By Edward G. Stafford, Ahval
Among the several elements of U.S.-Turkish relations that bind the two together beyond their shared membership of NATO is the U.S. need for access to Turkish military facilities as well as securing permission for U.S. military aircraft to use Turkish air space.
This U.S. need goes beyond the shared burdens of NATO membership and directly affects bilateral relations.
Recent events in Syria and Iraq reveal that the U.S. dependence or definite need for these bilateral military connections may be declining, or possibly was given greater importance in the past than it merited. In the near future, a further reduction of the U.S. military’s need for the use of Turkish military bases, facilities, and airspace rights could further weaken thestrained ties between the partners .
In 2003, as the United States sought to invade Iraq, or at least fly combat aircraft into Iraq, from Turkey, the Turkish Parliament withheld permission for the U.S. forces to do so . Though Turkey later granted overflight permission, it forced the United States to make alternative arrangements that increased the risk to U.S. personnel and raised the question for many in the U.S. military about Turkey’s reliability as an ally.
Turkey did not welcome the subsequent close military cooperation between its NATO ally and Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq.
Most recently, U.S. forces have cooperated closely with Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish fighters to stymie and then defeat Islamic State (ISIS). Given the affiliation of many of these Kurdish fighters with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed group has been fighting the Turkish army for more than three decades, Turkey was again not pleased about the close cooperation between its NATO ally and armed Kurdish groups just across its southern border.
The NATO allies almost came to blows in the area of Manbij, Syria – which would have been a disaster for U.S. operations against ISIS, Turkey’s standing with others fighting in Syria, and the NATO alliance. The ongoing need U.S. for access to facilities in Turkey played a role in having the seriously consider Turkish concerns.
Only weeks ago, U.S., British, and French forces used stand-off missiles launched from naval vessels or aircraft to punish the Syrian regime for its use of chemical weapons. In so doing, those three allies did not need to secure permission for overflight nor, as far as we know, have recourse to the facilities of their NATO ally Turkey. Most importantly, they did not need to base search and rescue units in Turkey near the border with Syria in case their pilots were forced to bail out over Syrian territory.
It appears that aerial refuelling was not necessary, but if it was used, re-fuelling aircraft from the Turkish base at Incirlik was not utilised . One lesson to draw from the missile strikes is that Turkish facilities may not be essential to military operations in a neighbouring country when U.S. and partner nations project military force from a distance.
Nearby bases for logistical support are of course of immense value for a large-scale land operation, but for limited strikes using stand-off weapon systems that put few if any personnel in peril, the United States may have learned that Turkish facilities are not as necessary as once believed.
There are also other options. The United States has been using facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and possibly elsewhere to pursue its campaign against ISIS. In 2003, U.S. aircraft supporting the northern front in Iraq flew from Romania . The U.S. radar site near the southeast Turkish city of Malatya would most likely be welcome in Bulgaria if Turkey wished it removed. The British base of Akrotiri on Cyprus seems to be more accessible than in the past. None of these options is a perfect substitute for access to facilities in Turkey, but they demonstrate the availability of other options if tensions between the United States and Turkey lead to the end of U.S. access to Turkish facilities. Coupled with the reluctance of U.S. policymakers and military planners to deploy large numbers of U.S. forces to new military endeavours in the Middle East, the need to base large numbers of U.S. personnel at facilities in or near the greater Middle East is likely to decrease.
Why does this matter?
Alliances can be ad hoc or enduring. The alliance of the Soviet Union with the United States and others in World War Two was a temporary one to defeat Nazi Germany. The Atlantic Alliance, though engendered as a means to contain Soviet expansionism, evolved into a community of shared values supported in no small part by the regular interaction of the peoples of the alliance among themselves.
For example, the large number of U.S. personnel stationed in Germany over many decades led to many close friendships and more than a few marriages between Germans and Americans. To a lesser degree, this also happened in other places with a significant U.S. presence.
Personal ties help to bind nations with unique histories and different cultural norms to each other in ways that treaties, agreements, and state visits of heads of state cannot.
In the case of Turkey, there were about 30,000 U.S. Department of Defense personnel in the country in 1966 . This number dropped to about 15,000 in 1975. In Ankara, U.S. personnel were largely concentrated in the Balgat area, when the population of Ankara was about half a million, constituting a noticeable presence in the sixties and seventies.
While personal ties cannot always reduce political tensions between two states, they can serve like a lubricating oil to lessen the heat of the friction that can be generated by tense back-and-forth between them.
Similarly, more pragmatic reasons for smoothing over disagreements may count for less as technology reduces the need for proximity to targets for military operations. We must not attach too much importance to the use of stand-off weapons to respond to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. That said, the long history of military engagements is one of increasing the distance from which one can project lethal force against one’s opponent while keeping one’s own forces out of harm’s way.
Thus, one can suppose that military planners in technologically advanced democratic nations will continue to exploit technological advancements to reduce the need for placing troops near the fighting. As the likelihood of major military operations requiring the deployment of many thousands of U.S. personnel close to the area of military operations declines, potential troop hosting nations will find their leverage with Washington less weighty.
For decades, Turkey’s location and the U.S. perceived need for unfettered access to facilities in Turkey led the United States to accommodate Turkey’s military-dominated governments, ignoring anti-democratic tendencies of those governments as the price for unfettered access.
Full civilian authority, even with its more challenging form of political-military relations, is most welcome. Ironically, the Turkish government, now fully free of military-domination, may find that the leverage formerly derived from Turkey’s location weighs much less nowbecause technological innovation and the changing nature of conflicts combine to reduce, though not eliminate, the value of well-located real estate.
