Why has the order in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) broken down? Is it Possible to Repair?

Over the years, as in many other institutions, the hierarchical structure of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) has deteriorated as a result of wrong practices in the registration and promotion system and the loss of the importance of merit. As a result, there have been breaks in the chain of command, deviations from discipline and distancing from the environment of trust within the institution. The sense of realization that "military service is a way of life", which was formed with the spirit of military service and comradeship starting from Military High Schools, was gradually replaced by an understanding of military service as an ordinary profession.

In the Turkish Armed Forces, it is important that military service is seen as a way of life. Everyone who is a 'soldier' adheres to the oath they have taken and fulfills its requirements. As a soldier who is ready to give his life for the sake of the homeland and nation without any expectation, he sticks to his duty with his whole being and continues his military life in this way. 

Those who see military service as a profession, on the other hand, prioritize acting in line with their personal interests. They live a life focused on what they can gain financially from this profession. They base their entire calculation on financial return and see the professional career ladder only as a tool for more salary.

At this point, it is likely that there will be serious divisions within the TSK organizational culture between those who adopt military service as a lifestyle and those who adopt it only as a profession.

Those who embrace military service as a way of life strive to work sacrificially, regardless of working hours, in order to prepare themselves and other soldiers under their command for war. Especially at young ages and ranks, they do not leave the training, shooting and sports fields day and night, and they do not see this as a burden. In line with the saying "He who does not sweat in peace will bleed in war", they do not even think of complaining, even if they get tired, sleep deprived, wet, cold, cold and, if necessary, hungry. They do not hesitate to sweat their last drop of sweat for this cause, and they never compromise on the task assigned to them. Among them, those who are generally more idealistic may be eager to take the 'staff' training, which we can call the 'master's degree' training of military life. They may dream of becoming Staff Officers. In order to be successful in the academy exam by sacrificing themselves while fulfilling their duties, they prepare to win the academy with a disciplined study in the time they can spare from their free time and the time they can spare for their families. Only a very small number of them qualify to enter the War Academy and become staff officers. 

For another group of officers, military service may be just a profession. They may even forget their oath and try to move to a field where they can be comfortable and earn more money, even though this is contrary to the spirit of military service. Instead of sweating it out on the training grounds, they can create more free time for themselves by giving command to lower ranking sergeants and midshipmen who have no military experience. Thus, they may prefer to work towards winning the academy or improve their foreign language skills in order to become a staff member. In fact, they may want to get a high grade in their foreign language and be selected for a post abroad, thus having a high financial return. 

Of these two courses of action, especially those who see military service as a profession and in a sense 'a mechanism to fulfill their interests' may succeed in drawing a more successful professional profile than those who adopt military service as a lifestyle.

Up to this point, I have talked about the two paths that officers in the Turkish Armed Forces follow after graduating from the War Schools, as if it were a hypothesis. In reality, I and my circuit mates have experienced both of these paths. 

As a result, we realized that the vast majority of those who graduated from the academy and were selected for permanent assignments abroad were those who saw military service only as a profession. We later learned that some of them were even given questions by the religious communities to which they belonged and were able to easily pass the academy. We also witnessed that similar connections were at work in their permanent assignments abroad. Was this normal? Of course not. But they were things that happened mostly in secret, but in front of our eyes. Things we couldn't name, we couldn't identify, but we witnessed up close. We witnessed a few of our friends, whom we thought that this guy would never make it to the academy, that he didn't have what it takes, proudly wearing the epaulette of a staff member. Or being selected to go abroad.

Those who sweat in the field of education and work in the academy by sacrificing themselves and their families suffered serious demoralization when they saw those who worked only for themselves without visiting the field of education, and unfortunately, they started to move away from the field of education. As the number of qualified officers in the training field decreased, the quality of training in the TAF decreased, sometimes leading to compromises in standards. As a result, even unintended casualties, especially in internal security operations, became rare. 

