Costas Lapavitsas, Mehmet Ağca – The Turkish Military Industrial Complex: A new geopolitical reality for the EU
The transition of Turkey from a Third World nation to a dominant geopolitical player in the Middle East with its military power extending even further afield
Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and convenor at European Research Network on Social and Economic Policy. He is the lead author together with the EReNSEP Writing Collective of “The State of Capitalism: Economy, Society, and Hegemony” that was published in December. Read our Book Review HERE
Mehmet Ağca is currently pursuing research in Political Economy at the School of Oriental and African Studies
A military capitalism
The military expenditure, production, and trade of Turkey are currently approaching levels comparable to those of established global powers; moreover, the country is able to meet its military needs largely through its own resources. A Military Industrial Complex has gradually taken shape, lying at the heart of the economy, impacting on the domestic social balance and influencing foreign policy. It allows Turkey to be geopolitically assertive in ways that were impossible in the past, creating a new reality at the southeastern border of the European Union
The rise of the Military Industrial Complex is an integral part of the profound transformation of Turkish capitalism since the 1980s. The old distinction between “secular Kemalism” and “religious conservatism” has very little relevance today, even though Turkey remains deeply divided along religious-secular lines.
At the top of Turkish society a new coalition has emerged, led by the old, Kemalist business elite – the so-called Istanbul bourgeoisie – together with the new, devout business entrants – the Anatolian conservatives. Military production is a privileged terrain for their co-operation.
Following the failed coup of the 2016, the AKP emerged as the political representative of this ruling bloc. Erdogan purged the Turkish Armed Forces of the remnants of traditional Kemalism, as well as other opposition forces to his rule, and became the political voice of the dominant social layer. His regime is heavily authoritarian domestically and aggressive internationally. A new nationalism has emerged in Turkey, incorporating much of the old Kemalism, but also transcending it by being openly religious and assertive in geopolitical terms.
The Military Industrial Complex has been instrumental to this transformation. Erdogan and the AKP firmly hold the reins of military production. The leading generals of the Turkish Armed Forces have accommodated themselves to the new realities, particularly as they are heavily involved in economic operations. Power is projected directly through military operations and indirectly through military production and trade.
This is the social background of the extraordinary geopolitical ascendancy of Turkey during the last decade, most recently evidenced by Erdogan masterminding the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria. It lies behind the increasingly assertive Turkish geopolitical presence on the borders of the EU, not least through naval patrols and exercises in the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Seas. The Turkish government openly propounds a form of neo-Ottomanism in foreign relations – for instance through the Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) doctrine – which will undoubtedly have a major impact on the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean, all areas that are crucial to the EU.
The geopolitical rise of Turkey, based on its Military Industrial Complex, is also a complex problem for Washington. The USA is interested in integrating Turkey into its own plans for continued hegemony. But Turkey is increasingly independent and seeks its own accommodation relative to Russia, China, Iran, and other countries. It poses its own challenge to US hegemony, and thus further complicates the geopolitical conundrum faced by the EU.
The growing economic presence of the Turkish military
The combined defence and internal security expenditure of Turkey for fiscal 2025 is projected at $47bn, an unprecedented sum comparable to the UK government’s projected military spending of roughly $68bn. The bulk of the money will be spent domestically, given that Turkey’s rate of military self-sufficiency was almost 76% in 2024 compared to less than 20% in the early 2000s.
Indeed, in 2024, the share of defence and aerospace in manufacturing output was more than 9%, while direct employment in the defence industry reached almost 95000 workers. Self-sufficiency is high in armoured land vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, artillery and ammunition; middling in submarine and naval platforms; low in aerospace platforms.
Turkey is, moreover, one of the fastest growing military exporters, exceeding $7.2bn in 2024, and creating a trade surplus. In the same year, military R&D stood at $2.25bn, and R&D-related personnel (engineers and other scientists) exceeded 19000 employees. The country now possesses defence technology centres, innovation clusters, and research institutes able to foster advanced defence technologies on a par with global standards.
