By GIL DIBNER

Source: Harvard International Review, Winter98/99, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p34, 6p

Turkey's alienation from Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s led the political and military leadership in Ankara to re-evaluate Turkey's strategic situation and seek new allies. Turkey pursued and won an improved relationship with Washington and, despite Russian aspirations, is steadily building an increased presence in Central Asia. The most dramatic result of the new thinking in Ankara, however, is Turkey's strategic partnership with Israel, a development that may fundamentally alter the Middle Eastern balance of power. In recent years, Israel and Turkey have concluded a series of trade agreements and military arrangements that cover, among other things, training, intelligence-sharing, and counter-terrorism measures. In addition, Israel has sold Turkey hundreds of millions of dollars in advanced military equipment and is the leading bidder for several additional contracts. This alignment has taken place despite fears of an Islamic awakening in Turkey and despite the objections of Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Greece. The extent and depth of the Turkish-Israeli alliance reflects the number and severity of the threats Turkey faces from the Islamic world and suggests that Turkey will remain firmly aligned with the West. The alliance will help both Turkey and Israel confront shared threats from Syria, Iraq, and Iran and may form a key element of a US-sponsored regional security regime.

In the first weeks of 1990, the Euphrates stopped flowing into Syria and Iraq for about a month as Turkey filled the reservoir behind the newly completed Ataturk Dam, part of an aggressive hydroelectric and irrigation program. As Turkey celebrated the technical success of the project, its relations with Syria and Iraq deteriorated as both came to fear Turkey's increased ability to control their water supply. Syria and Iraq drew closer together, and their assistance to Kurdish rebels increased, signaling Turkey that they were able to exert pressures of their own. In May 1990, the Israeli Foreign Minister invited the Turkish charge d'affaires to meet with him in Jerusalem. It was the first high-level meeting between Israeli and Turkish officials in ten years, and it would inaugurate the growth of a remarkably close relationship between the two countries. It was also the first sign that Turkey's strategic calculus had begun to shift.

Since then, Israel and Turkey have constructed a close alignment based on military cooperation, joint training exercises, and intelligence sharing coupled with negotiations on water and oil issues. This alliance is deep and based on sound strategic calculation. Both countries are regionally isolated and seek to contain serious threats posed by Syria, Iraq, and Iran. If it is capable of withstanding the objections of Islamist elements within Turkey, the Israeli-Turkish alignment has profound implications for the Middle Eastern balance of power.

Roots of Alignment

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Turkey shut down the Iraqi pipeline to the Mediterranean (through which Iraq exported 54 percent of its oil), forced Saddam Hussein to prepare for a two-front war by deploying 10,000 troops to the border with Iraq, extended an agreement allowing the United States to use Turkish airbases, and allowed the use of NATO airbases near the Iraqi border for strikes on Iraq. In return, Turkey hoped for full membership in the European Union (EU). But Turkey was passed over for membership in 1994 when the EU admitted Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Norway and again at the Luxembourg EU summit of 1997. Officially, the reason for Turkey's exclusion was continued human rights abuses in Turkey, but few accepted this at face value. The decision was based on thinly disguised ethnic and religious prejudice coupled with historic Greek antipathy. Mesut Yilmaz, Turkey's Prime Minister at the time, was furious and accused the EU of erecting a "cultural Berlin Wall."

Yilmaz immediately set out to demonstrate that if Turkey didn't have friends in Brussels, it had powerful friends elsewhere with which it would develop what Yilmaz referred to as "strategic partnerships." He flew to Washington where US President Bill Clinton emphasized the importance of the US-Turkey relationship. Yilmaz then returned to Ankara where he signed a US$13.5 billion gas deal with then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. Perhaps the clearest indication of Turkey's new foreign policy would come a month later, as Turkish warships visited the port of Haifa in Israel, signaling the depth of Turkey's alignment with the Jewish state.

One of the driving factors behind the Turkish-Israeli alignment is Israel's ability and willingness to pro vide Turkey with advanced weapons systems. European and US concerns over human rights abuses in the suppression of the Kurdish nationalist movement have resulted in a de-facto embargo of US arms sales to Turkey, a major impediment to Turkey's 25-year USS 150 billion military modernization program. Israel, with arguably one of the most advanced and highly-capable military-industrial establishments in the world, was a natural choice.