As if this was not enough, in the 2000s, a tragedy aimed at ending the TAF began to take place. Regardless of the subject and how it was obtained, an officer who obtained a master's degree in any way was given the right to be promoted one year early due to his success. Instead of 'being a good officer' and getting a good record in return, and then standing out among those with a good record and being promoted early (mümtaz promotion), the vast majority of officers took the opportunity to get a master's degree at universities and thus get ahead of their own senior colleagues in a very short period of time. 

Unfortunately, the traditional hierarchical structure of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) was disrupted due to this system of early promotions, which deviated from the classical "meritorious" promotions, and unfair promotions of two or three years each. Some officers were promoted ahead of a distinguished officer who graduated from cadet school one or two years earlier, and became his superior. So much so that a senior officer was promoted to major while a junior officer was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In the meantime, interesting situations also took place. As a habit of mouth, the lieutenant colonel continued to call the major "sir". 

Among the officers, when asked "How old are you?", everyone would give his/her cycle based on the year of graduation from the War School. For example, if they graduated from the Military Academy in 1988, they would say "I am from '88". When some ignorant people, who had nothing to do with the Turkish Armed Forces, added a year or two of master's degree seniority from aquaculture, and started saying that they were from '89 or '88, even though they had graduated from the Military Academy in 1990, the classical hierarchical structure of the Turkish Armed Forces was suddenly turned upside down. This situation spread to spouses and children.

We also noticed some people who were able to become staff members even though, in our opinion, they did not deserve it. In order to hide the lack of knowledge and experience that they should have acquired in the field of education, such people started to engage in unlikely variations in order to gain favor with the commander at the headquarters where they were assigned. While they were supposed to support and contribute to the training of young officers in the training field, they were in a race to prepare the best reflection. Continental officers nicknamed these behaviors "Power Point" wars. 

Many of them did not benefit the continent in any way, and many of them knowingly or unknowingly misled their superiors and commanders. Since some of the commanders were going through the same process, they did not want to put a stop to such actions that flattered their pride but were in fact unbecoming of a classical officer. Apparently they even liked it. 

In military service, "Everything should be for the Corps". This is the basic principle. As Atatürk so succinctly put it, "the continent is the school". However, over time, this understanding evolved into "Everything is for the headquarters". Some of these undeserving officers were made Battalion Commanders before they even had the opportunity to become Company Commanders. Therefore, in the hands of these unqualified and unqualified people, the battalions, which are the most important executive level of the TAF, have also deteriorated. For this reason, subordinates, seeing the incompetence of the Battalion Commander, began to distrust the Battalion Commander, and unqualified Battalion Commanders, seeing the distrust of subordinates, began to distrust their subordinates. Here is an important cause of deterioration.

The presence of some crypto Fetöists feeding on this structure contributed to the creation of a dangerous environment of distrust within the TSK, in an environment where there was distrust in the subordinate-superior relationship. The number of commanders who can order their subordinates to die has decreased day by day. The number of soldiers who would gladly sacrifice their lives for the homeland decreased at the same rate. Like many of my friends, I have witnessed this atmosphere of distrust myself, albeit sadly from time to time.

In this deteriorating environment, unfortunately, the registration system has also deteriorated. So much so that the success-oriented, discipline and performance-based registration system was ignored. Instead of the objective evaluation of superior over subordinate, undeservedly high records based on brother-sister relationships, mutual interests and similar lifestyles came to the fore. The average score of officers in the same rank was reduced to an unbelievable average score of 97 out of 100 full points. This meant. Everyone is a good officer. Even if you were an officer who did your job very well, when your superior officer gave you a record of 95 for that year, this very high score was seen as a punishment. Because this below-average grade put you far behind the rest of your fellow officers. 

If you wanted to demoralize an officer, not to send him abroad or even not to make him a staff officer, it was enough to give him a slightly lower grade. Would justice and merit come out of this? Of course not.

