26.04.2012TURKISH NUCLEAR THREAT
Executive Director of “Noravank” Foundation
Proliferation of nuclear and mass destruction weapons is the most topical issue of the global security today. The researches, carried out back in the middle of the 20th century, come to prove that usage of the mass destruction weapons brings to the global catastrophe. It seemed that after the end of the Cold war between the USA and USSR there is no more threat of such an apocalyptic scenario. But the real situation is cardinally different. The parties conflicting in the Cold war seriously approached the issue and elaborated (especially after the Caribbean Crisis in 1962 when world appeared on the threshold of a nuclear war) various mechanisms and drafted different agreements, which have regulated the “nuclear” relations of these states till now and have decreased possibility of mass destruction weapons usage. Let us also mention that over that period the US-USSR (NATO – the Warsaw Pact countries) confrontation was going on within the framework of “deterrence strategy” and “mutual assured destruction doctrine” which also reduced nuclear risks.
Today the number of the “nuclear club” members is rather big (US, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea) and this number tends to grow. Meanwhile, the “nuclear relations” between the Asian members of this club are far from being normal; they do not dialogue on the issue, and IAEA’s consulting functions are not enough to fill this gap.
Form the point of view of risk assessment the incentives (motives) which dictate any country to possess nuclear weapons are also topical. Without referring to the precedents of India, Pakistan and North Korea, let us try to discuss briefly the current “nuclear” situation in the Near East – the region which directly refers to the security of Armenia (Rep. of Armenia and NKR) and which is considered to be one of the highly explosive regions.
Though the Israeli authorities do not admit it, this country has possessed nuclear weapon since 1970s and they number at least 200 pieces. Taking into consideration some radical approaches of some of the countries in the region to the physical existence of that state, it should be admitted that the motives of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons are grounded. Of course, there are refinements in this issue but anyway it is obvious that Israel acts within the strategy of “deterrence of the enemy and delivering inevitable destructing retaliation”. At the same time Israel is monopolist in the region in the nuclear aspect and as air strikes delivered on nuclear centers in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 showed they do everything to preserve their existing status quo. It is clear that Israel would have done the same way with its today’s rival – Iran – if it possessed appropriate resources and guarantees that this would not have devastating aftermaths. In this aspect let us also consider briefly Iran’s nuclear project.
If we accept as a possible release version that Iran elaborates mass destruction weapons within its nuclear programme we have to accept that this country also acts in the context of protection of its sovereignty and system of government chosen by its people. In other words this isolated and sanctioned state, which has strained relations with the nuclear monopolist Israel, is, nevertheless, obliged to elaborate nuclear weapon as a mean of self-defence. This may seem strange, but it should be admitted that there is some similarity in the incentives of Israel and Iran in mass destruction weapons issue. It is remarkable that in both countries religious-spiritual and other conceptions coming from their history play a certain role in decision making. This is believed to be conditioned by a factor of mutual non-compliance, but rich civilizational past can serve for finding a common ground. Taking into consideration considerable activation and strengthening of Sunnite factor after the “Arab spring”, such scenario has a pragmatic grounds either, as possible Israel-Iran dialogue would balance, to some extent, distribution of powers in the region.
Of course, all the aforementioned observations do not exclude possibility of US, Israel-Iran confrontation, but, in our opinion, the main source of nuclear threat in the region is neither Israel nor Iran, but their competitor – Turkey.
This version is conditioned not only by such an important circumstance that this country has managed to establish appropriate “nuclear” infrastructures in the spheres of management, science and technology, raw materials, etc., which would allow them to create nuclear weapon in the near future; it is known that there are other countries which have such possibilities either. The nuclear threat coming from Turkey is based on a fact that this country’s sovereignty and existence are not threatened (unlike Israel or Iran) and it can use this nuclear weapon rather with expansionist purpose and on revanchist ideological grounds than for its self-defence. Such a conclusion is drawn from the following circumstances:
- Ideologies which are widely spread and officially supported in Turkey (neo-Ottomanism, Neo-Pan-Turkism, Neo-Pan-Islamism) are of distinct expansionist orientation and are based on revanchist and nationalist doctrines.
- Today’s Turkey, basing on the aforementioned aggressive ideologies, obviously tends to play decisive role and have its share in the geopolitical and global economic repartition of the region.
- Turkey, unlike Israel and Iran, is genocidal state; it arranged on a state level mass killings of the Armenians, Greeks, Kurds, and Assyrians on the assumption of their ethnic identity.
This last circumstance, as well as the fact that today’s Turkey, as a regional country, was formed only in the Middle Ages, come to prove that, unlike Israel and Iran, this state does not have appropriate civilizational grounds and traditions, which would restrict the aggressiveness of its policy, including usage of nuclear weapons.
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