The “Blue Homeland” and Turkey’s new forward defence doctrine

Source:Duvar English Date:25Jun2020

This a socialist criticque of Turkey new forward looking  military posture.  While I don’t agree with the critical terminolagy used by the author, it is an excellent primer to understand the  mechanics of Turkish re-armament.

In the past few years, Turkey has incrementally been building up a new foreign and security policy. A coalition of political actors introduced a new security doctrine known as “forward defence.” As those actors envisaged military operations and territorial control in cross border areas, the Mavi Vatan or “Blue Homeland” doctrine emerged as the maritime wing of this strategy.

By now, it is no secret that the AKP government’s overly ambitious neo-Ottoman policy of regional hegemony, which supposedly relied on the cooperation of various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, has collapsed. After an interlude during which it had to deal with the Gezi protests and the corruption scandals brought up by the Gülen movement, the Erdoğan government found it convenient to strike an alliance with the nationalists in order to prolong its incumbency and aspire to regional dominance, this time through other means.