To place these developments in appropriate context, consider that the GDP of Turkey in 2024 was roughly $1tr, to which manufacturing contributed about $200bn and total investment stood in the region of $250-300bn. Its economic footprint was much larger than its neighbours; Greek GDP, for instance, was roughly $230bn, to which manufacturing contributed about $20bn and total investment was around $35bn. The exception is Russia, with a significantly larger and more sophisticated economy than Turkey.
The Military Industrial Complex is an integral part of Turkey’s sizeable economy, with a weighty presence allowing it to project enormous political and social power. Thus, while a mere 56 enterprises were producing directly for the military in 2002, the number currently exceeds 2000. The contract value of defence projects stood at $87bn in 2024. A large proportion benefited enterprises linked to TÜSİAD (the association of the old, established, grand bourgeoisie), but a significant number involved enterprises linked to MÜSİAD (the association of the new conservative, devout bourgeoisie).
It is striking, furthermore, that the Turkish Military Industrial Complex does not represent simply a network of private enterprises that are closely connected to the state through public procurement. Rather, the Turkish Armed Forces are also directly involved in military production – as well as a host of other activities – through a Foundation (Vakıf) and a Pension Fund (OYAK). They control a broad range of enterprises in iron and steel, automotive, machinery, shipping, electronics, petrochemicals, and so on.
A new ruling bloc
The growing economic power of the Turkish military reflects the altered interaction between armed forces, state, economy, and society. A new configuration of power, permeated by a militarist, nationalist, and expansionist discourse, steadily emerged after the failed coup d’état of July 2016.
A rapprochement has taken place between the Islamist AKP government, which increasingly projects a neo-Ottomanist outlook, and the post-Kemalist military leadership. The leadership and the outlook of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed accordingly.
When the AKP came to power in 2002, it presented a challenge to the traditional political hegemony of the Turkish military and was buoyed by a popular demand to take the Armed Forces out of political life. However, the AKP did not stop the country’s military modernisation, and nor did it hinder the growth of the defence industry. Instead, since 2016, it has emerged as the political _expression_ of an emerging coalition between the old secular bourgeoisie of Istanbul – traditionally allied to the Armed Forces – and the new conservative and devout business elite of provincial Anatolia.
Military production is pivotal to forming this new bloc and provides evidence of the deep transformation of Turkish capitalism.
To be sure, Turkish society remains deeply divided between secularist and religious camps, while economic problems persist in the form of rapid inflation, gross economic inequality, current account deficits, overexpansion of the construction sector, and more. Turkey is far from stable domestically and the new ruling bloc holds it together through an iron fist.
But the ruling bloc is also enormously ambitious, seeking to position Turkey among the Great Powers, at the intersection of various sub-regions from the Adriatic to Central Asia, and from the Black Sea to the Horn of Africa. The currently assertive Turkish foreign policy draws directly on the strength of the emerging Military Industrial Complex.
The long road to creating a Military Industrial Complex
The road toward creating a Turkish military industry began after the imposition of an arms embargo by the USA in 1975-78, following the war in Cyprus. The embargo forced the Turkish elite to shift toward modernising its armed forces and increasing its self-sufficiency. The military dictatorship of 1980 also proved decisive by changing the economic model away from import substituting industrialisation toward liberalisation and integrating into the world market.
The modernising drive of the Turkish Armed Forces was broadly supported by NATO powers, which initially treated Turkey as a good customer. Their support made possible the creation of Turkish Aerospace Industries as a partnership between Lockheed, General Electric and Tusaş owned by the Army Vakıf. It also facilitated Turkish participation in various European defence projects (e.g., the Airbus A400M project) and allowed technology transfers from French, British, German, and Italian enterprises. At the same time, Turkey aimed to increase its military and economic interactions with (Muslim) “brother countries” (e.g., aircraft sales to Egypt, small exports to Pakistan).
For much of the early period, Turkey engaged in an arms race with Greece. At the time, Greece was economically preponderant and the military expenditures by the two countries were broadly similar. The turning point came in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and as Greece prepared to join the European Monetary Union.
Economic performance in the ensuing three decades diverged enormously, with Turkey acquiring a broad industrial base, while Greece lost much of its industry and even shrank economically. Moreover, Greece participated in drawing a post-Cold-War “peace dividend” among European NATO members. Turkey followed a very different path.
