NATION-BUILDING, FRANKS AND SUBMARINES

Hurriyet
Nov 14 2008
Turkey

After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan forcefully reminded Turkey’s
Kurds of his government’s commitment to the "one nation-one flag"
doctrine, his defense minister’s nationalist-self has surfaced in
an entertaining but equally perilous rhetoric: The secret recipe for
Turkey’s sensationally triumphant one-nation configuration, according
to Vecdi Gönul, was just getting rid of the Greeks and Armenians in
early 20th century.

If, the defense minister recently asked (but later claimed was a
"misunderstanding,") the Greeks today existed in the (Turkish) Aegean
and Armenians in many parts of Turkey, "could our beloved country
have become a nation-state?" Mr Gonul thinks it could not. Therefore,
he thinks, the population exchange which forcefully expelled Turks
of Greece to Turkey and Greeks of Turkey to Greece in 1920 was a
milestone for nation-building.

That might have been bad news for a couple of thousand Greeks and some
20,000 Armenians who have held on to their homes, mostly in Istanbul,
despite systematic Turkish efforts to tell them they are not wanted in
the Crescent and Star. But the minister probably no longer views them
as a threat to our ‘one-nation nation’ because they are too few. In
his ‘correction’ Minister Gönul praised minorities for the richness
they give Turkey.

What should we make of Mr Gönul’s words? We understand that he is
happy the Turks got rid of most of their Greeks and the Greeks got
rid of most of their Turks about a century ago. Since it is too
improbable that Minister Gönul thinks the Ottoman Armenians too
were exchanged by a Turkish population in Armenia, we understand
that he is also happy about the tragic Armenian exodus which today
around 20 parliaments deem as genocide (see his words: "…if today
the Armenians existed in many parts of Turkey…").

So, we all can be happy because there are no Greeks or Armenians
around. It is probably too futile to try to convince Mr Gönul that
"the departed" in fact constituted a very colorful fragment of our now
one-nation nation. But that may not be necessary anyhow. In the first
place, the minister’s definition of a one-nation nation is problematic.

The fact that the Greeks and Armenians had to go has not made Turkey
a one-nation nation. For quick proof he can always spread a randomly
selected newspaper sheet in which he will confidently find material
reminding him of the Kurdish problem. Too bad, Mr Gönul must be
thinking that the Kurds are Turks, for otherwise he would not have
so cheerfully praised our one-nation nation and, as its double raison
d’etre, the exchange of populations and the exodus. Or, can Mr Gönul’s
understanding of one-nation in fact be a one-religion nation?

>From his words on Greeks and Armenians we cannot understand what
Minister Gönul thinks about the Kurds. Too bad, the Kurds were Muslim
and therefore could not be catalogued as minority and exchanged with
Turks in a neighboring country? That way we would have built a more
one-nation nation. Or it was a marvelous thing that we got rid of the
Franks and were left with our Muslim brothers? If it’s the latter
perhaps the Minister has an explanation for why some Muslim Kurds
are at war with Muslim Turks.

But let’s go back to Greeks, since Minister Gönul has other ideas
about them. Recently, a columnist for Hurriyet, Fatih Cekirge, asked
Mr Gönul about the wisdom of buying new submarines with a price tag
of $4 billion "at a time when the world economy is in its worst shape
probably since the Great Depression." Here is the minister’s reply:
"Some countries to our attention have acquired the same submarines. We
must (then) acquire them too."

There is only one country "to our attention" which has purchased
the same submarines: Greece. Mr Gönul’s thinking reflects several
problematic aspects of Turkey’s security threat perceptions and defense
procurement machinery. From the minister’s lines we understand that
EU-candidate Turkey considers EU-member Greece as a conventional war
threat. Some may argue this thinking is justified, some may think it
is not. My point expressed in this column four months ago was:

"…How realistic it is, from a military contingency planning
point of view, to expect Greek submarines surfacing near Cyprus to
torpedo Turkey-friendly vessels, military and civilian, and Turkish
submarines torpedoing Greek-friendly (EU-flagged) vessels around the
Mediterranean? The submarine race across the Aegean is not compatible
with political realities," (Submarine and You Tube warfare on the
Aegean, Turkish Daily News. July 25, 2008).

More disturbingly, the minister is telling us that the Turkish
threat-procurement mechanism is built on the idea of "unquestioningly
buying the same weapons systems the countries ‘to our attention’
buy. Although this is almost like a universal rule, it may no longer
be the best method to counter conventional warfare threats. Instead,
smart countries buy smart weaponry, instead of reciprocating in an
endless and cash-consuming race. The Greeks may be doing the same. It
does not mean they are optimally prioritizing their shopping list
of weapons systems. Reading Minister Gönul, I thought we are still
lucky. Let’s hope the Greeks will not buy a dozen aircraft carriers
or 5,000 new tanks or 100 new frigates or a zeppelin.

–Boundary_(ID_JAaprlqp7S8nGYHW77r8uA)- –