After emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019,¹ the deadly coronavirus affected Turkey much later than other European and Middle Eastern countries.² Although airports in Istanbul are points of intersection between East and West, and despite the fact that Ankara was late to sever travel connections with places where the virus struck forcefully, such as Iran and China, Turkey did not see its first case until March 11 — much later than many countries. Turkey’s geographic position, the delayed realization by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of the gravity of the situation, and society’s inadequate prevention of the spread of the disease prompted predictions that Turkey’s situation would be more dramatic than Italy’s.³ Nevertheless, Turkey fought the disease in a manner that could be dubbed respectable based on what the official figures reveal to us, even if it has not exhibited comparable economic competence. This article seeks to discuss Turkey’s fight with Covid-19, from late 2019 through late May 2020, from a multifaceted and comparative perspective.⁴ It will touch upon the domains of domestic policy, economics and foreign policy and contrast the number of cases, deaths, administered tests and rates of recovery with countries that suffered major outbreaks, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and France.

Covid-19 brought with it a focus on ideology and regime. Amid discussions of the extent to which the functions of transnational institutions, including the European Union, are effective in times of crisis, issues of sovereignty and the concept of nation-state gained strength as the virus spread.⁵ Additionally, the battles various countries waged with the disease invited a comparison between authoritarian and socially closed countries, on the one hand, and those that are liberal and democratic, on the other. Some philosophers claim that democratic administrations proved unwieldy in the face of the pandemic, while others contend that authoritarian regimes weaponized this process to amass control and, moreover, that their relative success was tied to their manipulation of official figures. In addition, the relative triumph of Asian societies, such as South Korea, in contrast to the implementation of herd-immunity policies by Western nations such as Sweden, ultimately demonstrated that our previous categorization of regimes has come to an end. Finally, while the failures of populist and rightist political leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to deal consistently with this process is apparent, authoritarian leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban were observed to bolster their own power under the guise of battling Covid-19.⁶ However, we have seen that Turkey, long described as a competitive authoritarian regime in which Erdoğan has substantially consolidated his one-man rule, follows unique paths in both administration and guiding political decision making.⁷ The fundamental indicator in Turkey’s fight against Covid-19 is the economy, and this article will also explain the economic issues during the pandemic.

This crisis has had regional and global impacts on international relations and will continue to do so. For example, nations that remain afloat economically could challenge a global balance of power centered along the China-United States axis. In addition, a country that produces a successful vaccine could see its stature increase. Finally, a nation that can provide medical assistance to afflicted countries may substantially bolster its soft power. Turkey is striving to increase its visibility through transnational state apparatuses; this has brought to the fore debates over whether it is becoming a positive actor or if it is ruling through religious authoritarianism and populism. For this reason, the article also examines Turkey’s foreign-policy initiatives in relation to the pandemic.

Despite the increasing number of democracies in the post-Cold War period, the danger of military coups has not disappeared in many parts of the world.¹ It keeps threatening domestic and international communities, especially in regions where democratic norms are not as easily adopted as institutions, such as elections. Coups are conducted by a military to depose and replace the ruling power through force or the threat of force for various reasons: the military’s parochial interests, the status of leadership, or policy differences between civilians and military officers. No country is immune, as long as soldiers have the capacity and will to overthrow a civilian government. Coups generally occur in the developing and under-developed world. However, in recent years, some analysts have even argued that a “military coup is no longer unimaginable in the U.S.” if, for example, President Donald Trump himself becomes a national-security threat by deciding to start a nuclear war.²

Coups not only threaten the survival of civilian regimes; they can also cause human-rights violations, obstructions of democratic evolution and even civil wars. As a result, governments adopt coup-proofing strategies that encompass a wide variety of military, political, economic and social tools. Since the formation of the Turkish republic, governments have existed under the continuous threat of military intervention. In the last 60 years, the country has lived through two military coups (1960 and 1982), direct (1971) and indirect (1997) military interventions, as well as failed coup attempts in 1962 and 1963. On July 15, 2016, Turkey faced another failed coup attempt with severe political and societal consequences.³

This article analyzes Turkish civil-military relations by comparing the government’s coup-proofing strategies before and after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002. We focus on whether coup-proofing strategies have been implemented in Turkey and, if yes, which measures have been applied and with how much success. The findings show that before 2002, civilian politicians mostly tried to curb military control rather than implement coup-proofing strategies. Except for a few cases that were temporarily effective at best, no continuous coup-proofing was introduced in Turkey. The AKP under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership changed this situation with the help of outside actors, in particular the European Union. Yet, the failed coup attempt in 2016 demonstrated that stronger coup-proofing would be necessary. As this brought about the implementation of various additional measures, the article also compares the AKP’s strategies before and after the 2016 coup attempt. We find that if multiple and various coup-proofing strategies are not implemented at the same time, a militaristic country like Turkey will have a difficult time preventing politically ambitious military officers from interfering in civilian politics.

