Turkey's Military Spending Trends: A Reflection of Changes in Defense Policy.

• Author: Seren, Merve
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction: Challenges in Analyzing Spending Trends

The collected data and findings on defense spending patterns must be interpreted with caution owing to several factors. First of all, 'defense spending' is a contested term; there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes 'security' 'military,' and 'defense' spending, and so these concepts have overlapping, and even slightly confusing meanings. The degree of uncertainty around the terms used to describe 'expenditures' derives from differences in terminology preferences, budget items and the variety of parameters and calculation formulas used by governmental and non-governmental organizations. For instance, although NATO's defense expenditure and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) military expenditure terms are similar to each other, their assessment processes vary due to the parameters used. To give an example, SIPRI includes paramilitary forces "when judged to be trained, equipped and available for military operations;" however, with regard to the change made in the definition in 2004, NATO does not include paramilitary forces in its defense budget unless they are "realistically deployable." (1) While SIPRI includes pensions in military spending, it excludes civil defense spending; the opposite is the case in the IMF's annual reporting. To show the difference in calculation formulas (base year, etc.), in 2019, Global Firepower ranked Turkey in 18th place, while SIPRI ranked Turkey in 16th place in the list of top military spenders. Briefly, since there are no commonly adopted content standards and criteria, the data and estimates on countries' military/defense expenditures may differ in published reports. Indeed, NATO drew attention to the distinction between its own definitions of defense spending and those of member states, and to the differences in the official statements and figures reflected in the budgets by national authorities.

In the analyses process, one of the main obstacles is to choose the most accurate data source and later analyze these big data assets. This remains as a major problem especially when the calculation techniques of Turkey does not match the techniques of other governmental and non-governmental organizations. In this regard, it must be underlined that Turkey's defense expenditure figures may differ greatly from SIPRI's or others' numbers on military/defense expenditures, since Turkey's budget structure has changed to the multi-year budgeting system that is classified analytically in 2006. Though the budget system changed in accordance with European Systems of Accounts (ESA) and Government Finance Statistics (GFS), the particular concern regarding the new system is that the public investment expenditures cannot be distinguished clearly. Therefore, the figures based on the data of the Ministry of Treasure and Finance give a total amount of defense services which includes the budgets of both military and civil organizations that cannot be separated clearly from each other.

Second, the changing natures of 'security' and 'defense' concepts have altered the duties and responsibilities of the related institutions such as the Turkish Armed Forces, National Intelligence Organization, Turkish Police, Coast Guard and Gendarmerie. Compounding the difficulty, confidentiality remains an important obstacle for the collection of data regarding military/defense, security and intelligence expenditures which are sensitive issues for states. As a matter of fact, it is not possible to foresee and determine the extent to which states share their data on defense expenditures and military budget items with regional and international organizations, or make this information available to the public. In this regard, especially for democratic countries, there is a fine line between 'state secret' and 'transparency policy.' For instance, although the UN Report on Military Expenditures is expected to serve as a tool to promote transparency and confidence building among states regarding military matters, many member states have not been consistent in their reporting, and the overall level of reporting has declined over the past decade. (2) Another example of state secrecy is 'off-budget expenses' which are evident in the case of Turkey, illustrating the challenge of obtaining accurate data on Turkey's real defense expenditures and thus its actual power.

Defense spending is generally observed and explained in the literature in two dimensions: economic and military. The first argument is based on the discussion of whether there is a linear or non-linear relationship between military expenditures and economic growth; the second focuses on the effects of defense spending on militarization and military power. The fact remains that studies on defense spending rely heavily on quantitative approaches that lead to generalizations, thus research on the subject has been mostly restricted to limited comparisons. However, the analysis of defense spending trends must avoid these types of generalizations and limitations, and a much more holistic approach should be adopted instead, that measures a wide set of variables and additional factors. Most importantly, it must be borne in mind that each country's military/defense spending patterns must be evaluated within its sui generis nature. For instance, Turkey's defense spending patterns cannot be compared to those of its traditional allies in NATO due to its unique geostrategic location and threat mapping. Likewise, Turkey's increasing military expenses should not be interpreted as strong evidence of a tendency towards militarization. Although Turkey is ranked 19th in the Global Militarization Index's (GMI) 2019 Militarization Index Ranking, this position cannot be accurately and comprehensively explained under the Index's three categories of indicators (spending, personnel and weapons). Indeed, according to the GMI's Militarization Index Ranking from 2002 to 2019, Turkey has always ranked between 19th and 25th. In 2002, Turkey ranked 21st and in 2018, it ranked 19th. (3) However, throughout these years, Turkey's security policy and defense posture changed almost entirely with regard to different parameters that cannot be explained solely by militarization. Likewise, the U.S. spent $750 billion on defense and ranked in 1st place in Global Firepower's Military Strength Ranking for 2020; meanwhile, Turkey with a $19 billion defense budget ranked in 11th place. (4) Given the huge gap between their defense budgets and military technology levels, how the U.S. and Turkey can have very close military strengths requires alternative explanations. Thus, it must be highlighted that whilst scoring the factors, Global Firepower emphasizes 'quantity,' not 'quality,' which appears to be a limitation of the method being used. For instance, Turkey's total aircraft strength of 1,055, which includes both fixed-wing and rotorcraft platforms from all branches of service (fighters, dedicated attack aircraft, transports, trainers, special mission, helicopters and attack helicopters) might not be a good indicator of its airpower, since it does not include UAVs which are widely used in counter-terrorism operations. Nor does it account for the quality of the aircraft; indeed, the value of Turkey's aircraft strength might be misevaluated since Turkey has been removed from the F-35 program. This example reveals the significance and need of forming a dataset for Turkey's instruments of national power, developed by its own as an inventory work and a fusion center for critical information.

Patterns of Turkey's Military/Defense Spending

While it is assumed that Turkey has always made great investments in military spending, in fact for a long time a large amount of its military expenses has been allocated to institutions responsible for Turkey's homeland and border security. As displayed in Graph 1 below, the portion of the national budget that is allocated to security agencies has generally exceeded the budget allocated to the Ministry of Defense. Actually, this appears also in the country's three-year fiscal investment programs as can be seen in Table 2 and Table 3 below. When examining the budget devoted to ensuring homeland security, Turkey's almost fifty-year long fight against terrorism (against terrorist groups such as ASALA, the PKK, DHKP-C, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah) must always be borne in mind. In terms of long-term spending trends, then-Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus's address to the Turkish Parliament in February 2016 is important as he acknowledged that since 1984, Ankara has spent $1.5 trillion in counter-terrorism operations, the country could have been 25 years ahead if it had not been so acquainted with terror. (5)

As seen in the first figure of Graph 1, in the first years of the AK Party era, the budget allocated for the Ministry of Defense tended to decrease and remained rather stable until 2008; meanwhile the budget of the National Police grew continuously based upon an almost 50 percent increase in the number of staff from 2004 to 2014 due to increases in wages and other personnel costs. According to Senesen and Kirik, the negative growth rates of the defense budget in the early years of AK Party era occurred due to its demilitarization reforms and a kind of reaction to the military's e-memorandum (namely the 'e-coup') in April 2007. This policy attitude had started to change by the AK Party's secondterm following theelection victory of July 2007.

Nevertheless, the high level of the defense budget and national police budget shown in the first figure of Graph 1 might be inadequate to fully comprehend the changing trend in the security and defense budgets of the AK Party period. Indeed, while examining and analyzing the security and defense budgets, some determining factors and changing conditions should be taken into consideration. For instance, the role and mission of the military and...