In the 1990s, the Kurdish insurgency became one of the main political, economic and symbolic resources of the Turkish Army. Defeating the PKK created a presumed need for both arms imports and domestic arms production. Moreover, US supremacy in the Gulf War of 1991 made Turkish generals realise that the Armed Forces were ill-equipped to face war in the 21st century.
Exposure to sophisticated warfare and increasing difficulties in curbing the Kurdish insurgency led the Turkish Armed Forces to deepen and broaden the modernisation programme. The road was laid toward developing a defence-industrial base that would fit with Turkey’s overall industrial development.
In this spirit, virtually all purchase plans required corresponding offsets by foreign investment or a co-production arrangement with local arms manufacturers. Purchases typically covered high-technology equipment that could hypothetically be reproduced in Turkey. The equipment could initially be co-produced with a domestic supplier, leading to a transfer of technology and hopefully laying the ground for future independent Turkish production. The ultimate non-negotiable aim was to enable Turkey to become independent of potentially unreliable foreign suppliers.
During the same period, the Islamist movement developed close relations with MÜSİAD, which was steadily challenging TÜSİAD’s monopoly of access to state-controlled resources. The defence sector was one of the main arenas of this political struggle. For a time, political Islam was considered a major threat by the Kemalist Turkish Armed Forces and was given greater priority than the presumed “separatist” threat from the Kurds. Still, the economic crisis of 2001 brought the AKP to power in 2002 and pushed the country decisively down the path of neoliberalism.
The rise of the AKP did not stop the creation of an arms industry, which continued apace resting on a triangle of power between the government, the Turkish Armed Forces with their Vakıf, and the large enterprises in TÜSİAD. Islamic “green” capital remained secondary, mostly comprising Small and Medium Enterprises associated with MÜSİAD.
Competition in the arms industry is not the same as in other sectors. The prime defence enterprises are simultaneously customers, partners, competitors and, more rarely, suppliers to other defence companies, both Turkish and foreign. Consequently, coalitions began to develop. It is no accident that some of the main defence companies, members of TÜSİAD, became allied with MÜSİAD enterprises, which promote a transnational “Islamic market”. The alliance combined the technological know-how of TÜSİAD members with the market access to so-called Muslim countries by MÜSİAD members.
The leading generals of the Turkish Armed Force have often found themselves at odds with the emerging new capitalist elite of businessmen, but over time their interests converged as the Turkish military is also an important economic actor. The more aware the generals were of the political and economic implications of possessing economic power through the Vakıf and OYAK, the denser became the networks of formal and informal contacts linking them to business. This is the very substance of the Military Industrial Complex.
After the failed coup of 2016, Erdogan took decisive steps to eliminate the remnants of the old Kemalist ideology in the Armed Forces, while bringing the Military Industrial Complex to heel. The administrative links connecting the arms industry to the state were brought entirely under the control of the President. The leadership of the Turkish Armed Forces witnessed a substantial loss of control over final decision making.
At the same time, Erdogan took action to appoint managers close to the government in defence industry enterprises such as ASELSAN, HAVELSAN, ROKETSAN, and TAI (TUSAŞ), which are the backbone of the Military Industrial Complex. These enterprises were historically controlled by the Turkish Armed Forces Vakıf but in 2018 Erdogan forcibly appointed his own people to top positions. The Presidency began to command decision making in the Turkish Armed Forces Vakıf, including the financing of the arms industry through the state.
The transformation is in line with the hardening of Erdogan’s authoritarian regime in Turkey. Removal of military dominance did not lead to a more democratic system but instead created a new authoritarianism, in which the President has full administrative and financial control.
- Geopolitical ascendancy
These developments are inseparable from the increasingly ambiguous role of Turkey in NATO but also from its changing geopolitical role as an emerging regional power across the southern and eastern fringes of the EU. The Turkey of Erdogan seeks greater military compatibility with the US and the rest of NATO, while relying heavily on the military to provide internal security.
