There's
talk on the street; it sounds so familiar
Great
expectations, everybody's watching you
If Time Magazine would have had a contest for the most
influential politician of the last two weeks, it would be a neck-on-neck race
between the French president François Hollande and the Turkish president Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan.
Although both politicians effortlessly drew the
international spotlights during the last fortnight, the reasons for their
“claim-to-fame” couldn’t have been more different.
François Hollande cashed his ‘president’s credit’ in the aftermath of the terrible attacks
in Paris by making a ‘Tour de Monde’, bringing him
in close contact with the global leaders including the Russian president
Vladimir Putin.
With his panache and finetuned French diplomatic skills,
Hollande sought participants for his attack coalition against IS in Syria, after
declaring them war. And although the results of Hollande’s tour are not crystal
clear yet, the odds are quite considerable that the attacks upon IS-bases in
Syria will be extended in the coming period.
However, the real man of the last two weeks was
undoubtedly Turkish president Recep Erdoğan.
With one well-aimed missile of an F16 fighter plane, Erdoğan’s
Turkish airforce downed a Russian
Sukhoi Su-24 bomber aircraft during
its attack stint over North-Syria, after it passed the Turkish border for a
very brief, yet fatal period. Although both pilots could escape using their
ejector seats, one pilot was fatally shot in mid-air by Turkmenish insurgents,
who had been under attack by the same airplane.
Thus Erdoğan gave Russia a powerful signal that there
is ‘a new kid in town’, when it comes to both global politics and regional use of power.
That the signal had been very well understood became clear from the governmental
and public outrage in Russia, as well as from the shedload of economic measures
and boycott actions against Turkey and Turkish companies and citizens, that were declared
overnight by Vladimir Putin and his henchman Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Although the reason for the Turkish attack against the
Russian bomber plane is not yet clear, voices speak softly that there is more
behind it than a simple, fatal cross-border incident with a jet plane. Insiders speak that Erdoğan wanted to teach Russia a
lesson for:
- attacking their Turkmenian brothers in Northern Syria, who many Turks consider to be closely related to their people, instead of only attacking IS;
- their enduring protection of the Turkish archenemy, Syrian president-under-fire Bashar al-Assad, thus letting him stay in power during the now almost five year lasting civil war in Syria.
And according to the Australian newssite ABC (and various other international media) Vladimir Putin
himself stated that Turkey had attacked the Russian plane in order to protect
the alleged Syrian and Iraq oilstreams to Turkey, managed by IS. This is a
possibility that may not be so implausible as it seems at first glance.
Stil, I have a hunch that these are not the only reasons
for this quite brutal and probably unnecessary attack against the Russian
plane, which probably did intrude Turkey for a very short period, but crashed (and
had been shot (?)) when it was already back in Syria.
In my humble opinion, the state of mind and the enormous ego of president
Erdoğan might also play a role. As a matter of fact, both Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdoğan
are quite similar persons.
Both share an undeniable intelligence with a
considerable amount of ruthlessness, as well as disdain for their opposition,
for the free press in their countries and – as a matter of fact – for their
population as a whole.
Where Vladimir Putin has been president and
shadow-president (i.e. Prime Minister) for more than 16 years in a row already,
the reign of Erdoğan lasted from 2003 (when he became PM) until now and it will probably last much longer.
Erdoğan’s latest ‘tour de force’ was his second
election victory in 2015, in which he reclaimed the absolute majority in Turkey after
he lost it in earlier elections during this same year. During these elections the
Turkish AK Party government did not scare away from sending personalized
letters to Turks living all over Europe and other forms of soft and hard
intimidation of his opponents and grassroots.
Both Putin and Erdoğan turn more and more into solar
kings, who see their country’s wealth and income as their personal achievement
and thus their personal property. Their slogan is seemingly: “Ask not what I can do for my country, but
ask what my country can do for me”.
Putin put this slogan to life by earning shedloads of
money through all kinds of state participations in oil, gas and other
commodity-driven companies and by ‘simply being the top dog in Russia’.
Erdoğan has done so by building a new presidential palace for
himself with a ‘petty’ 1150 rooms, costing the
Turkish citizens billions of dollars and by other ways to enrich himself and the clan around him.
Their self-complacency, insensitivity for
self-criticism and ruthlessness becomes blatantly clear from the way that they
deal with the ‘darkish’ past of their respective countries and in the manner
that they treat(ed) their adversaries.
What Putin did with his Chechnian
adversaries in Russia or with the people in Georgia, is exactly what Erdoğan does with the
Kurds in Turkey and – as a matter of fact – Iraq: when deemed necessary enforcing (bloody) confrontations and/or bombing the living daylights out of them.
Further, Turkey is more and more changing from a country
with basically free press into a country in which press representatives are
turning into fair game for government officials: some are arrested, while others are probably murdered (see also this
link).
Yet both Putin and Erdoğan are strong, outspoken men, who
are appreciated by the majorities of their countries for their tough politics and rocksolid goals.
Both have grand visions of their country becoming
famous and mighty again.
Where Putin can’t sleep at night due to endless
pondering upon his ‘Great Russia’ vision, Erdoğan dreams of the revival of an
‘Ottoman-ish’ empire, in which Turkey is the greatest regional power with an
influence stretching from Eastern Africa in the West to Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the East.
The latter is probably the reason that Turkey (i.e.
