Turkish Studies

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftur20

Military might: a domestic economy explanation of

Turkish foreign policy

Sabri Ciftci

To cite this article: Sabri Ciftci (2023) Military might: a domestic economy explanation of
Turkish foreign policy, Turkish Studies, 24:5, 764-787, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2023.2196020

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2023.2196020

Published online: 28 Mar 2023.

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TURKISH STUDIES
2023, VOL. 24, NO. 5, 764–787
https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2023.2196020

Military might: a domestic economy explanation of

Turkish foreign policy
Sabri Ciftci
Department of Political Science, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

ABSTRACT
Turkish foreign policy has taken a military turn in recent years. Turkey is now
a major arms exporter, it hosts military bases in its neighborhood and
beyond, and has engaged in conflicts in Syria and Libya. Scholars have
highlighted identity and international system theories to explain the
military assertiveness in Turkish foreign policy. This study proposes a
domestic economy explanation. It argues that national wealth, a take-off in
defence industry, and an alliance of conservative bourgeoisie and political
Islamists are the primary drivers of the military turn in foreign policy.
Analysis of Turkish economic development and historical trajectories of
economic and bureaucratic wings of the defence industry shows that
complex business-politics interactions and commercial interests of defence
companies propel military assertiveness. This domestic economy
framework supplements insights from the identity and international
system theories to significantly add to our understanding of the military
turn in Turkish foreign policy.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 27 August 2022; Accepted 4 February 2023

KEYWORDS Turkish foreign policy; defence industry; military-industrial complex; business-government

relations; devout bourgeoisie

Introduction
Some observers attribute the decisive victory of Azerbaijan in the 2020
Azerbaijan-Armenia war to Bayraktar-TB2s, a class of Turkish unmanned
aerial vehicles (or drones).1 Azerbaijan is not Turkey’s only customer, as
more than two dozen countries have bought or expressed interest in
acquiring these weapons. Turkish drones are also featured in the
Russia-Ukraine war, supposedly giving an edge to Ukraine.2 Turkey’s
growing weapons arsenal includes an air defence system (Hisar), several
missile systems (Atmaca, Gökdoğan, and Bozdoğan), the Atak helicopter,
armored combat vehicles, a national warship (Milgem), naval war systems,
and more recently an unmanned fighter jet (Kızılelma), among others.

CONTACT Sabri Ciftci [email protected] Department of Political Science, Kansas State University,
802 Mid-Campus Dr.-S, 216 Calvin Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 TURKISH STUDIES 765

Turkey became the world’s fourteenth largest arms exporter during the
2015–2020 period,3 extending its reach to Africa and Asia. Relatedly,
Turkey stretched its military muscle in the conflicts in Libya and Iraq,
carried out multiple cross-border operations into Syria, established mili-
tary bases/training camps in Qatar and Somalia, and added to its military
presence in Cyprus, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.4 Furthermore, the
Turkish navy made an impressive showing in the Eastern Mediterranean
during an international crisis, creating new tensions with its NATO
allies.5 This last incident marks a strategic shift in the breadth of
Turkish foreign policy at the intersection of maritime interests, security,
and energy exploration, a vision propagated as the Blue Homeland doc-
trine.6 Clearly, Turkish foreign policy has taken a new turn, most
visibly seen in its military assertiveness.7
There is no dearth of scholarship explaining the general trends in Turkish
foreign policy,8 yet the field lacks systematic accounts of recent military
assertiveness. This study aims to fill this gap by leveraging a domestic
economy explanation against identity and international system theories.
Some scholars have already employed political economy approaches to
explain Turkey’s foreign policy behavior.9 This study differs from these
accounts by investigating, specifically, the economic determinants of military
assertiveness in foreign policy.
This study employs process tracing of Turkish economic development
and growth of defence industries to reveal the mechanisms triggering
military assertiveness in foreign policy. The analysis shows that rapid
growth of Turkish economy and emergence of a new business class set
the stage for a take-off in the defence industry. Given this background,
an alliance of the devout bourgeoisie and political Islamists, public-
private partnerships rewarding partisan loyalists in crony ways, and the
growing weight of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in
defence manufacturing all played a role in the expansion of military capa-
bilities. This process propelled the demonstration of Turkish military
might in various international theaters. Such demonstrative policy
proved to be an efficient strategy conducive to the commercial interests
of the defence companies that found new markets for their products. It
also benefited the political Islamists who consolidated their religious-con-
servative base through the appeal of military assertiveness in foreign
policy.
This study thus presents theoretically informed and evidence-based
mechanisms about the economic origins of military capabilities and their
influence on foreign policy behavior in an emerging middle power. As
such, it adds to our understanding of political economy of security and
Turkish foreign policy.
766 S. CIFTCI

Theories of Turkish foreign policy and the military turn

Scholars often explain assertive foreign policy behavior with identity, inter-
national system, and political economy theories.10 The causes of military
assertiveness as a foreign policy tool, however, are rarely clear-cut in these
studies and require further elaboration.