At the end of the Cold War, Turkey was still essentially a poor, peripheral country in the world economy. Turkish capitalism now has a significant industrial base with a prominent military component. The country is a “pivotal state” with a presence in several strategic regions directly relevant to the EU: the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean. The emerging ruling bloc has vast scope for its ambitions and possesses a decisive geopolitical advantage through its defence industry.
The current footprint and capabilities of the Turkish Armed Forces bear no relation to the past. Prior to 2016 the Turkish military was able to carry only a limited range of extraterritorial operations, most notably in Cyprus and northern Iraq. It also contributed to multilateral NATO and UN missions in the Balkans, Africa and Afghanistan. None of these even compares to the projection of power since 2016, including combat operations and engagement in multiple theatres.
Through a combination of domestically produced military hardware and overseas basing and access, the Turkish Armed Forces have developed interregional operational capabilities, including NATO missions, non-NATO key partnerships, development projects, multilateral peacekeeping missions, and sustained unilateral operations. Such a footprint is surpassed by only a handful of militaries in the world.
Suffice it to mention that Turkish Land Forces provide a corps-level headquarters and a mechanised brigade for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force on a rotational basis, with the last rotation in 2021. Turkey hosts a NATO command, provides key elements of NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2, and hosts NATO aerial refuelling and air defence radars on its national territory.
Moreover, Ankara has developed military partnerships with a further tier of countries, including Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Qatar, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A striking example is Azerbaijan, where Turkey has created an effective local army over three decades. In 2016 the Turkish Armed Forces opened their first permanent Middle East base in Qatar, with several thousand ground, air, and naval personnel operating under a Qatar-Turkey Combined Joint Force Command. There is a partnership with Pakistan which focusses on the defence industry, although the two militaries are committed to increasing joint training and counterterror efforts and have held exercises in Pakistan and Azerbaijan. Mention should also be made of the significant involvement of the Turkish Military Industrial Complex in the Russia-Ukraine war as supplier of military equipment, but also previously as clandestine collaborator of the Ukrainian forces.
Not least in this respect is the military involvement of Turkey in Africa, which is directly relevant to the EU, particularly in view of the rapidly disappearing remnants of French imperialism. The Turkish Task Force Command in Somalia has overseen training at Camp TURKSOM in Somalia and at bases in Turkey since 2011. The Libya Mission Group has trained a variety of Libyan forces, with key bases in Tripoli, Misrata, and Wattiya. Turkish and Ethiopian forces train jointly, supplementing Ankara’s reported approval of the sales of drones to Ethiopia. Both Niger and Togo have established military cooperative programs after purchasing Turkish drones.
Perhaps the most striking development, however, is the involvement of Turkish military and security forces with the armed opposition groups in Syria, eventually leading to the restructuring of the fractious Syrian National Army. Turkey played a leading role in the overthrow of the Assad regime, thus cutting the lines of supply from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. It has emerged as a dominant player in the Middle East, its military power lying in close proximity to Israel.
There is no doubt that the country is engaged in major power projection. Turkey now possesses the size of economy and population to undertake ambitious military and political activities beyond its borders. It belongs to a broader group of countries, all emerging from the so-called periphery of the world economy, capable of challenging various aspects of US hegemony. In classic imperial fashion, it is at once a threat and a vital point of reference for all its neighbours. For the rudderless and declining EU, its ascendancy presents a profound change to the geopolitical calculus.
For the Turkish ruling bloc, Erdogan’s AKP provides an influential presence internationally as well as heavy authoritarianism to maintain domestic control. Moreover, Erdogan offers to Turkish capitalists an ideology that is explicitly religious, draws on the Ottoman imperial past, and still maintains the nationalist core of Kemalism. The Military Industrial Complex is one of the foundations of this new ruling bloc.
Not everything in the garden is rosy, of course. The economy is large but is also unbalanced and heavily exposed to global capital flows. Inequality is rampant and vast layers of working people can barely make ends meet in the large cities, especially in Istanbul. The ideological division between secularism and religion has hardened into an unfathomable rift in society. Religious, free-market authoritarianism provides short term answers to these social problems, but it is not a solution.
Turkish capitalism has always moved forward through crises that shake society. It remains to be seen what form that process will take as the country continues to adopt its new imperial guise.
