CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 23

LEVON HOVSEPYAN
General Staff 7 , which has been deprived of legitimate leverage and lost its
autonomous role, has an ideologically disintegrated, disunited top brass, and
changes in public perceptions of the role of the army pave the way to
redesign the latter's value orientations and system. The TAF, as an
institution, does not have the capacity and capabilities to confront alternative
ideological penetrations into the army.
The primary issue of the Turkish army's ideological transformation is
the existence and future viability of Kemalism and secularism as a dominant
ideology in the army. The collective value system of the TAF is changing,
which would be misleading to associate with the attempted coup d’état of
July 2016 or to consider the event as the start of that transformation. For
many years, the Turkish high-ranking officer staff was no longer
homogeneous in its value orientations, geopolitical and ideological thinking
and mentality, or rather did not represent the consistency that existed
historically. 8 This transformative process has been going on for a long time,
and the systemic changes in the AKP over 17 years of power have
contributed to those changes. Certainly, since the July 15 coup attempt, the
process has been accelerated and more importantly, has become open and
unrestrained, with no obstacles on the authorities’ way.
The period between 2009-2010 can be truly described as a phase of
power base consolidation for the AKP when the judiciary and the police as
counter-forces were transformed, as the Kemalist-secular cadres were
replaced by pro-AKP or pro-Islamist ones. 9 According to M. Sezal and I.
Sezal, the previous praetorian and guardian military was replaced with a
politicized law enforcement system loyal to Erdoğan. There were some
suspicions in Turkey that the AKP’s hidden objective with the Constitutional
amendment of 2010 was, in fact, to have a final showdown with the secular
establishment and clear the way for an Islamist transformation. 10
democratic standards was one of Turkey's important commitments. For more details, see Ersel
Aydinli, Nihat Ali Ozcan, Dogan Akyaz, “The Turkish military's march towards Europe”,
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, no. 1, (Jan.-Feb. 2006):
7
The General Staff was fluent in informal and non-formal mechanisms and levers of control
over socio-political life, and the Chief of Staff was the 3rd most influential state official after
the President and Prime Minister in accordance with state hierarchy and protocol.
8
For a long time, there were differing ideological and geopolitical visions and orientation
poles, with which there was tough competition. Still, in 2003, one of America's secret
documents, released by Wikileaks, describes the approaches and visions of groups in Turkey,
according to which three major groups, Atlanticists, Eurasianists and extreme nationalists
formed the supreme command. “The Turkish General Staff: A fractious and sullen political
coalition”, Wikileaks, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03ANKARA2521_a.html (accessed
May 5, 2016). Nowadays, the wing of conservative in the army can be added to these groups,
which is mostly inclined towards religious values.
9
Mustafa Sezal and İhsan Sezal, “Dark taints on the looking glass: Whither ‘New Turkey’?”,
Turkish Studies, Vol.19, No.2 (2017): 9
10
Ibid.
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