Identity
Identity affects foreign policy decisions through the worldviews of political
leaders or social identities of the masses.11 In this vein, constructivist
accounts of foreign policy also highlight the role of ideational/economic
struggles to explain Turkish foreign policy preferences.12 Such struggles
matter, because they determine the conjectural salience of identities in
foreign policy.13 For example, the Kemalist worldview implies a preference
for a Western-oriented foreign policy doctrine based on the principles of
independence and non-interference.14 Islamist and nationalist identity
likely implies pivoting toward the Middle East or the Muslim world. Some
scholars explain the so-called ‘axis shift’15 and assertive foreign policy by
referring to the influence of nationalism, Islamic political identity, or a nos-
talgic longing for the Ottoman past.16
Identity theories overlap with two other approaches in the study of
Turkish foreign policy: periodization and geopolitical visions. The former
focuses on one period or introduces multiple sub-periods within a shorter
time frame17 to account for the changes in Turkish foreign policy, usually
within an ideational framework.18 For example, Öniş and Yilmaz19 introduce
three sub-periods for explaining Turkish foreign policy in the post-Cold War
era, again reverting to such ideational frames as Europeanization and soft
Euro-Asianism.20 The latter approach employs geopolitical visions, viewed
as imaginations locating one’s country within an international order accord-
ing to specific beliefs, ideas, and state identity.21 Ideological currents like
Westernism, Islamism, Turkism, and more recently Eurasianism22 are
among the frequently cited geopolitical visions in Turkish foreign policy.23
Identity theories have several implications with respect to military asser-
tiveness in Turkish foreign policy. For example, the Kemalist peace at home,
peace in world principle should preclude aggressive military action in inter-
national relations. Neo-Ottomanism, on the other hand, should be more
open to the increased use of military tools because it implies assertiveness
toward establishing the state’s grandeur in the former Ottoman territories.
By proposing distrust toward the Western security architecture or detach-
ment from NATO, Eurasianism also implies a preference for expanded mili-
tary capabilities to obtain security independence. Alternatively, such
geopolitical visions may preclude the expansion of military capabilities by
 TURKISH STUDIES 767

building alliances with new actors. These approaches are insightful, but they
do not always introduce neat causal mechanisms explaining military asser-
tiveness in Turkish foreign policy.

Systemic imperatives
Assuming a deterministic relationship between international systemic
factors and unit-level decision-making, a second approach predicts that
expected foreign policy behavior will differ in bipolar and liberal inter-
national orders. This dynamic should be particularly visible in a ‘penetrated
system’ like the Middle East where direct foreign intervention and imperial-
ist economic relations have been the norm.24
A perceived security threat from Russia has always been a significant
driver of Turkish foreign policy and is contingent on the ideological con-
struction of this threat by the elites.25 For example, within the bipolar
order, Turkey closely aligned with the West to counter the Soviet threat, a
foreign policy strategy compatible with the Kemalist and Islamist visions.26
In most instances, the foreign policy elite found themselves balancing
between friends and foes, as observed in the recent balancing acts involving
Russia and China. Even under the relative stability of the NATO security
architecture, Turkish foreign policy always utilized a multidimensional bal-
ancing strategy.27
Since the 1950s, Turkey tried to position itself within a US-led liberal
international order despite periods of its declining geopolitical significance.
The perceived threats from Islamism and Kurdish nationalism also shaped
foreign policy decisions in the post-Cold War period. In the 1990s, Turkey
carried out many military operations to counter security threats from the
Kurdish insurgency, earning the ‘Post-Cold War warrior’ title.28 This mili-
tary strategy did not align well with the peaceful Kemalist foreign relations
vision. Strengthening alliances with the European Union (EU), US, and
Israel while at the same time balancing with Russia continued to be the
main parameters of foreign policy.
With the decline of the liberal international order in the aftermath of the
Iraq War,29 Turkey faced an even more complex security matrix. The par-
ameters of this matrix include ethnic and religious terrorism, a civil war in
Syria, the rise of political Islam, internationalization of Kurdish insurgency,
and increased rivalry with regional powers due to the deepening ideological
cleavages in the Arab world. These factors were consequential in generating
new directions in Turkish foreign policy, such as strategic autonomy,30 pre-
cious loneliness,31 or the militarization of foreign policy.32
Ziya Öniş and Mustafa Kutlay offer an integrated theory combining inter-
national and domestic factors to explain the oscillations and assertiveness in
Turkish foreign policy.33 Turkey, as would be expected from a traditional
768 S. CIFTCI

middle power, often pursued soft power strategies, served as a mediator in

international disputes, and rose to the ranks of a political role model in
the Middle East during the early tenure of AKP.34 However, such middle
power activism took quite unusual turns to include military interventionism
and coercive diplomacy stretching Turkey’s muscle beyond its capabilities. A
multitude of domestic factors contributed to such foreign policy activism,
including democratic backsliding, rapid economic growth, and electoral
appeal of diversionary actions.35 Simultaneously, Turkey’s emerging middle
power status may explain its heightened ambitions for regional leadership
and its military assertiveness in various crises. According to Jordaan,36
unlike their traditional counterparts that function as stabilizers within the
international system, the emerging middle powers are highly ambitious
and might disrupt the international or regional environment.
Systemic factors and security threats likely influence foreign policy strat-
egies. Incentives for the armament or military interventionism should
weaken when systemic conditions ease the security dilemma. This effect
should work in tandem with a decline in perceived threats usually stem-
ming from elite insecurities.37 For example, in the early phases of the
Cold War, foreign military aid and external security guarantees might
have inhibited the development of defence independence. During the
détente period (1967–1979), Turkey’s declining geopolitical significance
might have triggered the push for developing an independent defence
industry.38 The Cyprus intervention in 1974 and the security threats
from the Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s resulted in the deployment of
military capabilities abroad even when they were inadequate. Therefore,
as international conditions amplified the security threats, Turkish leaders
swiftly reverted to developing the national defence industry and projecting
military power.
There are some examples confirming the effect of systemic factors on
building of the military might. For example, facing significant security
threats since its founding, Israel has maintained formidable military capabili-
ties. The annual average growth in the Turkish defence budget was 4.1
percent during the 1990–2019 period, compared to declines in France, the
United Kingdom, and Italy, a very modest 0.3 percent increase for Greece,
and 0.4 percent for Egypt. Only Israel, where growth in spending reached
2.3 percent from 1990 to 2019 and 2.7 percent between 2010 and 2019,
had figures that approached Turkey’s.39 Recently, Greece has increased its
military spending presumably due to a perceived threat related to the rise
of Turkish military power in the Eastern Mediterranean.40
Overall, according to the international system perspective and its inte-
grated variant, the chain reaction of events generating new directions in
foreign policy starts with a shock in international environment. Meanwhile,
a rich menu of domestic factors may moderate this outcome. Systemic
 TURKISH STUDIES 769

disruptions altering the security calculations, in turn, could result in the use
of military might in foreign policy. This perspective provides meaningful
insights for explaining the general trends in foreign policy behavior.
However, like identity theory, it does not present convincing mechanisms
explaining the root causes of military assertiveness. In the Turkish case,
the prevalence of ambitions to establish influence beyond regional geography
and disproportionate power projection, sometimes in the lack of significant
security threats, make the military-assertive turn in foreign policy even more
puzzling. The domestic economy approach provides neater mechanisms
than both identity and international system theories. It accounts for the
interplay of commercial and political interests in the development of
defence industry and the influence of this process on the recent military
turn in Turkish foreign policy.