On March 20, 2019, President Donald Trump appeared on the White House lawn with two freshly declassified maps portraying the collapse of the ISIS caliphate. Trump did not expound on the origins of the maps, but the media suspected they came from the Pentagon, which regularly published such maps to display the progress of Operation Inherent Resolve. As the press corps shouted questions on the sudden reversal of his tumult-inducing December 19 tweet order for “all” U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Syria in “30 days,” the president triumphantly pointed to the top map.¹ It featured a sprawling red blotch over Iraq and Syria that he said represented the ISIS caliphate’s territory at the time of his inauguration in January 2017.

The president then pointed to a tiny corner in eastern Syria on the lower map where the last remaining ISIS bastion, the remote village of Baghouz al-Fawqani, was depicted in a small box. The president proudly explained his role in reducing the large red ISIS sprawl on the first map to the small red enclave on the second:

This was on Election Night in 2016 — everything red is ISIS. When I took it over, it was a mess. Now, on the bottom — that’s the exact same — there is no red. In fact, there’s actually a tiny spot which will be gone by tonight. So this is ISIS on Election Day, my Election Day, and this is ISIS now. So that’s the way it goes.²

Trump later tweeted the maps (see next page).³ The president subsequently used the same maps at a rally in Ohio to emphasize his decisive role in the defeat of ISIS:

Two maps, identical. Except the one on top was Syria. See that? The one on top was Syria in November of 2016. This is all ISIS. On the bottom, today, the caliphate is gone as of tonight. That is pretty good, right? ⁴

Trump has on numerous other occasions taken credit for defeating ISIS. In his February 2019 State of the Union address, for example, he bragged, “When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria. Today, we have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty killers.”⁵

Trump’s statements were not only crafted to take credit for the victory captured on the two maps that he showed the press corps in March 2019; they were crafted to diminish his predecessor’s victories. A key component of his boasts rests upon undermining the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s campaign against ISIS (August 2014 to January 2017), Operation Inherent Resolve. Trump, for example, said nine months into his presidency in October 2017: “We’ve done more against ISIS in nine months than the previous administration has done during its whole administration — by far, by far.”⁶ In March 2018, Trump would make the maximalist statement, “Terrorism, in Iraq and Syria, we’ve taken back almost 100 percent, in a very short period of time, of the land that they took. And it all took place since our election.”⁷ In February 2019, Trump tweeted, “I inherited a total mess in Syria and Afghanistan.”⁸ In January 2019, he proclaimed:

When I took over Syria it was infested with ISIS. It was all over the place. And now you have very little ISIS and you have the caliphate almost knocked out. We will be announcing in the not too distant future 100 percent. ... We’re at 99 percent right now, we’ll be at 100. When I took it over it was a disaster. I think we’ve done a great job with that.⁹

MEP (ROGER GAESS): Germany reportedly lobbies to enhance Israel’s trade status and other ties with the European Union.  Among these is Horizon 2020, the EU’s largest-ever research and innovation program, which will provide Israel with some half billion dollars in scientific-research funding over its seven-year lifespan.  What do you see as the current German government’s aspirations for Israel within EU institutions? What is guiding this direction?

DAVID CRONIN: Israel is expected to draw down considerably more money from Horizon 2020 than the figure you mentioned. I’ve seen an internal European Commission paper predicting that Israel will receive a total of approximately $1.6 billion from the program by the time it concludes later this year (it began in 2014).

To be honest, I haven’t investigated the German government’s influence on EU-Israel relations lately. If you are talking about the influence of individual Germans on related policies, then I think we can point to the discussion about anti-Semitism as an example.

The EU’s executive, the European Commission, has been promoting a very dodgy definition of anti-Semitism. It’s generally known as the IHRA definition, as it was approved by a body known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. But the definition was actually written by the pro-Israel lobby more than a decade earlier. One of the lobbyists who drafted it, Kenneth Stern, has distanced himself from it — or at least claimed that it shouldn’t be used to muzzle free speech. 

