TURKEYS NEW CIVIL MILITARY RELATIONS (CMR) REVISITED: CIVIL MILITARY INTEGRATION (original) (raw)

Introduction Turkish Civil Military Relations (CMR) has undergone a transformation since the end of the Cold War in which changing internal and external dynamics are the primary driving forces. This has significantly reduced the military's previously unique and authoritative role in Turkey's politics over the last decade. While this is seen as a positive step in the country's democratization process, the sustainability of the new CMR regime and its effectiveness given the new security environment and changing functions of the Turkish military are questionable. Discussions on the evolution of the civil-military relations in Turkey have dominated the agenda of academic circles studying the role of the armed forces in politics in the 2000s, with the focus being on the model seen in fully functioning democracies. These generally consider the military and civilian spheres to be two different worlds and aim to separate them while establishing civilian control over the military. One important point to highlight here is that Turkish studies on the mission of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) focus on classic armed conflict and national defense against external aggressors using conventional forces. Consequently, they ignore what the modern armed forces, including TAF, do beyond national defense. Today, armed combat is probably the least duty that militaries are carrying out or will be expected to execute in the future. Instead, there are many dynamics involving civilians, soldiers and other security actors beyond the context of national defense. These changes have brought about a new generation CMR, beyond classic CMR, which was the product of Huntington's Soldier and State and his followers until the 2000s. Although new approaches to classical CMR theories have gradually evolved over recent years following the effects of new types of wars, they are rarely applied in the field. It is apparent that Turkish scholars have used the classic approaches to the CMR problematique, and overlooked emerging approaches, which in this study is called Civil Military Integration (CMI). The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the weaknesses of evolving CMR in Turkey and propose a better approach: Civil Military Integration (CMI). It should be emphasized that rather than rejecting CMR as a concept relevant to democracy, this study extends its conceptual breadth. It is argued that the Turkish CMR should be restructured within the parameters of new generation approaches in order to ensure democratic civilian control of TAF and its effectiveness. In the following two chapters, I first review the most relevant conceptual literature about classical and new generation CMR, with a focus on works analyzing Turkey's CMR. This is followed by a brief history of developments forming Turkish CMR until the end of the Cold War followed by changing dynamics leading to the evolution of new CMR in the post-Cold War era, discussed in chapters 3 and 4. Finally, a better, more comprehensive approach will be offered.