A domestic economy explanation

The domestic economy approach builds on the essential link between
economy and security to explain military assertiveness in foreign policy.41
We need to unpack complex mechanisms with a rich menu of factors,
including economic capabilities, state-led development of defence industry,
and commercial interests of defence companies to elaborate on this mechan-
ism. In the Turkish context, the process starts with economic growth and
gains traction through the development of defence industry. It continues
with the emerging influence of a specific configuration of government-
business alliance on military assertiveness in foreign policy.
As Mearsheimer succinctly states, ‘the size of a state’s population and its
wealth are the two most important components for generating military
might’.42 A large enough national wealth is required to create and project
power. However, resources are finite, and governments must always
choose between producing welfare and security goods (the classic guns
versus butter trade-off).43 Ceteris paribus, expansion of resource endow-
ments through productivity or the emergence of new technologies allow gov-
ernments to simultaneously increase quantities of security and welfare
goods.44
Given sufficient resource endowments, security threats, ideational ambi-
tions, or economic profitability may drive the decision to utilize military
capabilities in foreign policy.45 Under existing security threats, as would be
predicted by the realist theory, a government may increase taxation or
seek international alliances to reduce costs.46 While such choices are
always available on the menu, expansion of resource endowments eases
the burden of increasing taxes for defence expenditures.47 Even in the
absence of imminent security threats, a state with adequate resources is
likely to use military might in foreign policy. Capabilities drive intentions
770 S. CIFTCI

and states with significant economic power will have a greater tendency to
build military capabilities and project power than those lacking it.48
Domestic economic interests play a significant role in propelling foreign
policy strategies utilizing military power.49 According to Hobson’s theory
of imperialism,50 commercial interests of the capitalist class in the core led
to the use of military might to create or safeguard investments in the periph-
ery. Similarly, the notion of military-industrial complex51 implies that com-
mercial interests of private sector will bring about the use of military power
in foreign policy. Overall, research on political economy of security52 favors
domestic factors like the growth of national wealth and profit driven
business-government relations as the drivers of military assertiveness in
foreign policy.
Political economy explanations of Turkish foreign policy emphasize the
role of class struggles over control of economic and political spheres.53
Some scholars explain the seemingly contradictory actions in foreign
policy by invoking the long-term strategies of social reproduction of
classes with varying degrees of access to the economic means.54 In the
most recent juncture, the AKP’s main goal was to establish itself as the
sole political power. To that end, its leaders tried to gain electoral dominance
by any means, including the nurturing of a crony business class, democratic
backsliding, continuous growth of export markets, and projection of nation-
alist-Islamic identities in foreign policy.55 Kutlay also proposes a direct link
between domestic political economy and foreign policy activism under the
AKP rule. His explanation highlights the rise of Anatolian capital and its
integration into the global economy as the drivers of both market expansion
and assertive foreign policy.56
Together, these studies provide important insights about ‘domestic
economy-foreign policy’ nexus by highlighting the role of economic
classes and business-politics relations. The following analysis applies
this framework to explain military assertiveness in Turkish foreign
policy. To that end, it first presents data about economic growth as the
material foundation of military power-building in Turkey. Then, it
traces the history of defence industries to unpack the domestic economic
mechanisms giving way to the rise of military turn in Turkish foreign
policy. These mechanisms include the emergence of a new business
class, reconfiguration of the defence sector under an Islamist government,
and commercial and electoral dividends resulting from military assertive-
ness in foreign policy.

Wealth and military expenditures

Economic growth may result in military assertiveness in foreign policy, even
for non-hegemonic states like Turkey.57 To explain this behavior, we must
 TURKISH STUDIES 771

first provide empirical evidence confirming the positive correlation between

national wealth and defence capabilities.58
Figure 1 supports the presence of this correlation in the Turkish context
by using military expenditures as a proxy for defence capabilities. Turkey’s
GDP has steadily increased since the 1950s, but we see a structural break
in the early 2000s with a peak after 2010.59 Military expenditures follow a
very similar trajectory with a monotonous trend until 1966 ($1.4 billion),
a gradual increase during the détente period, and a conjectural peak in
1976 (over $6 billion). Lack of international support for the Turkish position
in Cyprus, as became apparent with the infamous Johnson letter,60 might
have driven the decision to boost the defence spending in the 1970s. A
similar conjectural increase is seen in the late 1990s, when Turkey’s perceived
geopolitical value presumably declined and the fight with the PKK brought
country to the brink of a civil war. However, in both cases the steep increase
was temporary, and defence expenditures quickly declined. The post-2010
spike in military spending is much larger reaching $20 billion in 2020, a
tenfold increase from the 1960 spending.
Alternative measures like per capita military spending confirm that the
most recent increase might constitute a structural break in the defence
budget. In 2014, NATO required an increase in military spending up to
two percent of members’ national budget and allocation of the 20 percent
of this amount to equipment needs.61 Although Turkish military spending

Figure 1. Economic growth and military expenditures.

