BERLIN’S DEFENSE TURN WARMS TIES WITH ANKARA, COOLS CONCERN FOR DEMOCRACY
Turkish democracy is the casualty of Europe’s rediscovery of Turkey’s strategic value. To better understand the context of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to Ankara next week, one has to go back to the end of the Cold War. Whereas European countries have benefited from the peace dividend, the contrary happened for Turkey in the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain. After enjoying the relative stability of the bipolar order of the Cold War era, Turkey found itself in the midst of several conflict zones. While most European countries downsized their defense budgets, Turkey had no such luxury. The fight against separatist terrorism, the turbulence created by the Gulf War, and regional conflicts like the ones in the Caucasus dictated the maintenance of a big and well-equipped army.