Re-examining the "Base": The Political and Security Dimensions of Turkey's Military Presence in Somalia.

• Author: Rossiter, Ash
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

On September 30, 2017, Turkey officially opened a major military training installation in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. Omitting mention of Turkey's military presence in Northern Cyprus, Turkish and international media described the facility as Turkey's largest foreign military "base." For some observers, the opening of the facility, following the establishment of a base in Qatar and military intervention in Syria, was further evidence of a more muscular turn in Turkish foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (1) Taking this further, some pundits extrapolated from these moves a desire by Ankara--or, more specifically, Turkish policymaking elites--to resurrect some vestiges of the former Ottoman Empire. For Decottignies and Cagaptay, the establishing of the Qatari base, which predated the inauguration of the Turkish facility in Mogadishu, signaled, using a rather implausible historical analogy, Turkey's return to the Indian Ocean after more than four hundred years, whence the Ottomans battled (unsuccessfully) with the Portuguese for supremacy. (2) Explaining Turkey's current foreign policy in Somalia as somehow driven by its Ottoman past provides meagre explanatory power at best and ignores the political and security goals of both Turkey and Somalia. It also ignores Turkey's increasing presence and significant investments in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. (3)

There are, of course, some plausible reasons for linking Turkey's Somalia decision to a more assertive military posture. Firstly, foreign military "bases" are most commonly thought of as part of a state's infrastructure for war-making; that is, a critical means through which states project military power abroad. When looking back over the latter half of the 20th century, it is easy to see why this rigid interpretation of an overseas base's raison d'etre is prevalent. For, during the Cold War both rival blocs built up global networks of bases as part of a strategy that sought to "confront, encircle or intimidate the other side." (4) The military rationale behind positioning forces abroad has, however, changed markedly since 1991, owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of non-traditional security threats and the widening of tasks that militaries across many parts of the world are asked to perform by their governments. (5) In global basing trends, Cold War legacy bases have largely made way for smaller locations--often designated as 'installations,' 'facilities,' or, in the particular lexicon of the U.S. defense establishment, as 'forward operating sites' or 'cooperative security locations' (rather than bases) (6)--from which, and in which, various security-related tasks are performed, ranging from kinetic counter-terrorism operations to the delivery of training assistance to partner governments' security forces. (7) This is increasingly true on the African continent where a host of states and international actors have established a military presence, either in the name of security assistance (8) or to partner with local allies to counter-terrorism in the region. (9)

With a broadening of the functions overseas military deployments perform, understanding what is behind a foreign troop presence requires closer inspection than perhaps before. Nonetheless, because any presence of foreign military forces--in cases where they are not imposed on the host--is a conscious surrender by the host state of its military exclusivity within its territory, it is ineluctably a highly political decision. For this reason, new deployments offer great potential for analyzing relationships between the sending state and the host, as well those of both states with other state actors. Turkey's new military presence in Mogadishu is thus an opportunity to explore wider questions about Ankara's evolving and deepening involvement in Somalia and the region. Equally, analyzing Mogadishu's decision--and, as will be shown below, it was a decision; Turkey has not imposed a military presence on Somalia--to agree to this Turkish mission can shed new light on successive Somali Federal Governments' (SFG) national security priorities and how they manage their external relationships.

In order to delve into these issues, the remainder of the article proceeds as follows. The first section describes the operational purpose of the new Turkish military presence in Somalia. In particular, it explicates why the term "base" is misleading and shows how the stated function of the Turkish troops in Somalia--to train the Somali National Army (SNA)--is consistent with the contemporary activities of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). The next section places the deployment decision within the wider context of an intensification of Turkey's role in Somalia, especially since 2011, explaining how the training mission complements Turkey's foreign policy aims. The article then turns to explore Somalia's interests in hosting the Turkish facility and the benefits it may see from training the SNA. In the fourth section, we consider the security and political implications of the new Turkish military presence in Somalia for both sender and host, as well as the Horn of Africa and wider region, paying particular attention to how misuse of the term "base" has led both politicians and pundits mischaracterize Turkey's military training role in Somalia as a projection of hard power. The fifth section forms the conclusion.

The "Base "that Is Not a Base

Though neither the cost of the so-called Turkish "base" (a reported $50 million in capital expenditure) nor the size of the military commitment it houses (around 200-300 Turkish soldiers and officers) is especially large, its opening received extensive international media coverage and triggered much discussion about Turkey's military posture in the Horn of Africa. (10)

Turkish officials were quick to correct media reports claiming that Turkey was constructing a military base in Mogadishu. Indeed, they had tried before the inauguration of the facility to rid it of the "base" label. In an interview with Turkish media six months before the facility was complete, Turkey's ambassador to Somalia, Olgan Bekar, clarified that it was "not a military base like the one Turkey has in Qatar," but "a military training camp." (11) The ambassador's choice of Qatar to contrast the Somalia deployment was apposite: the Qatari base entails an operational contingent of the TAF that includes ground forces and artillery units; the facility in Mogadishu houses a Turkish military training team. (12) The difference in the purpose of the two bases became even starker after the Turkish parliament's ratification on June 7, 2017 of a bilateral defense bill with Doha and the deployment of additional Turkish forces to Qatar. (13) Reports in the Turkish press, however, have done little to dispel the commonly held view that the training facility is a base. Indeed, they have reinforced it. This is not a case of concepts or terms being confused with one another in Turkish: askeri egitim tesisi means military training facility; us or askeri ussti or askeri egitim tissti mean "base/military base/military training base." Rather it seems, based on the tone and content of the articles, more a result of interest and pride in Turkey's military role outside its borders. (14)

As discussed above, military basing is often viewed along a spectrum. A site where forces are permanently deployed to deter foes, provide the initial reaction to military threats and to reassure allies is usually considered a base. (15) In contrast, Turkey has deployed its military personnel for a training mission rather than to project hard power. A cadre of over 100 Turkish military instructors (16) has already begun delivering a standardized military curriculum to batches of 1,500 Somali soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers. The remaining Turkish troops-another 200 or so--protect the site from attack. In functional terms, the Turkish military presence is not an overseas base.

Definitions of what constitutes an overseas "base," rather than a "facility," also typically require a cession of territorial sovereignty by the host, providing the user nation with high levels of discretion over the use of the site. (17) While it remains unclear what precise use rights Turkey has over its Mogadishu facility-it is plausible Turkey does have some form of lease for the land housing the facility for an unknown number of years (18)--foreign military advisory missions and their training establishments do not usually entail such a cession. (19) Moreover, the TAF's involvement in the external security of the facility is probably less an indication of Turkey's sovereign use rights over this plot of Somali territory and more a reflection of the security situation in Somalia and the Somali security apparatus' inability to provide adequate protection. Indeed, the training facility has reportedly already been the target of al-Shabaab attacks. (20)

That Turkish military personnel have been deployed to conduct an overseas training mission is not unusual. To be sure, during the Cold War the TAF, equipped, organized and positioned for defensive operations within the collective security context of NATO, was poorly suited for tasks other than major conflict. (21) Since 1991, however, the Turkish military has participated in a range of multilateral peace support operations (22) and training missions, including NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) programs. (23) Concomitantly, the TAF reorganized in the early 1990s so it could perform non-traditional tasks increasingly emphasized in Turkey's emerging defense posture. (24) Turkey's aspiration to be viewed as a key player in peacebuilding on the global stage resulted in Ankara utilizing its security forces more and more as a soft power tool (25) (The 1991-2005 Turkish gendarmerie training mission in the Republic of Gambia is an illustrative case of this wider trend)...