Note: GDP is from the World Bank Open Data archive (https://data.worldbank.org). Military expenditures
are from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), https://www.sipri.org.
772 S. CIFTCI

fell short of this target in 2019 (1.85 percent), this decision provided an
additional incentive to maintain the spike in military expenditures with
equipment spending reaching 34 percent in 2019.62 Turkish defence expen-
ditures increased from $11.78 billion in 2014 to $18.89 billion in 2020.63
Relatedly, Turkish arms sales also sharply increased in the new millennium,
moving the nation’s rank in defence exports from 42nd in 1996 to 14th in
2020 and 11th in 2021.
Historically, Turkish leaders made attempts to expand the nation’s mili-
tary capabilities in response to changing international and domestic security
threats. However, these attempts failed because the surges during the 1970s
and 1990s took place amidst economic crises marked with the rising inflation
and devaluation of national currency. Economic conditions likely amplified
the weight of a trade-off between welfare and security spending. There is
indeed some evidence confirming the presence of a trade-off between the
defence and health spending between 1924 and 1996, though not in edu-
cation.64 As the military expenditures steeply increased from 2011 to 2019,
educational spending as a percentage of GDP did not decline, rather it
increased from 5.5 percent in 2011 to six percent in 2019.65 The sudden
growth in national wealth allowed a simultaneous increase in provision of
security and most other welfare goods.
Economic outlook has not always been rosy in the new millennium as
unstable relations with the EU and the Middle Eastern allies in the post-
Arab Spring period created new economic challenges.66 The vulnerability
of Turkish economy was most clearly seen in the decline of the foreign
direct investments, which, despite periodic increases, never reached peak
2007 levels and in fact declined to $7.6 billion in 2020.67 Notwithstanding
a skyrocketing deficit and a currency crisis, the Turkish economy continued
to operate within a new paradigm of expanded resource endowments. This
development provided the material base for an eventual take-off in
defence industry and the resulting military assertiveness in foreign policy.68
An international environment conducive to increasing security indepen-
dence is a necessary but insufficient condition to elicit a military turn in
foreign policy. The effect of systemic factors on the defence capacity will
be contingent on the expansion of resource endowments and their potential
in easing the concerns about the guns versus butter trade-off. For example,
the decision to divert economic resources to security goods was reversed
under budgetary constraints during the Cyprus crisis. A similar reason
might have inhibited the take-off in defence industry in the 1990s despite
the significant security challenge from the Kurdish insurgency. Therefore,
holding systemic factors and domestic security threats constant, we can
reasonably argue that the surge in national wealth in the 2000s helped the
Turkish government increase security spending without decreasing citizens’
welfare. This conclusion provides the first step of a political economy
 TURKISH STUDIES 773

explanation. We need to elaborate on the mechanisms concerning business-

politics relations in the defence sector and the influence of them on foreign
policy for a complete picture.

The defence industry-political economy nexus

Next to rapid economic growth, domestic economic factors contributed to a
take-off in the defence industry to engender military assertiveness in foreign
policy. First, public-private partnerships reminiscent of a developmental
state model69 created a boost in the defence sector. Second, the rise of the
defence industry and its increasing influence on military assertiveness in
foreign policy depended on a special constellation of business-politics
relations. This constellation involved differences in the preferences of old
business class groomed by the economic policies of interwar period and
an emerging bourgeoisie linked to the small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) of provincial bourgeoisie. The conflictual relations of the old class
and cooperative relations of the new business actors played a critical role
in the process. The synergy between the political Islamist ideology and the
commercial interests of the new business class became the primary driver
of the transformation in defence industry that gave way to the military
turn in Turkish foreign policy.
A successful national industrialization campaign during the early years of
the Republic did not spill over into the defence industry as government con-
tinued to rely on foreign military aid.70 The unfavorable response to the 1974
military intervention in Cyprus was a critical juncture in the development of
security independence. This juncture served as a catalyst in the formation of
several military foundations targeting defence capabilities and military pro-
duction enterprises like TUSAŞ and HAVELSAN.71 This momentum con-
tinued past the 1970s, but Turkey’s deepening economic and political
crises and the bureaucratic inefficiencies stemming from the non-alignment
of civilian and military preferences averted the realization of this goal.72
Turkey set ambitious foreign policy goals under the leadership of Turgut
Özal (1983–1993).73 The establishment of the Defence Industry Develop-
ment and Support Administration Office (Savunma Sanayii Geliştirme ve
Destekleme İdaresi Başkanlığı, SAGEB) in 1985 constituted a critical junc-
ture.74 In 1987, various military foundations merged under the Turkish
Armed Forces Foundation (TSKGV) to coordinate economic investments
and arms production with its major partners being defence companies like
ASELSAN, HAVELSAN, ASPİLSAN, and ROKETSAN.75
Reorganization of the bureaucratic wing followed the restructuring in the
economic wing of the defence industry. SAGEB first became a sub-depart-
ment and then was placed under the authority of the President’s office in
2017 with Turkey’s regime transformation from the parliamentary to the
774 S. CIFTCI

presidential system and re-named the Presidency of Defence Industries

(SSB).76 The main objective of this bureaucratic reshuffling was to make
Turkey a competitive actor in the global defence markets. Economic and
bureaucratic restructuring and increased coordination between public
agencies and private enterprises constituted a developmental state moment
for the Turkish defence industry.77
The most significant advances took place after 2010. For example,
ASELSAN and TAI, major subsidiaries of TSKGV, rose to the ranks of the
top 100 military industrial companies between 2011 and 2020.78 The Istanbul
Chamber of Industry (ISO) listed 18 defence industry companies among the
top-rated corporations in 2019, an increase from 13 in 2005.79 In 2020, the
number of defence companies increased to 1500 from 56 in 2005 and the
number of defence-related industrial projects surpassed 700.80 According
to the Defence and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association
(SASAD), Turkish defence sector annual returns surpassed $10.15 billion
in 2021 with over $3 billion net revenue from imports and $1.64 billion in
research and development spending.81
Table 1 shows the change in ranking, employment contributions, and
exports of major public and private defence companies (2009–2021). Most
players like ASELSAN, TUSAŞ, and OTOKAR grown in size, though their
rankings have not always moved upward. According to the Turkish Expor-
ters Assembly (TİM), the export revenue of defence and aerospace industry
increased by 41.5 percent in 2021.82 Baykar, the manufacturer of the Bayrak-
tar TB-2s, increased its export revenue to $660 million in 2021.83
The development of defence industry has always been a priority since the
first five-year development plan in 1963, but the structural break did not
occur until 2010. So, what made the difference?
Reconfiguration of business-politics relations and ideological cleavages
between different business communities have been key factors in this
process. Early efforts to create a national bourgeoisie, which could have
been the motor of defence industry, were not always smooth due to

Table 1. Relative economic stances of major defence companies.