Israel was as eager to sell as Turkey was to buy. Since the creation of the state, Israeli strategic planners have viewed an advanced domestic defense industry as critical in balancing the country's dependence on foreign suppliers and preserving some degree of political independence. Recently, cutbacks in the Israeli defense budget and US requirements that military aid to Israel be spent in the United States have threatened Israeli defense firms. In the 1980s, for example, Israel's vaunted Lavi fighter aircraft project was canceled, plunging Israel's flagship defense firm, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), into a prolonged period of losses from which it has yet to recover fully. A defense relationship with Turkey, however, promised to help change all that and rescue the Israeli defense industry.

By early 1998, some estimates of the level of arms sales from Israel to Turkey had reached USS 1 billion, and after years of decline and losses, IAI is turning a profit and expects export sales to reach US$1.5 billion in 1998, much of which originated in Turkey. All of this takes place under the approving eye of the United States, which is unwilling to be seen publicly as arming the Turkish military, but which realizes the strategic importance of a well-armed secular Turkish state.

Water Power

The relationship is far from lopsided, however, as Turkey has an excess of a precious commodity Israel desperately needs: water. By the mid-1990s, Israeli leaders understood that peace with Jordan and the Palestinians would force them to surrender a portion of the water from the Jordan River and West Bank aquifers. Turkey, the only country in the region with a water surplus, rapidly became the focal point of Middle East water planning with considerable energy devoted to figuring out how to supply Israel--as well as Jordan and the Palestinians--with water from rivers in western Turkey. Schemes under discussion included direct undersea pipelines or towing fresh water to Israel using huge, sea-borne "Medusa" bags, each with a capacity of 1.75 million cubic meters.

Water issues also frame a common set of enemies for Israel and Turkey, namely Syria and Iraq. Since its inception in 1983, Turkey's Greater Anatolia Project (GAP) has struck fear into the hearts of Syria's Hafez Assad and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, whose countries depend on rivers that flow through Turkey. The project is a massive effort to meet Turkey's hydroelectric and irrigation needs by constructing over 20 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The recently completed Ataturk Dam on the Euphrates, for example, will allow the irrigation of over 800,000 hectares of land and the production of several billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The Economist reports that, as a result of GAP, "the [Tigris and Euphrates] rivers could lose as much as 40 percent of their flow by the time they reach Syria (and 90 percent when they reach Iraq, after Syria has taken its gulp)."

Not only does the prospect of water imports from Turkey exist, but Turkey is a pivotal player in the "Great Game" of Central Asian energy supplies. In August of 1997, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Azerbaijan where, in addition to discussing tri-lateral cooperation with Turkey to counter Islamic radicalism, he discussed the possibility of constructing an undersea pipeline from Turkey to Israel to deliver oil from Central Asia.

A Strategic Choice

The single most important driving force behind the Turkish-Israeli alliance is shared tension with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Both Jerusalem and Ankara believe, with good reason, that the principal sources of threat originate from this group of three states which-for lack of a better term--can be designated as the Middle Eastern rogue states. Animosity between Turkey and her Arab/Persian neighbors is not new, and, though it has been heightened by the Turkish-Israeli alliance, it has other, long-standing causes. All three countries back Kurdish terrorism against Turkey through the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and all three have weapons of mass destruction that pose a threat to Ankara. Syria and Iraq remain at odds with Turkey over water, and Syria claims the Turkish province of Hatay, which the French awarded to Turkey in 1939. These differences have prevented Turkey from forming a strategic partnership with any of the rogue states and have resulted in increased tension during the past decade.

The principal threats to Israel originate from the Middle Eastern rogues as well. From the Israeli perspective, the basic reasons for containing Syria, Iran, and Iraq are the same as Turkey's: both Syria and Iran sponsor terrorism in Israel and the Hezbullah militia in southern Lebanon. More importantly, Israel is deeply threatened by weapons of mass destruction in all three countries, especially following Iraqi Scud strikes against Israel during the Persian Gulf war. Finally, Syria has a territorial claim on the Golan Heights and contests Israel's claims to water from the Jordan River.

Turkish-Israeli cooperation sets the stage for a new balance of power in the Middle East. This became especially true after the election of Netanyahu, who took a tough approach to peace with Syria. While former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were hesitant to mention Syrian-sponsored PKK or Hezbullah terrorism lest they jeopardize Israeli-Syrian peace talks, Netanyahu has taken the opposite approach with his "Lebanon first" policy. Netanyahu insists that Syria restrain Hezbullah from attacking Israel from south Lebanon before any negotiations over the Golan Heights take place. Netanyahu believes that Syrian-sponsored violence should not dictate Israeli policy. Accordingly, he halted discussion of returning the Golan and, in recent weeks, has reviewed the option of a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. If such a withdrawal could take place without jeopardizing northern Israel's security, it would profoundly weaken Assad's ability to pressure Israel to return the Golan by making it more difficult for Hezbullah to inflict casualties on Israeli soldiers.

