This article discusses the impact of casualty risks on recruitment for the Turkish Armed Forces. The issue is treated in the context of Turkey as a martial society, for which the embeddedness of military service is a prime example. There is ample experience with military casualties in recent history: in Korea, in Cyprus, during a number of peacekeeping missions, and especially during operations in southeast Turkey over the last two decades. For this latter case, statistical data are analyzed not only vis-à-vis the recruitment of professionals and the behavior of those already serving, but also in relation to the attitudes of conscripts. All in all, the culture of the Turkish Armed Forces is characterized by a low degree of risk aversion rooted in strong civil-military relations. While conscription remains as a symbol of the latter, this sets limits for the trend toward professionalization.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Metin Heper and Aylin Güney, “The Military and Democracy in the Third Turkish Republic,”Armed Forces & Society22, 4 (Summer 1996): 619–619. Authors cite Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600, trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1973), 65–69. The same authors cite Halil Inalcik, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest,” Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 104–29; in another paper Metin Heper and Aylin Güney, “The Military and the Consolidation of Democracy: The Recent Turkish Experience,” Armed Forces & Society 26, 4 (Summer 2000): 635.
2.
Tanel Demirel, “The Turkish Military’s Decision to Intervene: 12 September 1980,”Armed Forces & Society29, 2 (Winter 2003): 253–280, citing Naim Turfan, The Rise of the Young Turks—Politics, the Military and Ottoman Collapse (London: I.B.Tauris, 2000).
3.
Stephen Kinzer, “Dreaming in Turkish,”World Policy Journal18, 3 (Fall 2001): 69–80.
4.
S. Ceylan, S. Kilic, M. Hasde, and T. Kir, “Determination of the Reasons for Unfitness for Military Service in Turkey,”Military Medicine167 (2002): 223–227.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Typically males with a serious illness, disability, or mental handicap fulfill their military service symbolically. Due to the continuous requests of many families, males with disabilities are permitted to serve in the military for one day. Since 2000, a ceremonial conscription of handicapped is allowed in certain units of the Turkish Armed Forces. They are invited to be present (with their families) at specified times; they wear uniforms; and they spend some time with other conscripts. They attend the oath-taking ceremonies and, if their disability allows, they spend the night at the unit either alone or with one family member. These events are covered by television and newspapers.
7.
All this does not detract from the fact that sometimes different voices have been heard among the veterans. As noted by the journalist Nadir Mater, these dissenting opinions suggest a less harmonious and positive impression of veterans’ experiences, especially in southeast Turkey. See Stephan Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey between Two Worlds (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2001), 96–96.
8.
A. Kadir Varoglu and Yavuz Ercil, “The Impact of National Culture on the Military Pedagogy” in Military Pedagogy—An International Survey, ed. Heinz Florian (Wien: Peter Lang GmbH, 2002), 101–115.
9.
Celal Dora, Turks in the Korean War: 1950–51 (Istanbul: Ismail Akgün Printing House, 1963), 10–10. Dora expresses how he felt upon being selected as the commander of the regiment, and describes his reception by the Land Force Commander General Kurtcebe Noyan. Noyan told him that “he was selected from among hundreds of colonels of the Turkish Army for this honorable mission.”
10.
Turkish General Staff (TGS), Turkish Armed Forces’ Contributions to World Peace (Ankara, Turkey: Turkish General Staff Printing House, 2001), 23–27.
11.
Ibid., 23. Testifying to their toughness, none of the Turkish prisoners-of-war died, nor did any of them talk or defect to the enemy. This achievement was unequalled by any other allied country. See T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1963), especially chapter 33.
12.
Turkish General Staff (TGS), Battles of Turkish Armed Forces in the Korean War, 1950–1953: TGS War History Official Publications Serial No. 7 (Ankara, Turkey: Turkish General Staff Printing House, 1975), 137–138.
13.