Erdoğan) really hated the Russian intervention in Syria, in favour of their
‘old friend’ Bashar al-Assad: an intervention that could eventually diminish
the Turkish influence and damage Turkish interests in the region, as well as
their (perhaps) above average relation with the leaders and representatives of
IS. This might after all be the reason that Turkey took its chance, when the
Russian plane crossed its borders.
Nevertheless, whether this all was indeed the motive
for Erdoğan to shoot down the Russian plane or not, does not matter much in the
end.
What matters, however, is that it has been a reckless
and extremely dangerous move of Turkey, which could have dramatically increased
the international tensions in the world (and it still could do so in the near
future).
To make things worse: both the ego’s of presidents Recep Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin prevent
them from simply saying ‘sorry’ and admitting that they have acted ‘wrongly’ in
this matter.
No, instead they turn into an international ‘cockfight’
in which they try to punish each other with inconsiderate economic measures
(‘an eye for an eye’), loud sabre rattling and political charivari. This would
not be a very big problem, when Turkey would not be one of the most prominent
NATO members with arguably the most strategic position in the Middle-East, as
heeder of the entrance to the Black Sea (through the Bosporus seagate – see
map).
 |
| Map of Turkey, emphasizing its strategic position in the Middle East Picture courtesy of Google Earth Click to enlarge |
Even though the NATO is probably absolutely not willing
to risk an ‘all out’ war with Russia, on behalf of Turkey, the odds for this
are increasing when the tensions between Russia and Turkey keep on mounting. In
one of the most unstable regions in the world, this is almost equal to
committing suicide.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems is that both the
NATO and the European Union cannot force Turkey to ‘shut up’ and sweet-talk itself into a regained mutual understanding with Russia.
The NATO desperately needs Turkey as an operating base
for the Middle East and as entrance for its seafleet to the Black Sea. Arguing
with Erdoğan could lead to undesired reactions of the Turkish president.
The European Union, on the other hand, desperately
needs Turkey to solve its refugee problem going awry. This was the reason that
European Commissioner Frans Timmermans went to Ankara with a fistful of (empty)
promises about a future EU membership, visa-free entering into the EU for
Turkish citizens and €3 billion in cash to help Turkey solve the
refugee-crisis. “Don’t mention the plane,
Frans... Don’t mention the plane!”
The savvy FD journalist Marcel de Boer
argued that the uncertain forecast for the Turkish economy could be an extra
uncertain factor for the political future of Turkey.
 |
| Tweet by Marcel de Boer, journalist of www.fd.nl Picture courtesy of Tweetdeck.com Click to enlarge |
Marcel:
I am
especially curious what will happen when the Turkish economy will collapse
(which is inevitable, as the country hoarded too much debt).
My reaction was “that
Erdoğan would probably become even more dominant and authoritarian than he
already is, in order to distract attention from the failing Turkish economy”.
To collect some data, illustrating the assumptions of
Marcel about the Turkish economy, I collected some statistics from the Worldbank about Turkey.
The first thing that struck me was the growing
influence of Tourism in Turkey: from roughly 1.2% of Gross National Income
(GNI) in 1995 until 5.6% in 2013. This makes the country extremely vulnerable
for Russian touristical boycotts, as more than 4 million Russians visited the
Turkish mega-hotels and touristical hotspots each year.
Although the Turkish GNI and the GNI per capita showed
a healthy development during the last twenty years (first chart) and the
non-performing loan portfolio is currently back at a decent level of 2.8%
(second chart), it is especially the development of publicly guaranteed bond
loans in Turkey that shows reason for cautiousness. According to the World Bank
there are currently over $3.5 billion in publicly guaranteed bond loans, which
seems like a considerable amount in comparison with the past.
 |
| Chart of the development of the Turkish GNI (per capita) Chart by Ernst's Economy for you Data courtesy of Worldbank Click to enlarge |
 |
| Turkish development of bonds, commercial loans and non-performing loansChart by Ernst's Economy for you Data courtesy of Worldbank Click to enlarge |
It is hard to tell from this data whether the Turkish
economy will indeed collapse soon, as honestly most data – except for the
soaring bond loans – look quite normal.
One thing is clear, however. The Russian boycott will
hit the Turkish tourist industry below the belt, as well as the Turkish building
industry, which acquired enormous building contracts in Moscow, St-Petersburg
and other Russian cities. Also the vast trade flow between the two countries
will probably collapse to the bare minimum, which is a ‘lose-lose’ situation for
both countries and especially for Russia, of which the population already
suffers from the enduring trade boycott between Russia and the EU, after the MH17
incident.
So it would be healthy for both countries to get this
incident out of the way a.s.a.p.
Yet, president Putin is not the man to easily forgive
the Turks for what they did. A first attempt of president Erdoğan to privately speak with Putin at the
Paris’ climate summit was bluntly refused by the Russian president. And as I
said before: the ego’s of both presidents will stand in the way of mutual
excuses.
Yet, it is important that both leaders keep their cool,
in order to prevent this incident from growing to epic and dangerous political
proportions.
And perhaps president Erdoğan should get his act
together regarding IS.
One cannot be both president of arguably one of the
most strategically important NATO members and a silent endorser and
trade partner(?) of one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the Middle
East.
One person can simply have just too many conflicting
interests to remain a credible leader!
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