The threat to Israel from Iraq and Iran also continues to mount. Despite a US-backed UN monitoring effort, Iraq is widely believed to possess dangerous quantities of chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver them to Israel. Iran poses a similar threat: with tacit Russian and Chinese approval, it has come very close to developing a nuclear weapons capability and the ballistic missiles necessary to strike Israel.

There is a tendency in Israel to make geopolitical decisions based on the capabilities of adversaries, not on their perceived intentions. Consequently, many analysts believe that Israel is preparing to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Whether or not this is true, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Syria, Iraq, and Iran will undoubtedly contribute to increased tension between Israel and those states. An alliance with Turkey helps Israel balance against this threat and, in the event of conflict, may prove militarily useful. An Israeli raid on Iran's nuclear capability is possible without Turkish help, but an Israeli presence in Turkey--for gathering intelligence on Iran, basing refueling aircraft, or conducting the rescue of downed pilots--would make such a raid substantially less risky.

Tensions between the rogue states and Turkey increased during the 1990s as well. Following the Iran-Iraq war, the PKK established itself in northern Iraq and has operated from bases in Syria and Iran as well. In northern Iraq, the PKK and other Kurdish factions have operated against Turkey with increased freedom since the end of the Persian Gulf war and the imposition of a UN "no-fly zone" to protect Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein's regime. Turkey has responded to Kurdish operations in Iraq with cross-border raids of its own and several mini-invasions. In December 1997, 20,000 Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in the largest such operation since 1995. This situation parallels Israel's encounter with the Syrian-supported Hezbullah guerrillas in south Lebanon.

Despite recent diplomatic initiatives, Turkey's relations with Syria and Iran have deteriorated and remain icy. In 1997, Turkish Defense Minister Turhat Tayan made it clear who his countries enemies are. "Syria," he said on visit to Israel, "is the headquarters of terrorism hitting both Turkey and Israel, and Iran supports such terrorism." The Kurdish problem in Syrian-Turkish relations is complicated and driven by Syria's dependence on Turkish water. Together, both factors have plunged Syrian-Turkish relations into a vicious cycle of deterioration. Syria uses the PKK to pressure Turkey to meet its water needs. Turkey, however, has used the water issue to press Syria to curb the PKK. In the fall of 1998, these tensions nearly led to war between Syria and Turkey--a confrontation averted only by the intervention of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who extracted commitments from Syria to con strain the Kurds and prevent PPK leader Abdullah Ocalan from using Syria as a base.

Cementing the Alliance

In February 1996, the Turkish military's deputy chief of staff, Cevik Bir, visited Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Israel. The two agreed to allow the Israeli Air Force to train in Turkey and the Turkish Air Force to train in Israel, and a formal agreement to that effect was reached later that month. The Israeli Air Force was granted permission to train for long-range missions in Turkey's vast airspace, and the Turkish Air Force would be able to "enhance their flight training with advanced Israeli simulators and technology" both in Israel and in Turkey. Within two months, a squadron of Israeli F- 16s had arrived in Turkey for week-long exercises and the Turkish and Israeli air forces were engaged in joint mid-air refueling drills.

The February accord also addressed intelligence-sharing and counter-terrorism. Israel agreed to train Turkish forces in "counter-penetration operations along [the] notoriously porous frontiers" with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The two countries also decided to conduct semi-annual "strategic talks...aimed at furthering an evaluation of joint threats and responses to them as well as numerous defense industry issues." Israel and Turkey had been informally sharing some intelligence since 1952, but the public signing of an intelligence-sharing accord was a clear indication that Turkey perceived an increased threat from its southern and eastern neighbors.

The benefits to Israel from this relationship are tremendous. Officially, of course, the agreement allowing Israeli aircraft to operate in Turkey is a "training" agreement. Geographically, Turkey is 40 times bigger than Israel, and its airspace is far less constrained, allowing for somewhat improved training. More importantly, however, are the less public aspects of Israel's arrangements with Turkey. A presence in Turkey allows Israel an unprecedented opportunity to conduct electronic and human intelligence aimed at Iran, Iraq, and Syria. In December 1997, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli combat aircraft carried out 120 sorties in Turkey during that year, no doubt training for long range missions, such as a possible strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The report also cited an Israeli defense official as saying that Israeli CH-53 heavy transport helicopters flew an equal number of sorties from another airbase in Turkey. Although helicopters also need to train for long-range missions, Israel's need for long-range helicopter training is even less acute than its need for long-range jet training. Consequently, several analysts have suggested that Israel is using these helicopter missions to support intelligence operations in Iran, Iraq, and Syria--depositing agents and reconnaissance squads or contacting informers.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies concurred, reporting that Israel is "almost certainly" flying reconnaissance missions aimed at Syria, Iraq, and possibly Iran from Turkish air bases. On April 7, 1996, Israeli Army Radio quoted Bir as saying that Ankara will allow Israel to conduct electronic surveillance flights along the borders of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. It is no great leap to assume that some such flights occasionally cross those borders.

