Social unrest and American military bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945.

• Author: Holmes, Amy Austin
• Position: Book review

Holmes' Social Unrest and American Military Bases is a comparative study of anti-American bases social movements that emerged in Turkey and Germany during the Cold War and continued after. The author explores the emergence and causes of these movements against U.S. military presence in two frontline NATO allies, how the U.S. responded to these movements, and which tactics these movements resorted to, in order to accomplish their objectives. In doing so she does a commendable job of blending international relations and social movements literature to better understand the domestic and international conditions under which the perception of an American military presence went from 'legitimate protector' to 'giving harm' to Turkish and German security and sovereignty, that it was initially supposed to protect

Holmes rightly pays significant attention to the 1960s as the period when a distinct, mostly left-oriented, social movement emerged in Turkey against the American military presence. Not only different leftist political organizations, many of them illegal (such as THKO, THKC, and THKP), protested, threatened, kidnapped, and hurt American military officers assigned to or visiting Turkey (for instance, for temporary port visits) but also Turkish workers at American military facilities in different parts of the country carried out organized strikes and protests. A critical contribution to this antibase movement came from the leftist stream that developed within the armed forces as well (pp.70-73). Although the 1971 and 1980 coup d'etats significantly weakened the leftist influence, the anti-base protests flashed after the end of the Cold War as well, especially after the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and the U.S. requested Turkey's consent to use Incirlik base to open a northern front in the war.

The anti-base social movement was more intense in Germany. There too, American military personnel lived under the dire threat posed by the Red Army Faction (RAF), which, according to Holmes "... were opposed not to the unintentional collateral harm caused by the U.S. presence in Germany, but rather the intentional, concrete harm caused by the U.S. war in Vietnam" (p. 105). The anti-base social movement employed other tactics as well, such as civil disobedience acts, including blocking military bases, and street protests. Although not stressed enough in the book in the case of Turkey, disruption of people's daily lives and the humiliation felt...