If you look at the definition and its accompanying examples of anti-Semitism, they are clearly more focused on shielding Israel from criticism than on protecting Jews in Europe (something that is absolutely necessary). The definition claims, among other things, that it is anti-Semitic to describe Israel’s foundation as a “racist endeavor.” That could have a chilling effect on the work of historians or activists who draw attention to how adherents of Zionism — Israel’s state ideology — set up a system of racial discrimination in Palestine during the 20th century. That paved the way for the mass expulsion of Palestinians before and after Israel was established in 1948. 

It’s entirely accurate to describe that process of ethnic cleansing as a racist endeavor, but the European Commission wants to prevent us from doing so. Or at least to portray people who tell the truth about Israel’s crimes as anti-Semites. 

The two officials who are most active within the European Commission on this dossier are both Germans. They are Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s coordinator against anti-Semitism, and her deputy, Johannes Börmann. Both of them have actually tried to compare the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) with the Nazis. That’s quite outrageous, to put it mildly. The BDS call is a clear demand for justice and equality, the very opposite of what the Nazis stood for.

As officials, von Schnurbein and Börmann are supposed to work for the EU collectively and not for their home country. I have no evidence to suggest they are taking orders from (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel or anyone else in Berlin. But their agenda certainly chimes with that of the German establishment. We know, for example, that the Bundestag (on May 17, 2019) declared the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. 

MEP: How critical is the German-Israeli “special relationship” in shaping EU policy toward the Palestinians?  To what extent has that relationship enhanced the influence of the Israel lobby within EU institutions?

CRONIN: The “special relationship” is often framed as a response to the Holocaust, so it certainly has had some influence in shaping EU policy toward the Palestinians.  Israel has to a large extent weaponized the Holocaust, and EU governments, including Germany, have allowed them to do so. The suffering of Jews during the 20th century is being exploited to distract from Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians during the 21st.

The extension of academic censorship on Palestine to the medical world is, despite its pervasiveness, relatively unknown. In the latest iteration, a letter highlighting the Gaza Strip’s vulnerability to the Covid-19 pandemic was removed from The Lancet’s website after a swift pressure campaign. While the immediate effects were minimal—despite its short shelf-life, the piece is among the top 5% most discussed research publications—the chilling effect of such campaigns on writers and editors is profound and enduring. This commentary outlines the struggle to make space for discussion and academic inquiry into the health impacts of the ongoing suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people.

As Palestinians marked Land Day on March 30, The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals, silently removed from its website a commentary that was published three days prior. At just over 400 words, “Structural violence in the era of a new pandemic: the case of the Gaza Strip,” draws on the deep historical and political forces that have rendered the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip particularly susceptible to an impending Covid-19 outbreak. Mirroring numerous warnings that continue to be published elsewhere, including a statement by 20 Palestinian, Israeli, and international health and human rights organizations, our commentary highlights the impact of pandemics on “populations burdened by poverty, military occupation, discrimination, and institutionalised oppression.” Its critical tone is consistent with other Lancet commentaries targeting various national and global responses to Covid-19.

While hoping the swift removal was just a technical error, our experience working on Palestine made us suspect otherwise. A hint came via the elated tweet of a Canadian endocrinologist who had been involved in prior efforts to censor scholarship connecting Israel’s occupation and human rights abuses to Palestinian health outcomes. The next day we understood the impetus behind the commentary’s sudden disappearance: a message had been circulated to the scientific community in the United States (and beyond) calling—ironically, given the hostility to similar calls directed at Israel—for a boycott of The Lancet for publishing the piece.

To understand The Lancet editorial staff’s swift decision to remove the commentary, we need to go back to 2014. At the height of Israel’s large-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip, The Lancet published “An open letter for the people in Gaza,” setting off an aggressive years-long campaign with demands that both the open letter and the editor-in-chief be removed. Neither occurred after a thorough review by The Lancet ombudsman. The controversy culminated, however, with five 2017 Lancet Series papers designed to “outline Israel’s achievements in health and health care.” While the papers commemorated one of the world’s most efficient healthcare systems, missing was any discussion of Israel’s institutionalized oppression over the Palestinian people that leaves millions without the ability to develop or even access similarly exemplary healthcare. Indeed, the authors of the introductory piece of the series decided to “not comprehensively address historical or political issues, except when directly pertaining to health,” as if there were any other comparably important factors determining the stark health (and other) inequities between Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants of the region.