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geopolitical reality for the EU
The transition of Turkey from a Third World nation to a dominant geopolitical player in the Middle East with its military power extending even further afield
Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and convenor at European Research Network on Social and Economic Policy. He is the lead author together with the EReNSEP Writing Collective of “The State of Capitalism: Economy, Society, and Hegemony” that was published in December. Read our Book Review HERE
Mehmet Ağca is currently pursuing research in Political Economy at the School of Oriental and African Studies
A military capitalism
The military expenditure, production, and trade of Turkey are currently approaching levels comparable to those of established global powers; moreover, the country is able to meet its military needs largely through its own resources. A Military Industrial Complex has gradually taken shape, lying at the heart of the economy, impacting on the domestic social balance and influencing foreign policy. It allows Turkey to be geopolitically assertive in ways that were impossible in the past, creating a new reality at the southeastern border of the European Union
The rise of the Military Industrial Complex is an integral part of the profound transformation of Turkish capitalism since the 1980s. The old distinction between “secular Kemalism” and “religious conservatism” has very little relevance today, even though Turkey remains deeply divided along religious-secular lines.
At the top of Turkish society a new coalition has emerged, led by the old, Kemalist business elite – the so-called Istanbul bourgeoisie – together with the new, devout business entrants – the Anatolian conservatives. Military production is a privileged terrain for their co-operation.
Following the failed coup of the 2016, the AKP emerged as the political representative of this ruling bloc. Erdogan purged the Turkish Armed Forces of the remnants of traditional Kemalism, as well as other opposition forces to his rule, and became the political voice of the dominant social layer. His regime is heavily authoritarian domestically and aggressive internationally. A new nationalism has emerged in Turkey, incorporating much of the old Kemalism, but also transcending it by being openly religious and assertive in geopolitical terms.
The Military Industrial Complex has been instrumental to this transformation. Erdogan and the AKP firmly hold the reins of military production. The leading generals of the Turkish Armed Forces have accommodated themselves to the new realities, particularly as they are heavily involved in economic operations. Power is projected directly through military operations and indirectly through military production and trade.
This is the social background of the extraordinary geopolitical ascendancy of Turkey during the last decade, most recently evidenced by Erdogan masterminding the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria. It lies behind the increasingly assertive Turkish geopolitical presence on the borders of the EU, not least through naval patrols and exercises in the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Seas. The Turkish government openly propounds a form of neo-Ottomanism in foreign relations – for instance through the Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) doctrine – which will undoubtedly have a major impact on the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean, all areas that are crucial to the EU.
The geopolitical rise of Turkey, based on its Military Industrial Complex, is also a complex problem for Washington. The USA is interested in integrating Turkey into its own plans for continued hegemony. But Turkey is increasingly independent and seeks its own accommodation relative to Russia, China, Iran, and other countries. It poses its own challenge to US hegemony, and thus further complicates the geopolitical conundrum faced by the EU.
The growing economic presence of the Turkish military
The combined defence and internal security expenditure of Turkey for fiscal 2025 is projected at $47bn, an unprecedented sum comparable to the UK government’s projected military spending of roughly $68bn. The bulk of the money will be spent domestically, given that Turkey’s rate of military self-sufficiency was almost 76% in 2024 compared to less than 20% in the early 2000s.
Indeed, in 2024, the share of defence and aerospace in manufacturing output was more than 9%, while direct employment in the defence industry reached almost 95000 workers. Self-sufficiency is high in armoured land vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, artillery and ammunition; middling in submarine and naval platforms; low in aerospace platforms.
Turkey is, moreover, one of the fastest growing military exporters, exceeding $7.2bn in 2024, and creating a trade surplus. In the same year, military R&D stood at $2.25bn, and R&D-related personnel (engineers and other scientists) exceeded 19000 employees. The country now possesses defence technology centres, innovation clusters, and research institutes able to foster advanced defence technologies on a par with global standards.