Rank, Defense Exports in $
Rank, ISO-500 News Employment Million**
2009 2021 2009 2021* 2009 2021 2009 2021
ASELSAN 40 17 93 48 3701 8735 59 112
TUSAŞ-TAI 82 28 NR 53 3046 10,565 180 359
OTOKAR 134 122 NR NR 1268 2295 100 284
MKE 87 121 NR NR 5685 5466* 26 17*
BMC 88 135 NR 89 2891 2827 55 171*
HAVELSAN 255 351 NR NR 1219 2103 57 17*
*2020 figures. **Export figures are rounded to the nearest million. NR = Not Ranked. Source: ISO-500
https://www.iso500.org.tr and https://people.defensenews.com/top-100/.
 TURKISH STUDIES 775

government’s discretionary interventions, corruption, and the culture of

capitalist dependence on the state.84 The Istanbul-based big capital or old
business class, a product of these early policies, gradually shifted its prefer-
ences toward economic rationality and institutional stability against prac-
tices like discretionary state intervention and reliance on informal
networks. This process created a rift between the preferences of old business
class and conservative governments ruling Turkey for the most part of the
post-1950 era.85 SMEs and the Anatolian entrepreneurs or the new business
class, however, remained eager to embed themselves in the informal and gen-
erally corrupt economic relations, inviting discretionary state intervention
and relying on the monetary gains from the state-led capital accumulation.86
Over time, a particular segment of the new business class, widely known
as the conservative or devout bourgeoise, became highly influential in the
Turkish political and economic scenes.87 The founding of the Independent
Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) as an alternative
umbrella business association against the establishment-oriented Turkish
Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), the organization representing
the old business class, marks an important turning point. The cleavage
between the two business groups was not merely a difference in their prefer-
ences about institutional/economic stability and state-dependent develop-
ment, but it also signified an ideological cleavage between the secularist
and the religious-conservative worldviews.88 A symbiotic relationship
between the emerging business class and various conservative governments
was formed where the former used state resources and informal networks for
business gains and the latter found a suitable partner to interject the state in
economic sphere to consolidate a religious conservative voter base.89
The defence industry was one of the several areas where state actively
intervened through improvement of infrastructure, provision of incentives
for the members of the new business class, and public-private partnerships.
A similar pattern was observed also in the construction and energy sectors
under AKP rule.90 The defence industry had an added advantage thanks to
the bureaucratic efficiency in the sector.91 Combined with the preferential
treatment of party loyalists in public procurements, such efficiency allowed
the meteoric rise of companies like BMC, owned by Ethem Sancak, a
former Maoist, and Baykar, owned by Erdoğan’s son-in-law’s family.92
Along with established companies like ASELSAN and HAVELSAN, these
newcomers increased the share of the new business class in the defence
sector.
The conglomeration of defence companies controlled by the members of
the new business class is closely linked to the increasing weight of provincial
entrepreneurs who played a critical role in the geographic spread of the
national defence industry. Big defence companies are now widely connected
to hundreds of local sub-components suppliers. The local SME suppliers are
776 S. CIFTCI

organized under clusters like Ankara-based Teknokent Defence Industry

Cluster (TSSK), Ostim Defence and Aviation Cluster (OSSA), and the
large Istanbul-based Turkish Defence and Industry Cluster (SAHA) led by
Haluk Bayraktar.93 ASELSAN, for example, increased the rate of domestic
supply for its subcomponents from 38 percent in 2008 to 70 percent in
2020.94 The contribution of local SMEs has also been noticeable in big pro-
jects like the armored vehicle KİRPİ, the national ship MİLGEM, and the
landing tank ship TCG-Bayraktar.95 Incidentally, local SME partners of
major defence productions were in cities that housed sizable religious-con-
servative communities. Cities like Konya, Kayseri, Sivas, and Malatya were
also the electoral strongholds of the AKP.96

The political economy-foreign policy nexus

It is this process that led to the military assertiveness in foreign policy. The
alliance between the devout bourgeoisie and conservative/Islamist political
parties has played an important role in Turkish politics. The latest frontier
in this alliance is the defence industry-foreign policy nexus. The networks
of political Islamists and the conservative business class were not merely
about ideological affinity or shared worldviews. Rather, for the business
side, the primary rationale of this alliance was commercial interest.
Military assertiveness in foreign policy helped open new markets for the
defence products of a flourishing industrial base. New markets in Africa
and South and Central Asia were quickly flooded with Turkish military
goods. The Turkish arms exports passed the $4 billion mark, and Bayraktar
drones were sold to 27 countries in 2022.97 Just in West Africa, Turkish mili-
tary exports increased from $83 million in 2020 to $288 million in 2021.98
Turkish military products, despite their relatively low level of technology,
could thrive in these markets, unlike the Western European markets
demanding high-tech equipment. The growth in defence exports has also
had trickle-down effects as the business also boomed for the provincial entre-
preneurs providing sub-components for major products.
The promotion of security independence and demonstration of military
capabilities in foreign policy has also served the interests of Islamist political
elite. Military assertiveness in foreign policy shielded the AKP from criticism
of the state-led capital accumulation in the hands of an emerging business
class. The AKP’s discourse about the grandeur of the past, security indepen-
dence, and Turkey’s greatness appealed to the religious-nationalist voters
and generated political dividends for the ruling party.
Operations against the PKK and its Syrian Kurdish allies, military cam-
paigns in Syria (Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, and Peace Spring), involve-
ment in various regional conflicts like Libya, and opening of new military
bases were all means to demonstrate Turkey’s newfound military capabilities.
 TURKISH STUDIES 777

A natural outcome of such military assertiveness was expansion of arms

markets ready to buy Turkish defence products. Therefore, economic
growth, the development of defence industry, and the alliance of the conser-
vative bourgeoisie and political Islamists facilitated the creation of Turkish
military power, which in turn, led to its assertive projection in foreign policy.