Dora, Turks in the Korean War, 166–168. Colonel Dora was the first commander of the Turkish Regiment dispatched to Korea. The regiment was the main body of the Turkish Brigade which had other combat support elements to make up a force of 4,500 troops. In Dora’s memoirs, General Walker, the Commander of 8th US Army, in his speech to the Turkish Brigade on December 13, 1950 at 09:30 said: “Heroic Turkish Brigade! On 26 November, the enemy offensive rendered the rear of our army quite vulnerable. You as the corps reserve fought heroically to hold up four enemy divisions to allow the bulk of our army to retreat safely and further covered our retreat. I know you have suffered many casualties to honorably perform your duty. I have utmost respect for your martyrs, those injured and for all of you. I congratulate you all for such superior soldiery.”
14.
TGS, Battles of Turkish Armed Forces in the Korean War, 218–219.
15.
TGS, Turkish Armed Forces’ Contributions to World Peace, 23–23.
16.
Unpublished data from the records of the Turkish Army Personnel Department.
17.
TGS, Turkish Armed Forces’ Contributions to World Peace, 24–24.
18.
Ibid., 24.
19.
Ibid., 24.
20.
Joseph Soeters, Erhan Tanercan, Kadir Varoglu, and Unsal Sigri, “Turkish-Dutch Encounters in Peace Operation,”International Peacekeeping11, 2 (Summer 2004): 362–363.
21.
We realize that there is a lot to be said about the political and military aspects of these operations. The relation between terrorism, separatism, and the Kurdish question is complicated. In this article the focus is on casualties among the soldiers, and the reactions toward those casualties on the part of military and society. We leave out all the other aspects, in fact, just as with Korea and Cyprus.
22.
“Spec” stands for “specialist enlisted leaders,” former conscripts who have completed their service and then been recruited as professional low-ranking leaders to command conscripts. “NCO-prep” stands for NCO preparatory school applicants, who wish to enroll in the secondary school for NCO preparation. “NCO-branch” stands for NCO branch school applicants, who are high school graduates and wish to enroll in the year-long NCO school. “Mil.Hi.Sch.” stands for military high school applicants who wish to enroll in the secondary school for prospective commissioned officers. The service academies (army, navy, and air force) draw heavily from the four military high schools (three belong to the army, and one to the navy). “Mil.Ac.Ext.” stands for military academy applicants, who are graduates of civilian high schools and wish to enroll in the academy.
23.
An applicant for a specialist job position does not have to be a high school graduate at all; he could have as little as five years of elementary school education. Since high school graduates scored consistently better on the selection tests and educational attainment was also considered as an important plus in the selection, a huge majority of the recruits to the specialist corps were high school graduates. NCO applicants need only be high school graduates. However, in the referred period, the number of two-year college graduates in the applicant pool increased markedly, and university graduates started to show up as well. In terms of education, the selection criteria for specialist and NCO positions target the unskilled or low-skilled segment of the labor supply. Since the army and the gendarmerie offer jobs that pay about three times or more of the minimum wage in the civilian workforce, those in the moderate-to-high-skilled segment of the labor supply also apply for jobs intended for less-skilled segments.
24.
Records of Army Personnel Department interviews with the officers who wanted to be assigned to the brigades that are located in southeast Turkey.
25.
Interview records, Army Personnel Department.
26.
The stories of forty-two conscripts (narrated in Mehmet’s book) who served in the southeast part of the country between 1984 and 2002 emphasized that they did not especially dislike serving in the army, but felt bad about the unorthodox threat and circumstances of anti-terror operations. See Nadire Mater, Mehmedin Kitabı (Istanbul: Siyahbeyaz / metis yayinlari, 1998).
27.
Emphasizing these notions probably has a real impact. In comparison to Dutch cadets and mid-career officers, their Turkish counterparts are much more inclined to accept the risks to life and limb that accompany military operations. This finding emerged from an ongoing comparative survey of Dutch and Turkish military academies and war colleges. The survey was conducted by C. van den Berg, J. Soeters, and A. Varoglu (forthcoming).
28.
This conclusion was emphasized at a conference held on June, 2, 2003 at the Turkish Military Academy. Charles Moskos, “Military Systems in the 21st Century and New Trends,”Journal of Defense Sciences2, 2 (November 2003): 73–88.
