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By <\/b>Burak Bekdil*<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n October 25, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,322, October 25, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey\u2019s value for the West is not about the good it can offer but the evil it might choose not to spread. In recent years western tolerance of Turkey has stemmed not from appreciation of its advanced democratic culture but from fears of the chaos it can unleash.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n This author coined the term \u201cTurkeys nuisance value\u201d in an article published 14 years ago to explain what made the country an asset for the EU it aspired to join. The article challenged Western euphemisms about the potential entrance into the European club of an explicitly non-European culture. At the time, Western media and academic papers were full of \u201cYes to Turkish membership\u201d naivet\u00e9 dancing around clich\u00e9d themes like \u201cTurkey is strategically important,\u201d \u201cTurkey is a bridge between East and West,\u201d and \u201cTurkey\u2019s post-modern Islamists [then PM Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan et al] are reformist democrats.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n From the June 2005 article published in H\u00fcrriyet<\/i> newspaper:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026 if Turkey\u2019s EU vision fades and the EU leaves Turkey out in the cold, Ankara, with already rising nationalist sentiment, [may] turn into a loose cannon, a dangerous failed state in the EU\u2019s (and possibly America\u2019s) backyard.<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s membership perspective is as wide as 10-15 years. During that period, no doubt, most of the present day dynamics will change in this or that direction. Nevertheless, judging by the present day parameters, it would not be wrong to predict a \u201cthird way as alternative to a \u201cYes\u201d (Crescent and Star in the EU) and a \u201cNo\u201d (Crescent Star as a loose cannon at the EU\u2019s doorstep). The \u201cthird way\u201d can be a Turkey strongly attached to the EU under a privileged partnership accord\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Security, trans-European energy corridor and all the usual talk may not suffice for [membership]. One may like it or not, but the grandiose benefit for the club from Turkish membership would possibly be \u201cthe nuisance value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As a starter\u2026 the EU ideologues may try to guess, for example, to what extent an offended, nationalistic and quietly hostile Turkey \u2026 should care about human trafficking into the EU zone via its territory. Or about drug trafficking which, as bonus with no \u201cnational damage,\u201d may inject extra billions of dollars into its underground economy as a \u201clubricant\u201d if officially tolerated.<\/span><\/p>\n Fourteen years later, Turkey is challenging the West with its nuisance value more threateningly than ever before. Its army has held air and land force exercises with the militaries of China and Syria. It selected a Chinese bidder to build its first air and anti-missile defense architecture. Scrapping that decision, Turkey then acquired and deployed the Russian-made S-400 system for the same purpose. When it was suspended in retaliation from the US-led, multinational consortium that builds the next generation F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, Ankara responded: \u201cWe will then look to Russia for our fighter requirements and other strategic weapon systems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all.<\/span><\/p>\n During the period when northern Iraq was more in the headlines than northern Syria, Turkish diplomats quietly threatened to \u201cturn life into hell\u201d for any western force deployed in the Kurdish-held area. Those threats came after US soldiers in northern Iraq arrested 11 Turkish commandos who were linked to a plot to assassinate the newly elected governor of Kirkuk in order to destabilize the region and create a need for Turkish forces to restore order. (American soldiers seized 15kg of explosives, sniper rifles, grenades, and maps of Kirkuk with circles drawn around positions near the governor\u2019s building when they raided Turkish offices in Suleimaniya.) This Turkish plan led to the rare spectacle of NATO soldiers arresting NATO soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n Today northern Syria dominates the headlines, with Turkey once again posing as a destabilizing force and uniting world leaders, east and west, in condemning its military incursion into Syria\u2019s Kurdish-held soil. Under pressure, President Trump announced sanctions against key Turkish cabinet ministers and higher import tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum. Meanwhile, President Erdo\u011fan and his senior officials have overtly threatened Europe that \u201cWe will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then there is the matter of hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara is threatening to take naval military action if it is not included in the game. Early in October, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Turkey not to engage in \u201cillegal\u201d and \u201cunacceptable\u201d drilling off Cyprus. \u201cWe\u2019ve made clear that operations in international waters are governed by a set of rules. We\u2019ve told the Turks that illegal drilling is unacceptable and we\u2019ll continue to take diplomatic actions to \u2026 ensure that lawful activity takes place,\u201d he said. \u201cNo country can hold Europe hostage.\u201d Too late. Ankara learned to cherish the strategic benefits of the hostage game years ago when western leaders were in a race to praise Erdo\u011fan\u2019s democratic credentials.<\/span><\/p>\n In keeping with its nuisance policy, Turkey is promising to \u201ckick out the American troops from two critical military bases in Incirlik and Malatya.\u201d Notwithstanding the end of the Cold War, the US nuclear warheads at Incirlik remain at the disposition of the US military under a special US-Turkish treaty. The early warning radars stationed at the Malatya base, which are linked to the US Aegis system (deployed in the Mediterranean), provide a shield for Israel against any air or missile attack from a rogue regime.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there is the nuclear option. In 2008, Erdo\u011fan said that \u201cCountries that oppose Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons should not have nuclear weapons themselves,\u201d and added in 2010 that Israel is \u201cthe principal threat to peace\u201d in the Middle East. On September 4 of this year he said: \u201cThey say we can\u2019t have nuclear-tipped missiles though some have them. This I can\u2019t accept.\u201d Turkey signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980 and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations for any purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n In their dealings with Turkey, Western countries are paying the price of their former leaders\u2019 naivet\u00e9 and willingness to tout the \u201cmild political Islam\u201d they ridiculously hoped would be a role model for other Muslim countries. Game over. Now it\u2019s time to assess present and future damage.<\/span><\/p>\n \n *Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist. He regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and <\/i>Defense News and is a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is also<\/i> a founder of, and associate editor at, the Ankara-based think tank <\/i>Sigma.<\/span><\/p>\n source:https:\/\/besacenter.org\/perspectives-papers\/turkey-nuisance\/<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Burak Bekdil* October 25, 2019 BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,322, October 25, 2019 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey\u2019s value for the West is not about the good it can offer … <\/p>\n