To place these developments in appropriate context, consider that the GDP of Turkey in 2024 was roughly $1tr, to which manufacturing contributed about $200bn and total investment stood in the region of $250-300bn. Its economic footprint was much larger than its neighbours; Greek GDP, for instance, was roughly $230bn, to which manufacturing contributed about $20bn and total investment was around $35bn. The exception is Russia, with a significantly larger and more sophisticated economy than Turkey.
The Military Industrial Complex is an integral part of Turkey’s sizeable economy, with a weighty presence allowing it to project enormous political and social power. Thus, while a mere 56 enterprises were producing directly for the military in 2002, the number currently exceeds 2000. The contract value of defence projects stood at $87bn in 2024. A large proportion benefited enterprises linked to TÜSİAD (the association of the old, established, grand bourgeoisie), but a significant number involved enterprises linked to MÜSİAD (the association of the new conservative, devout bourgeoisie).
It is striking, furthermore, that the Turkish Military Industrial Complex does not represent simply a network of private enterprises that are closely connected to the state through public procurement. Rather, the Turkish Armed Forces are also directly involved in military production – as well as a host of other activities – through a Foundation (Vakıf) and a Pension Fund (OYAK). They control a broad range of enterprises in iron and steel, automotive, machinery, shipping, electronics, petrochemicals, and so on.
A new ruling bloc
The growing economic power of the Turkish military reflects the altered interaction between armed forces, state, economy, and society. A new configuration of power, permeated by a militarist, nationalist, and expansionist discourse, steadily emerged after the failed coup d’état of July 2016.
A rapprochement has taken place between the Islamist AKP government, which increasingly projects a neo-Ottomanist outlook, and the post-Kemalist military leadership. The leadership and the outlook of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed accordingly.
When the AKP came to power in 2002, it presented a challenge to the traditional political hegemony of the Turkish military and was buoyed by a popular demand to take the Armed Forces out of political life. However, the AKP did not stop the country’s military modernisation, and nor did it hinder the growth of the defence industry. Instead, since 2016, it has emerged as the political _expression_ of an emerging coalition between the old secular bourgeoisie of Istanbul – traditionally allied to the Armed Forces – and the new conservative and devout business elite of provincial Anatolia.
Military production is pivotal to forming this new bloc and provides evidence of the deep transformation of Turkish capitalism.
To be sure, Turkish society remains deeply divided between secularist and religious camps, while economic problems persist in the form of rapid inflation, gross economic inequality, current account deficits, overexpansion of the construction sector, and more. Turkey is far from stable domestically and the new ruling bloc holds it together through an iron fist.
But the ruling bloc is also enormously ambitious, seeking to position Turkey among the Great Powers, at the intersection of various sub-regions from the Adriatic to Central Asia, and from the Black Sea to the Horn of Africa. The currently assertive Turkish foreign policy draws directly on the strength of the emerging Military Industrial Complex.
The long road to creating a Military Industrial Complex
The road toward creating a Turkish military industry began after the imposition of an arms embargo by the USA in 1975-78, following the war in Cyprus. The embargo forced the Turkish elite to shift toward modernising its armed forces and increasing its self-sufficiency. The military dictatorship of 1980 also proved decisive by changing the economic model away from import substituting industrialisation toward liberalisation and integrating into the world market.
The modernising drive of the Turkish Armed Forces was broadly supported by NATO powers, which initially treated Turkey as a good customer. Their support made possible the creation of Turkish Aerospace Industries as a partnership between Lockheed, General Electric and Tusaş owned by the Army Vakıf. It also facilitated Turkish participation in various European defence projects (e.g., the Airbus A400M project) and allowed technology transfers from French, British, German, and Italian enterprises. At the same time, Turkey aimed to increase its military and economic interactions with (Muslim) “brother countries” (e.g., aircraft sales to Egypt, small exports to Pakistan).
For much of the early period, Turkey engaged in an arms race with Greece. At the time, Greece was economically preponderant and the military expenditures by the two countries were broadly similar. The turning point came in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and as Greece prepared to join the European Monetary Union.
Economic performance in the ensuing three decades diverged enormously, with Turkey acquiring a broad industrial base, while Greece lost much of its industry and even shrank economically. Moreover, Greece participated in drawing a post-Cold-War “peace dividend” among European NATO members. Turkey followed a very different path.