Discussion and conclusion

Turkish leaders have increasingly employed military means in foreign
policy. The three theories employed here to explain this development –
international system, identity, and domestic economy – should be viewed
in complementary rather than mutually exclusive terms.99 Nonetheless,
the domestic economy framework provides neater mechanisms than the
other two approaches in explaining the ‘domestic economy-foreign
policy’ nexus.
The international system perspective cannot fully explain the military
assertiveness in Turkish foreign policy because absent economic resources,
a country cannot expand its military capabilities even under significant
security threats. International system imperatives motivated the push for
security independence in the aftermath of the Cyprus crisis and later with
the decline of the liberal international order. Sometimes, domestic security
threats like the rise of the Kurdish insurgency overlapped with and augmen-
ted the effect of such systemic imperatives.
However, the take-off in defence industry triggering military assertiveness
in foreign policy came to maturity only in the new millennium. Expansion of
resource endowments, development of defence industry through public-
private partnerships, and a special constellation of business-government
relations made the difference. International conditions certainly mattered
in this outcome,100 especially as they allowed the government to exploit
the international threats toward gaining electoral dividends. These electoral
gains were corollary and not causal because the government exploited the
opportunities created by international system dynamics post hoc. In other
words, rather than being a cause of military assertiveness, they were effects
of an existing foreign policy strategy.
Islamic national identity or nostalgia for a glorious past, according to the
identity theory, may motivate leaders to pursue strategic autonomy and
underlie military assertiveness.101 Identity, however, is not a primary cause
of the military turn in foreign policy. Rather, it provides a facilitating and
legitimizing discourse. The oscillations in foreign policy, pivoting toward
multiple regions, and advancement of relations with Israel under the rule
of an Islamist party with neo-Ottomanist credentials are more compatible
with realism than with constructivist and identity-based approaches.102
International system perspective that relies on the realist approach,
778 S. CIFTCI

however, is not a sufficient condition for generating military assertiveness

absent the economic capabilities and commercial interests.
The domestic economy explanation supplements the insights from the
international system and identity theories. The expansion of Turkish
economy and public investments in the last decades facilitated the take-off
in defence industry. This window of opportunity, arguably providing a
developmental state moment, has been consequential despite the crony
relations between the government and private companies. The network con-
necting the leadership of the AKP, the defence bureaucracy, partisan loyalists
controlling big defence companies, and thousands of SMEs was instrumental
in the development of the defence industry as a foundation for military asser-
tiveness in foreign policy. Identity still played an indirect role. Religious-con-
servative ideology provided a shared worldview facilitating the creation of
networks and an alliance between business and political elites. Islamic/
nationalist identity also helped obtain popular support for the projection
of military might in foreign policy.103 The unlikely alliances between the
AKP and both the right-wing Nationalist Action Party and left-wing nation-
alists (Eurasianists and the Homeland (Vatan) Party) further intensified this
process.
The development of Turkish defence industry does not necessarily indi-
cate the presence of a full-scale military-industrial complex that uses its
power to start profitable wars.104 We cannot confidently argue that the mili-
tary operations in Syria are exclusively caused by the commercial interests of
the defence companies. Nonetheless, the expansion of national wealth and a
special constellation of business-government relations increased the weight
of economic interest in foreign policy decisions. The demonstration of mili-
tary capabilities in different theaters is certainly more about the commercial
interest and market expansion for Turkish defence products than it is about
the Islamization or the desire to fold the former Ottoman territories into an
expanded Turkish state. Otherwise, Turkey would not have sold its drones to
Poland and Ukraine or would have not sought to market them to European
and numerous African countries, most of which presumably remain outside
the geopolitical imaginations related to the Ottoman, Islamic, and Turkish
identities.
We must also acknowledge the limitations of Turkish military capabilities
and their potential in driving military assertiveness in foreign policy.
Although the Turkish defence industry has become sizable in recent years,
Turkey is still far from being a major player on the global scene. Turkish
defence products cannot compete with the advanced technology of major
players, save the products for which Turkey capitalized on the advantage
of finding a niche, like drones. Because Turkey had the advantage of organ-
izational capacity in industry, its defence sector managed to reap the benefits
of a new technological diffusion requiring less capital intensity.105
 TURKISH STUDIES 779

Drones are not sufficient on their own to give Turkey a competitive edge
in the global arms markets. Lack of such competitive power, perhaps,
underlies the use of military might and targeting of markets like the
Middle East and Africa where the low-tech products of the emerging
business classes can compete. Despite the increasing rate of nationalization
in supplier chains geared toward the subcomponents production, the indus-
try still depends on the advanced technology and the parts from foreign
actors. Such dependence is not unfamiliar to the economic and bureaucratic
wings of Turkish defence industry as a condition inhibiting a full-scale take-
off and enhanced security independence.
Furthermore, disputes with the US in various military partnerships and
the hesitancy of the British Rolls Royce company to cooperate in the pro-
duction of jet engines to power Turkish national fighter jets are clear indi-
cations that Turkish military capabilities and their use in foreign policy
still face significant limitations. After purchasing the Russian S-400 air
defence system, Turkey faced sanctions from the US, including the pause
in the F-16 modernization projects and the sale of F-35s. Ongoing economic
woes further impede a full-blown military assertiveness concerning Greece,
Syria, and other theaters. Future studies should explore the consequences of
such limitations for Turkish foreign policy.