Since the signing of the accord, Turkey has been very open about its cooperation with Israel. At first, Israel was intent on keeping the accord secret to avoid angering Arab states. In June 1996, Israeli officials were shocked when Turkey announced that 12 Turkish warplanes had been training in the Negev. Israel said nothing, but it was widely known that Israeli jets had already started training in Turkey. Soon afterwards, the Turkish press reported that Israeli pilots based in Turkey and flying reconnaissance missions over Syria had "discovered a Syrian chemical gas factory hidden under a mountain near the Turkish border." By going public with its relationship with Israel, the Turkish military and secular Turks were signaling to Syria, Iraq, and Iran that Turkey had a powerful regional ally. They also may have hoped to tie the hands of any future Islamic government. In retrospect, the fact that Turkey's ties to Israel were publicly known made it impossible for Necmettin Erbakan's Islamist government to deny them when it came to power and may have forced him to meet with Israeli officials and perpetuate the relationship until he was removed from power by the pro-Israel Turkish military.

A New Regional Order?

Turkey's security and economic interests are firmly aligned with those of the West. Aligning with "Islam" against the West makes no sense for Turkey when all of its major strategic threats come from the Islamic world. This is especially true for the Turkish secular elite with its fear of Islamic fundamentalists. Even Turkey's Islamists are also somewhat reluctant to sever ties with the West as even an Islamist Turkey would face grave threats from its Muslim neighbors. Tension with Greece is the only major source of threat that emanates from the West, but compared to the dangers of Kurdish nationalism, Syrian and Iraqi water demands, and Iranian missiles, the Greek threat fades to relative insignificance. Turkey's alliance with Israel suggests the weakness of "Islam" as an organizing factor in geopolitics, especially for Turkey. The election of an Islamist prime minister in 1996, after all, did not succeed in altering Turkey's course, nor did the Tehran OIC summit of December 1997.

Turkish-Israeli ties would probably have developed even if the United States had objected, but the United States has had good reason to encourage them. Officially, the United States has made its support for close Turkish-Israeli ties clear. US State Department Spokesman Nicholas Burns has referred to Israeli-Turkish ties as a US "strategic objective." US strategists long ago realized Turkey's strategic importance. Recently, however, Turkey has become a central player in a US-led effort to create a new Middle Eastern order. There is evidence to suggest that the United States is orchestrating a regional security regime comprised of Israel, Turkey, Jordan, possibly Egypt and the Gulfemirates, and, ultimately, the Palestinian pseudo-state. All of these states--except the Palestinians--fear the region's rogue states, and Palestinian involvement is critical to achieve regional legitimacy: with assurances that the Palestinians will receive some sort of statehood, objections in Islamist states to Israeli (and US) involvement in such a regime decrease substantially.

US support for the Turkish-Israeli alliance was demonstrated for the world to see on January 7, 1998, when joint US-Israeli-Turkish naval exercises finally took place after months of delay. Code-named "Reliant Mermaid," the five-hour exercise involved one US destroyer from the Sixth Fleet, two Turkish frigates, two Israeli corvettes, and several Israeli aircraft. The operation involved nothing more violent than a few search-and-rescue drills, and no shots were fired. Despite its ostensibly peaceful nature, the exercise was a watershed in Middle Eastern geopolitics, as evidenced by the involvement of senior officials. Israel flew its defense minister out to a participating Israeli missile boat, and the Turkish vessels and officials paid a high-profile visit to an Israeli port. Jordan, which had conducted a similar search-and-rescue drill with Israel in the Gulf of Aqaba, was invited to send an observer and responded by sending the commander of its navy, Rear Admiral Hussein Khassawneh.