In the 1990s, the Kurdish insurgency became one of the main political, economic and symbolic resources of the Turkish Army. Defeating the PKK created a presumed need for both arms imports and domestic arms production. Moreover, US supremacy in the Gulf War of 1991 made Turkish generals realise that the Armed Forces were ill-equipped to face war in the 21st century.
Exposure to sophisticated warfare and increasing difficulties in curbing the Kurdish insurgency led the Turkish Armed Forces to deepen and broaden the modernisation programme. The road was laid toward developing a defence-industrial base that would fit with Turkey’s overall industrial development.
In this spirit, virtually all purchase plans required corresponding offsets by foreign investment or a co-production arrangement with local arms manufacturers. Purchases typically covered high-technology equipment that could hypothetically be reproduced in Turkey. The equipment could initially be co-produced with a domestic supplier, leading to a transfer of technology and hopefully laying the ground for future independent Turkish production. The ultimate non-negotiable aim was to enable Turkey to become independent of potentially unreliable foreign suppliers.
During the same period, the Islamist movement developed close relations with MÜSİAD, which was steadily challenging TÜSİAD’s monopoly of access to state-controlled resources. The defence sector was one of the main arenas of this political struggle. For a time, political Islam was considered a major threat by the Kemalist Turkish Armed Forces and was given greater priority than the presumed “separatist” threat from the Kurds. Still, the economic crisis of 2001 brought the AKP to power in 2002 and pushed the country decisively down the path of neoliberalism.
The rise of the AKP did not stop the creation of an arms industry, which continued apace resting on a triangle of power between the government, the Turkish Armed Forces with their Vakıf, and the large enterprises in TÜSİAD. Islamic “green” capital remained secondary, mostly comprising Small and Medium Enterprises associated with MÜSİAD.
Competition in the arms industry is not the same as in other sectors. The prime defence enterprises are simultaneously customers, partners, competitors and, more rarely, suppliers to other defence companies, both Turkish and foreign. Consequently, coalitions began to develop. It is no accident that some of the main defence companies, members of TÜSİAD, became allied with MÜSİAD enterprises, which promote a transnational “Islamic market”. The alliance combined the technological know-how of TÜSİAD members with the market access to so-called Muslim countries by MÜSİAD members.
The leading generals of the Turkish Armed Force have often found themselves at odds with the emerging new capitalist elite of businessmen, but over time their interests converged as the Turkish military is also an important economic actor. The more aware the generals were of the political and economic implications of possessing economic power through the Vakıf and OYAK, the denser became the networks of formal and informal contacts linking them to business. This is the very substance of the Military Industrial Complex.
After the failed coup of 2016, Erdogan took decisive steps to eliminate the remnants of the old Kemalist ideology in the Armed Forces, while bringing the Military Industrial Complex to heel. The administrative links connecting the arms industry to the state were brought entirely under the control of the President. The leadership of the Turkish Armed Forces witnessed a substantial loss of control over final decision making.
At the same time, Erdogan took action to appoint managers close to the government in defence industry enterprises such as ASELSAN, HAVELSAN, ROKETSAN, and TAI (TUSAŞ), which are the backbone of the Military Industrial Complex. These enterprises were historically controlled by the Turkish Armed Forces Vakıf but in 2018 Erdogan forcibly appointed his own people to top positions. The Presidency began to command decision making in the Turkish Armed Forces Vakıf, including the financing of the arms industry through the state.
The transformation is in line with the hardening of Erdogan’s authoritarian regime in Turkey. Removal of military dominance did not lead to a more democratic system but instead created a new authoritarianism, in which the President has full administrative and financial control.
- Geopolitical ascendancy
These developments are inseparable from the increasingly ambiguous role of Turkey in NATO but also from its changing geopolitical role as an emerging regional power across the southern and eastern fringes of the EU. The Turkey of Erdogan seeks greater military compatibility with the US and the rest of NATO, while relying heavily on the military to provide internal security.
