th this issue will be any headache for Turkey.

ESDI   is a different kettle of fish

ESDI, however, is totally different. Rather than the past oriented Star Wars with unknown and unpredictable developments for any foreseeable future Ankara is truly worried about the West’s new defence plans that are called the European Security and Defence Identity, ESDI. The unrolling events are constantly proving to Turkey that rather than a defence arrangement by the Paris-Berlin axis, at the expense of NATO and the United States, Turkey is facing a new plan, indeed, a plot, to be isolated from western defence systems. Leaving aside why, Turkish security experts make the following assessments about ESDI and Turkey’s veto to prevent it from using NATO facilities:

• The 60,000 strong Rapid Reaction Force to be set up within the EU’s ESDI plans is deprived of intelligence, logistics and military capabilities to intervene in a crisis area like Iraq, Yugoslavia or another potential trouble spot. At least for the coming few decades it has to use these capabilities of NATO unless it undertakes hundred of billions of dollars of expenses to acquire this potential. Given the fact that the EU countries, primarily the UK, are making great cuts on their defence budgets, NATO’s facilities are a must, and Turkey’s veto at the NATO Council is preventing it from coming to life. Like the latest NATO Ministerial Council session in Budapest, this veto will continue at the forthcoming NATO Summit in Brussels too.
• According to the EU’s Nice Summit resolutions which gave these plans the finishing touches, the 60,000 strong Rapid Reaction Force to be formed within 60 days for a year from the EU’s decision, is in fact equal to an intervention force of 200,000 soldiers, because NATO’s naval and air forces will deploy them at the trouble spots and provide the necessary intelligence and logistics from its sources. And these facilities will be automatic, without Turkey’s say, once Ankara loses its trump card of the veto at the NATO Council.
• It is obvious that Turkey cannot indefinitely keep on vetoing the NATO sessions and that it has to resolve this problem within the realities of the day. The number one reality in this context is that no country including the Supers themselves can go it alone in this globalisation age. Interdependence was a fact of the cold war period and with the dizzying speed of technology in the information age it has now evolved into globalisation. Whoever keeps pace with the requirements of globalisation will be part of the civilised world community and whoever fails to do that, will have to face globalisation as a frightening nightmare.
• The requirements of globalisation are democracy, respect of human and minority rights, an operational free market economy, a transparent public administration, and a healthy macro-economic management. In short, compliance with the Copenhagen criteria. The EU is a sub-structure of globalisation, but to keep pace with this new world reality one does not have to be a member of the Union, as long as it respects and observes these standards and values.
• As no nation-state can possibly remain outside the integration phenomena of the globalisation age, Turkey will have to make fresh arrangements about its national and regional security, if NATO disappears within 5-10 years and ESDI settles in instead, with its determination to leave Turkey out of its decision-making mechanism. Then Turkey can find its security within other similar security and defence arrangements such as the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the prerequisite of this arrangement being respect of the above values and standards of globalisation.
• Did Rumsted or Ivanov have the correct answer to this urgent need of Turkey last week? National security and foreign policy insiders say about Rumsted, “Has he assured Turkey about including it in ESDI’s decision-making mechanism or not? Has he assured Turkey or not that they will change the EU’s Nice resolutions which authorise any member country to keep Turkey out of the ESDI decisions for the issues concerning Turkey’s own region?” The answers to these questions are not, unfortunately, positive. As for the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, he told the press after the Ankara talks, “We have reached an agreement with the Turkish Government about jointly fighting the threats to international security.”  Among many other things it means Moscow will join Turkey in complying with the Copenhagen criteria for the good of their own peoples, as well as for international peace and security, without heed to EU accession. uras@ada.net.tr - June 11^th, 2001    

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