Strategic Intelligence

If we were to ask ChatGPT a question like this, what might its answer be?

“Is Turkey’s population and industrial settlement program consistent with its defense strategy?”

I suspect that before answering, ChatGPT would let out a hearty laugh and its response would be:

“Have you lost your mind? Would you pile the economic brain of a country and the most high-quality segment of its population into just one part of the country?”

Well, let’s ask this as well: “While Europe’s projects for building an army are flying around, our politicians, relying on our military power, think that our chances of entering Europe or being in closer contact with Europe are increasing, and they are spreading this to the public. What is the validity of this belief?”

After this question also makes ChatGPT laugh quite a bit, the following answer comes: “Didn’t I tell you, you’ve lost your mind; doesn’t even the Iran-Israel conflict, which we watch on TV screens these days like a recurring series, give you any wisdom or make you think about anything at all?”

What can I say? As a result of those who have less sense than ChatGPT dominating political decisions, the public can also occupy ChatGPT so pointlessly. It appears that the speed at which our public and politicians think and develop ideas is far below the speed of technological development. In an era where the world is undergoing such extraordinary transformation and change, where will our country, with its people and its leaders, be swept away!

The country’s population policy and industrial settlement policy are so far from rationality that a few bombardments that could be carried out on the Istanbul and Thrace region during a possible conflict would cause massive damage in this area; however, if this region is destroyed, the entire country could be taken over without even needing an effective ground war. This argument might seem a bit bold, but it is a subject that needs to be discussed thoroughly for the sake of the country’s safety.

There is no need to wait for a war; it is also known that the northern fault line passes very close to this region. A Marmara Region destroyed by a powerful earthquake could mean the destruction of all of Turkey.

Even without needing to consider the risk of an attack or an earthquake, concentrating the population and economic activities in one region means the erosion of other regions. For example, saying that construction rent is high in Istanbul means that Anatolian savings are flowing into Istanbul at a value far above construction costs, which means the erosion of Anatolia in exchange for the inflation of building values in Istanbul and the wealth of those involved in the construction business. A very important reason for regional income disparities is the creation of meaningless rents in some regions to the detriment of others in this way. The smoothing out of human and industrial movement shaped by the economic wind is a matter of public policy and emerges as a central planning function rather than a local one. The main task of the State Planning Organization, especially its ‘Regional Planning Department,’ should be to create population and industrial settlement plans and to present various budget and financial proposals to the government for their implementation. When such planning is not done, implementation is not carried out, and decisions on population and industrial settlement are left to economic data and impulses, as seen in all other operations, individual interests take precedence over social interests in social and economic decisions, so settlements cannot be healthy and pathological swelling can be seen in places.

When we come to the second related topic, we have the same distorted and irrational thinking regarding the European army and the Turkish army. Namely, when wars are fought chest-to-chest as in the past, it is a known fact that, aside from the War of Independence or the Gallipoli Campaign, our heroism in the Korean War in the more recent past is legendary. However, as seen in the recent Israel-Iran conflict, it is no longer ground power but the technology used in air power that dominates wars. With long-range smart missiles, even a single floor of an apartment building can be hit with pinpoint accuracy. With the situation as it is—that is, in today’s conditions where long-range missiles are deployed and we have shifted from labor-intensive warfare to capital-intensive warfare—ground and naval power are losing their importance, while technology-heavy air power is coming to the fore.

While heading to the last election, a military ship was docked at the Sarayburnu pier. This ship was, to use the politicians’ language, an “aircraft carrier.” How much of an aircraft carrier the ship presented to the public actually is, is a separate issue; without even considering what kind of states need an aircraft carrier and what Turkey’s position is in this context, we make our political choices according to the preferences of those who play with our brains. I honestly don’t know what need our country has for such a “little aircraft carrier” in terms of its defense needs! Our potential enemies were not so worried about the aircraft carrier in question that they didn’t even show as much reaction as they did to the imaginary map that Özal once drew as the Turkish race from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

If the state is managed with a corporate mentality, the public turns into laborers in a company, and the political cadre and their cronies turn into the boss and senior management cadre; after the created national value is distributed to the laborers in meager shares, it is plundered as profit among the boss and senior managers. When the speed of the plunder’s growth slows down, the center resorts to seizing resources created using the Ottoman collapse system so that its comfort is not disturbed. Let us be aware that the ring of fire does not only consist of those surrounding us; the visible ring of fire is around us. However, as the world we live in shrinks as a system, it is moving from the periphery toward the center with invisible rings of fire. If we deviate from the rule of optimal resource use with showy aircraft carriers or unnecessary infrastructure like the Çanakkale Bridge, which we don’t need for now, we might ensure the survival of the political cadre, but at what price and at what costs! Expecting such issues to be thought about and solved in a corporatized state structure by political and high-level bureaucrats, let alone cronies, is a dream. Let us hope that in today’s conditions, where people-based democracy may enter our political life for the first time with recent stirrings, the authorized opposition will be effective in this direction. We hope so!