The aftermath of the publication of the 2014 letter explains how The Lancet, a high-profile outlet courageously and almost uniquely willing to cover the political and historical forces impacting Palestinian health, came to publish an entire edition—perhaps the most prominent example of “healthwashing”—that sweeps these defining issues under the rug. “An open letter for the people in Gaza” denounced Israel’s 2014 military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, highlighting the widespread killing and severe injury of Palestinian civilians, including children. Noted was the extraordinary loss of infrastructure, leaving more than 100,000 people homeless, and the dramatic impacts of Israel’s ever-tightening blockade on access to essential medicines, food, and potable water. The authors criticized the complicity of third states, as well as that of Israeli health professionals who failed to speak out against this massacre.

Russia’s re-emergence as an influential diplomatic actor on the Arabian Peninsula after more than a quarter-century in the geopolitical wilderness has startled the U.S. foreign policy community and countered expectations of a sustained Russia-Gulf rift over Moscow’s military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The crowning achievement of Russia’s diplomatic outreach to the peninsula was Moscow’s June 2018 ratification of a strategic-partnership agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is often described as the most trusted U.S. security partner in the Arab world.¹ This agreement laid the groundwork for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Abu Dhabi in October 2019. Putin’s trip resulted in $1.3 billion in new bilateral trade deals and caused Russian and Emirati officials to optimistically muse about the strategic partnership’s future trajectory.² The positions of Russia and the UAE toward regional security crises have converged in striking fashion. In December 2018, the UAE re-established diplomatic relations with Syria and recognized Assad’s legitimacy. Since April 2019, Russia and the UAE have lent material support to Libya National Army (LNA) chieftain Khalifa Haftar’s offensive against Tripoli, and Russia has engaged diplomatically with the UAE-aligned Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen.

The marked upswing in Russian-UAE cooperation has fueled speculation about the foundations of the strategic partnership. Some contend the partnership is mainly transactional. The argument that the UAE is hedging against U.S. disengagement from the Middle East or using Russia as a bargaining chip to secure sophisticated U.S. weaponry — like F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets — has gained particular traction.³ While these hypotheses have some logic, they inadequately explain why the partnership has strengthened in spite of Russia’s pursuit of closer ties with Iran and Qatar. This would seem to diminish Moscow’s value to the UAE. Besides, why would Abu Dhabi risk antagonizing Washington by establishing closer relations with Moscow?

This article contends that Russia’s strengthened relationship with the UAE can be primarily explained by ideational synergies. The leaderships of both countries share an aversion to popular revolutions and hostility toward grassroots Islamist movements. To illustrate how these common perspectives translate into foreign-policy decision making, this article will examine the approaches of Moscow and Abu Dhabi to the Sudanese revolution and the Syrian civil war and assess the prospects of an extension of the partnership to a collective-security framework for the Persian Gulf.

Russia is a country that Western and other observers have often claimed pursues a grand strategy, and that it does so far more determinedly and successfully than its Western counterparts. The Middle East is a region in which not just the Soviet Union and now Putin’s Russia have been described as successfully pursuing grand strategies. Tsarist Russia also did, and for a longer period than its successors. Still, both the Tsars and the Soviets experienced setbacks in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, as Russian observers have noted proudly (and Western ones ruefully), Russia has displayed a knack for recovering from setbacks and often becoming even stronger than before — thus enhancing its reputation for successfully pursuing a grand strategy.

What has that grand strategy been, and what is it now? If it exists, it is hardly a uniform plan spanning centuries and regimes. Various Russian leaders have, in fact, pursued markedly divergent policies toward the Middle East at different times and under different circumstances. The ideological justifications of Tsarist, Soviet and Putinist policies toward this region (among others) have also been quite different from each other. Yet, there have been certain commonalities in their approach to the region, including a marked tendency to forgo ideology in favor of expediency as well as to pursue seemingly contradictory aims either sequentially or even simultaneously. As a result, Tsarist, Soviet and Putinist policies toward the Middle East have often appeared to be more a series of tactical maneuvers than coherent grand strategies.

This should not be surprising. Despite the authoritarian nature of the Tsarist, Soviet and Putinist regimes, Russian policy makers — like those elsewhere — have often been subject to competing influences and pursued contradictory aims. Further, the Middle East has posed a complicated set of problems for Russia. On the one hand, it has often regarded states and other forces in the Middle East as opponents. On the other, Russia has also regarded the Middle East as an arena within which to compete with Western great powers. Further, however important the Middle East has been for Russian governments, Russian domestic politics as well as the balance of power in Europe have always had a higher priority for them. Russian setbacks in the Middle East, then, have not necessarily resulted from the failure of Russian policy there, but from severe crises in Russia or Europe resulting in diminished Russian ability to act in the Middle East until those crises have been resolved.