Notes
1. The Economist. “The Technology of Seeing and Shooting Your Enemies,”
January 29, 2022. Accessed March 23, 2022. https://www.economist.com/
technology-quarterly/2022/01/29/the-technology-of-seeing-and-shooting-
your-enemies.
2. Maya Carlin, “How the Turkish-Made TB2 Drone Gave Ukraine the Edge
Against Russia,” Business Insider, September 18, 2022. Accessed January 10,
2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-turkish-baykar-tb2-drone-gave-
ukraine-edge-against-russia-2022-9.
3. SIPRI “SIPRI Arms Transfer Database.”
4. Hacaoglu, “Mapping the Turkish.”
5. Grigoriadis, “The European Union.”
6. The Blue Homeland Doctrine proposes that Turkey should aggressively
protect its interests and use unilateral military force if necessary in extended
maritime borders in the Mediterranean and beyond. See Gingeras, “Blue
Homeland.”
7. In this study, I use military turn, rise of the military might, and military asser-
tiveness interchangeably to describe the use of military capabilities in Turkish
foreign policy.
8. For broad historical accounts of Turkish foreign policy, see Hale, Turkish
Foreign Policy; Aydin, Turkish Foreign Policy; and Oran, Türk Dış Politikası.
9. Kirişci, “The Transformation”; Kutlay, “Economy”; Hoffmann and Cemgil,
“The (Un)making.” Especially see Yalvaç, “Approaches,” for a novel approach
780 S. CIFTCI

combining historical materialism and critical realism in the study of foreign

policy.
10. Altunışık, “Worldviews”; Kirişçi, “The Transformation”; Aydin, “Determi-
nants”; Öniş, “Multiple Faces”; Öniş and Kutlay, “The Anatomy”; and
Akkoyunlu, “The Five Phases.”
11. Ciftci, “Social Identity.”
12. Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy.
13. Yalvaç, “Approaches”; and Yavuz, Nostalgia.
14. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy; and Aydin, “Determinants.”
15. Oğuzlu, “Middle Easternization”; and Sözen, “A Paradigm Shift.”
16. Yavuz, Nostalgia; and “The Motives Behind.”
17. This definition of periodization is similar to Yalvaç’s critique of realist
accounts of Turkish foreign policy which he views as theoretically uninformed
chronologies of events. See Yalvaç, “Approaches,” 120.
18. Aydın, “Determinants”; ”Oğuzlu, “Middle Easternization”; Öniş and Yilmaz,
“Between Europeanization”; and Akkoyunlu, “The Five Phases.”
19. Öniş and Yilmaz, “Between Europeanization.”
20. In a different study, Öniş remains sceptical of such paradigm or axis shift
periods associated with ideology and identity. See Öniş, “Multiple Faces.”
21. Atmaca and Torun, “Geopolitical Visions.”
22. Aktürk, “The Fourth Style.”
23. Yeşiltaş, “The Transformation.”
24. Brown, The Middle East, 3–5. Hinnebusch argues that a liberation war at the
time of the founding made Turkey a somewhat autonomous and not quite a
revisionist state in this framework. See Hinnebusch, “The Middle East.”
25. Coş and Bilgin, “Stalin’s Demands.”
26. Aydın, “Determinants.”
27. The recent purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system triggered a backlash
from the US and the resulting US sanctions show the difficulties of maintain-
ing a multi-balancing act.
28. Jung, “Turkey and the Arab,” 1–17.
29. Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal,” and Mearsheimer, “Bound to Fail.”
30. Kutlay and Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
31. Balcı, “Why is ‘Precious Loneliness’.”
32. Mehmetcik and Çelik, “The Militarization.”
33. Öniş and Kutlay, “The Anatomy”; Kutlay and Öniş, “Understanding Oscil-
lations”; and Kutlay and Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
34. Kutlay and Öniş, “Understanding Oscillations.”
35. Kutlay and Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
36. Jordaan, “The Concept.”
37. Coş and Bilgin, “Stalin’s Demands.”
38. Demir, “Transformation.”
39. Stergiou and Kollias, “The Political Economy,” 8.
40. Greece increased its military spending from $5.3 billion in 2020 to $8.08 billion
in 2021. See SIPRI, “SIPRI Arms Transfers.”
41. Waltz, “The Anarchic Structure,” 94; and Horowitz, The Diffusion.
42. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy, 60–61.
43. Powell, “Guns, Butter, and Anarchy.”
44. Poast, “Beyond,” 226.
45. Ibid,
 TURKISH STUDIES 781