At the end of the Cold War, Turkey was still essentially a poor, peripheral country in the world economy. Turkish capitalism now has a significant industrial base with a prominent military component. The country is a “pivotal state” with a presence in several strategic regions directly relevant to the EU: the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean. The emerging ruling bloc has vast scope for its ambitions and possesses a decisive geopolitical advantage through its defence industry.
The current footprint and capabilities of the Turkish Armed Forces bear no relation to the past. Prior to 2016 the Turkish military was able to carry only a limited range of extraterritorial operations, most notably in Cyprus and northern Iraq. It also contributed to multilateral NATO and UN missions in the Balkans, Africa and Afghanistan. None of these even compares to the projection of power since 2016, including combat operations and engagement in multiple theatres.
Through a combination of domestically produced military hardware and overseas basing and access, the Turkish Armed Forces have developed interregional operational capabilities, including NATO missions, non-NATO key partnerships, development projects, multilateral peacekeeping missions, and sustained unilateral operations. Such a footprint is surpassed by only a handful of militaries in the world.
Suffice it to mention that Turkish Land Forces provide a corps-level headquarters and a mechanised brigade for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force on a rotational basis, with the last rotation in 2021. Turkey hosts a NATO command, provides key elements of NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2, and hosts NATO aerial refuelling and air defence radars on its national territory.
Moreover, Ankara has developed military partnerships with a further tier of countries, including Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Qatar, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A striking example is Azerbaijan, where Turkey has created an effective local army over three decades. In 2016 the Turkish Armed Forces opened their first permanent Middle East base in Qatar, with several thousand ground, air, and naval personnel operating under a Qatar-Turkey Combined Joint Force Command. There is a partnership with Pakistan which focusses on the defence industry, although the two militaries are committed to increasing joint training and counterterror efforts and have held exercises in Pakistan and Azerbaijan. Mention should also be made of the significant involvement of the Turkish Military Industrial Complex in the Russia-Ukraine war as supplier of military equipment, but also previously as clandestine collaborator of the Ukrainian forces.
Not least in this respect is the military involvement of Turkey in Africa, which is directly relevant to the EU, particularly in view of the rapidly disappearing remnants of French imperialism. The Turkish Task Force Command in Somalia has overseen training at Camp TURKSOM in Somalia and at bases in Turkey since 2011. The Libya Mission Group has trained a variety of Libyan forces, with key bases in Tripoli, Misrata, and Wattiya. Turkish and Ethiopian forces train jointly, supplementing Ankara’s reported approval of the sales of drones to Ethiopia. Both Niger and Togo have established military cooperative programs after purchasing Turkish drones.
Perhaps the most striking development, however, is the involvement of Turkish military and security forces with the armed opposition groups in Syria, eventually leading to the restructuring of the fractious Syrian National Army. Turkey played a leading role in the overthrow of the Assad regime, thus cutting the lines of supply from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. It has emerged as a dominant player in the Middle East, its military power lying in close proximity to Israel.
There is no doubt that the country is engaged in major power projection. Turkey now possesses the size of economy and population to undertake ambitious military and political activities beyond its borders. It belongs to a broader group of countries, all emerging from the so-called periphery of the world economy, capable of challenging various aspects of US hegemony. In classic imperial fashion, it is at once a threat and a vital point of reference for all its neighbours. For the rudderless and declining EU, its ascendancy presents a profound change to the geopolitical calculus.
For the Turkish ruling bloc, Erdogan’s AKP provides an influential presence internationally as well as heavy authoritarianism to maintain domestic control. Moreover, Erdogan offers to Turkish capitalists an ideology that is explicitly religious, draws on the Ottoman imperial past, and still maintains the nationalist core of Kemalism. The Military Industrial Complex is one of the foundations of this new ruling bloc.
Not everything in the garden is rosy, of course. The economy is large but is also unbalanced and heavily exposed to global capital flows. Inequality is rampant and vast layers of working people can barely make ends meet in the large cities, especially in Istanbul. The ideological division between secularism and religion has hardened into an unfathomable rift in society. Religious, free-market authoritarianism provides short term answers to these social problems, but it is not a solution.
Turkish capitalism has always moved forward through crises that shake society. It remains to be seen what form that process will take as the country continues to adopt its new imperial guise.