As could have been expected, the exercises evoked a flurry of criticism from Arab quarters, where they were interpreted as evidence that Israel and Turkey were the centerpieces of a US security policy in the region aimed at containing Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The official Syrian line was that the exercises represented "a desperate attempt to pressure Syria to change its principled stand" in the peace process and that they "eliminated any positive role [the United States] could have in the peace process." Syria's Vice President called Turkish-Israeli cooperation a threat to the "world's peace and security." Beirut's pro-Syria daily, A-Safir, asked "how could these tri-axial maneuvers not be an American endorsement for a new axis that encircles Arab countries from the south and the north?"

Will It Last?

The strategic alliance between Israel and Turkey exists both despite the civilizational differences between the two countries and because of the strength it confers on both in confronting several shared regional threats. Whether it proves a robust alignment will depend on the stability of the geopolitical factors that generated it and Turkey's ability to resist an Islamist foreign policy emphasizing realignment against Israel and the West. At present, the regional dynamics that sparked the alliance seem unlikely to change; Syria has avoided peace negotiations with Israel and has continued its support of Hezbullah and occupation of Lebanon. Turkey is aggressively advancing the Greater Anatolia Project, and Syrian and Iraqi water needs are poised to increase dramatically. As a result, Iraq will continue to harbor the PKK as leverage against Ankara. Syria may do likewise, despite its recent accord with Turkey, and Iran has evidenced no change in its support of the Kurds and its efforts to destabilize Turkey. Furthermore, and all three rogue states continue to pursue weapons of mass destruction that can reach Jerusalem and Ankara. All of these conditions seem likely to persist and may become more acute.

As long as regional conditions continue to impart strategic benefit to Turkish-Israeli cooperation, this cooperation is likely to continue. For Israel, the incentives to remain allied with Turkey will remain strong, given the persistent hostility of the Middle Eastern rogue states and the economic, military, and intelligence-related benefits of close ties to Ankara. Furthermore, the psychological importance to Israelis of a powerful region ally--and a Muslim ally--can hardly be overestimated. For Israel, a national friendship with Turkey has ended years of official and, more recently, unofficial regional isolation. Most importantly, the alliance has reduced the chances that Syria, Iran, or Iraq will initiate hostilities with Israel because, through Turkey, Israel is able to apply pressure to those countries from the north.

The Turkish-Israeli alliance could be scuttled, however, if Islamic radicalism seized control of Turkish foreign policy. As recent developments in Turkey show, the chance that this will occur is far less than is often assumed. First, Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's brief and very limited experiment with Islamist foreign policy was an utter failure--even he admitted as much after being publicly snubbed by Muammar Qaddafi on a visit to Libya. Second, there is evidence that even Islamists such as Erbakan will not seek to sever ties to Israel and the West Erbakan, after all, did nothing of the kind. Even with Islamists in power, realism remains the default setting for Turkish foreign policy. Third, political Islam in Turkey tends to be nationalistic as opposed to pan-Islamic and does not focus on foreign policy issues. Finally, the Turkish military and security apparatus remain overwhelmingly pro-secular, as does most of the population. For the foreseeable future, no Islamic party will be able to gain power unless it agrees to a coalition with secular elements that will demand the maintenance of ties to the West and Israel.

Israel and the West in general should, however, take precautions to prevent anti-Western forms of Islamism from influencing Turkish policy in the event of another Islamic government. First, Israel should do whatever it can to avoid appearing as an enemy of Islam. Israel would be wise to accelerate negotiations with the Palestinians, express limited but genuine sympathy for Palestinian national aspirations, and improve its treatment of Palestinians and Arab citizens for a myriad of political and ethical reasons. Preserving strong ties with countries such as Turkey and Jordan--ties which may prove instrumental in Israel's ability to respond to existential threats from Syria, Iraq, and Iran--is certainly one of them. The Wye River accord is an important step in this direction and a sign that Netanyahu has realized the importance to resolving the Palestinian question so that Israel can better confront more serious threats.

The strategic justifications for a Turkish-Israeli alliance are robust and will remain so in the near term. Islamist pressures in Turkey have not significantly affected this alignment in the past and are unlikely to do so in the future, especially if Israel, the United States, and the West in general treat Islamic concerns with respect. Ultimately, the Turkish-Israeli alliance is testament to a key feature of geopolitics in the post-Cold War world. The important cultural factors that have emerged and strengthened in recent years have not entirely replaced realist calculations of strategic interest, which will still play a vital role in shaping policy. Civilizational identity can, indeed, be separated from security policy. As the case of Turkey and Israel shows, realist factors have the potential to encourage high levels of cooperation across cultural--even civilizational-boundaries despite heightened internal and external pressure to maintain those boundaries.