46. Barnett and Levy, “Domestic Sources.”

47. Kriner, Lechase, and Zielinski, “Self-Interest,” and Johnson, “The Cost.”
48. Historically, there have been other cases supporting this correlation in
addition to the US. See Choucri and North, Nations in Conflict, and
Fordham, “Power or Plenty?” and “Who Wants to Be.”
49. Fordham, “Who Wants to Be.”
50. Hobson, Imperialism.
51. Fallows, “The Military-Industrial Complex.” For an application to Turkish
case, see Mehmetcik and Çelik, “The Militarization.”
52. Poast, “Beyond.”
53. Kutlay, “Economy”; Hoffmann and Cemgil, “The (Un)making”; and Yalvaç,
“Approaches.”
54. Hoffmann and Cemgil, “The (Un)making.”
55. Ibid., 1297.
56. Kutlay, “Economy,” 76–81.
57. Kutlay and Öniş, “Understanding Oscillations.”
58. Scholars employ different measurement strategies to calculate military expen-
ditures, using various combinations of military personnel expenditures, civi-
lian security expenses, national defence budgets, and arms spending. See
Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map.”
59. Except for 2009, economic growth has always been positive with an average of
5.2 percent between 2002 and 2020, reaching impressive levels of 9.8 percent in
2004, and 11.2 percent in 2011 (World Bank, “GDP Growth”). The share of
exports of goods and services as a share of GDP gradually increased from 25
percent in 2002 to 32.6 percent in 2019 (World Bank, “Exports”). In addition,
foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows increased from $1 billion in 2002
to $22 billion in 2007 (World Bank, “Foreign Direct Investment”).
60. In this letter, then-US president Lyndon B. Johnson issued a stark warning to
Turkish Prime Minister İsmet İnönü about Turkey’s possible engagement in
Cyprus. Johnson warned that Turkish forces are not allowed to use the Amer-
ican weapons and that the US would not protect Turkey against a possible
Soviet attack if Turkey were to launch a military operation to protect the
Turkish community in Cyprus.
61. Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map.”
62. NATO, “Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2013–2020),” PR (CP)
2021(030), 16 March 2021. Available at https://www.nato.int/nato_static_
fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/3/pdf/210316-pr-2020-30-en.pdf.
63. Ibid.
64. Yildirim and Sezgin, “Defence.”
65. TUIK, “Percentage.”
66. Öniş, “Turkey and the Arab Spring.”
67. World Bank, “Foreign Direct Investment.”
68. Stergiou and Kollias, “The Political Economy.”
69. Johnson, MITI.
70. Altug, Filiztekin, and Pamuk, “Sources”; and Bugra, State and Business.
71. Demir, “Transformation”; and Mehmetcik and Çelik, “The Militarization.”
72. Kurç, “Between Defence Autarky.”
73. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy; and Aydin, Turkish Foreign Policy.
74. Demir, “Transformation”; and Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map.”
782 S. CIFTCI

75. These companies are consistently ranked among the top contenders according
to SIPRI and Turkish ISO-500 industrial index. See Akça and Özden, “A Pol-
itical-Economic Map.”
76. The history of defence history presented here is based on the information pro-
vided on the website of Presidency of Defence Industries at https://www.ssb.
gov.tr/Website/contentList.aspx?PageID=39&LangID=2.
77. Johnson, MITI.
78. SIPRI, “SIPRI Arms Transfers.”
79. Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map.”
80. Demir, “Transformation,” 37.
81. See SASAD’s report, “2021 Performans Raporu,” for more details. Available at
https://www.sasad.org.tr/uploaded/Sasad-Performans-Raporu-2021.pdf,
accessed 25 October 2022.
82. For TİM reports see https://tim.org.tr/tr/default.
83. Daily Sabah, “Baykar Becomes Top Exporter in Turkey’s Defense, Aerospace
Sector,” June 15, 2022. Accessed March 13, 2023. https://www.dailysabah.com/
business/defense/baykar-becomes-top-exporter-in-turkeys-defense-
aerospace-sector.
84. Bugra, State and Business.
85. Buğra, “Politics”; and Buğra and Savaşkan, New Capitalism; Hoffmann and
Cemgil, “The Unmaking”; and Yalvaç, “Approaches.”
86. Buğra and Savaşkan, New Capitalism, and Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity.
87. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity.
88. Buğra, “Politics.”
89. Ibid.; and Yavuz. Islamic Political Identity.
90. Buğra and Savaşkan, New Capitalism.
91. Demir, “Transformation.”
92. Sancak sold 49.9 percent of the BMC to the Qatar Army with a huge profit
margin and another 25 percent to a relative of Erdoğan. Getting most of its
revenue from the public funds, BMC was also awarded the Altay Tank
Project, the first phase of which was previously given to Otokar, a Koç subsidi-
ary. Although Otokar completed the first phase, its offer was declined by the
SSB and the whole project was given to BMC which is yet to deliver the
product. See Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map,” 66; and Özgür,
“Koç’tan Sancak’a.”
93. Topal, “Türk Savunma Sanayiinin”; and Akça and Özden, “A Political-Econ-
omic Map,” 75–77.
94. Of 3,189 ASELSAN suppliers, 2716 were local SMEs. See Akça and Özden, “A
Political-Economic Map,” 66; and Özgür, “Koç’tan Sancak’a.”
95. Akça and Özden, “A Political-Economic Map.”
96. Özgür, “Koç’tan Sancak’a.”
97. Bekdil, “Turkish Defense Exports.”
98. Bekdil, “Turkey’s Defense Industry.”
99. Zaks, “Relationships.”
100. Kutlay and Öniş, “Understanding Oscillations.”
101. Yavuz, “The Motives.”
102. Yalvaç, “Approaches.”
103. Hoffmann and Cemgil, “The Unmaking.”
104. Mehmetcik and Çelik, “The Militarization.”
 TURKISH STUDIES 783

105. Horowitz, The Diffusion. It should also be stated that unstable relations with
Israel was a turning point for the decision to focus on drone production.
Since Turkey heavily relied on Israeli drones (Herons) in its fight against the
PKK, the worsening of relations provided an impetus to reduce dependency
in this area. See “Turkey’s Giant Leap: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” Israel
Defense, August 16, 2020. Accessed March 13, 2023, https://www.
israeldefense.co.il/en/node/44696.

Acknowledgements
The Author would like to thank Nilgün Önder and the panel participants at the
2022 International Studies Association annual meeting for their valuable comments;
Fredrich Schuller for his research assistance; and the experts affiliated with the Pre-
sidency of Defense Industries for their insights.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Sabri Ciftci is a Professor of Political Science and the Michael W. Suleiman Chair at
Kansas State University. He is the author of Islam, Justice, and Democracy (Temple
University Press) and co-author of Beyond Piety and Politics (Indiana University
Press). He has widely published about religion and politics, Islam and democracy,
and Middle Eastern and Turkish politics in Comparative Political Studies, Political
Research Quarterly, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Democratization.

ORCID
Sabri Ciftci http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-6620

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