Today, as far as I can understand based on what I have heard, this situation has unfortunately not changed. Unfortunately, our Military High Schools, which are the main source of officers for the Turkish Armed Forces, are closed. In recent years, a large number of officers have been recruited from civilian sources to fill the shortage of officers in the Forces. It is possible to welcome this way of recruiting officers for technical classes, but this way of recruiting officers for combat classes is not the right way for the future of our country. This type of recruitment of combat officers is unacceptable. Because we know that officers are not recruited, they are trained. It takes a very long time to develop the notion of military service. Being able to assess the situation, make judgments, make decisions and give orders is something that can be formed as a result of this long training process. This is not something that applies only to us. This is the essence and necessity of this job in armies all over the world. While there is a way to recruit officers directly from universities and then train them to become officers, it requires a much longer period of time than usual. Detailed and arduous training is required. First and foremost, it requires a professional training process to create a solid psychology that can make them willing to risk death. It is essential that this training starts at an early age, and that this notion is instilled from an early age.

When I asked myself the question "Can the Turkish Armed Forces be restored to a sound structure?", I wanted to list the items that I can suggest to you based on my 26 years as an officer and 8 years as a cadet. I hope that such ideas will be appreciated by the authorities of our state and that the necessary steps will be taken to move the Turkish Armed Forces to a better position.

1. First of all, the TSK must be depoliticized. In order to restore discipline within the TSK, the Internal Service Law, the Law on Disciplinary Courts, the Military Penal Code and the laws that determine the discipline and functioning of the TSK should be revised and put into force.

2. Disciplinary Courts, Military Courts and the Military High Administrative Court should be re-established.

3. Officers from the Judge Class should be appointed to the Disciplinary Courts to be established at brigade level.

4. Military High Schools should be opened.

5. Foreign languages should be emphasized in Military High School education so that each officer can learn at least one foreign language at an academic level in the military field and one foreign language at a level that they can speak and understand. In order to keep the level of language knowledge at a high level, foreign language exams should be held every year. The grade obtained in the Foreign Language Examination should also affect the officer's rank and seniority among his/her peers.

6. Until the Military High Schools graduate, the security investigations of the students to be admitted to the War Schools should be carried out very well and they should be admitted after an effective exam.

7. Training areas should be made attractive, and the most important criterion for promotions, assignments abroad and for officers to be recruited to military academies should be the success in the training area. The officer's success ranking should be determined by adding a certain percentage of the officer's military record, the points of awards received and disciplinary grades to the success in the training field.

8. The earliest entry to the war academies should be at the rank of major. An officer should serve as a Team, Platoon and Company Commander in the Corps until the rank of Major. In the meantime, he/she must have completed at least one oriental duty. 

9. All officers graduating from the Land War College must take the Commando Basic Course before going to the Class School, and all officers belonging to the Infantry class must have taken and succeeded in the Commando Specialization Courses, Free Parachute Courses and Diving Training. Those who fail these courses the first time should be made to repeat them, and those who fail these courses should be assigned to auxiliary classes. In the selection for the War Academies and Permanent Duty Abroad, the success points of the courses taken by the officer should be added as plus points in the entrance scoring of the War Academies.

10. Class Schools, which teach the tactics and techniques of the classes that follow the War School, should start after the Commando Basic Course. 

11. Class Schools should be implemented for a minimum of two years, including the Commando Basic Course and the On-Site Internship.

12. In promotions, instead of promoting the next in line, the most successful ones should be promoted to meet the staffing needs according to rank. Technical staffing studies should be carried out according to how many personnel are needed from which class to which rank, and it should be ensured that those who deserve to be promoted are promoted and that backlogs in the upper ranks are prevented.

13. The efforts of officers and non-commissioned officers that contribute to the development of military service should be rewarded. The punishment and reward system should be carried out together.

14. Appointments should be fair.

14. Appointments should be fair.

15. In the transition from non-commissioned officer to officer, it should be ensured that the non-commissioned officer has graduated from at least a 4-year faculty and has developed himself/herself to the level of an officer in terms of knowledge and manners. Such an officer should have an open entrance to the War Academies.

16. Officers who will be assigned as commanders must have distinguished themselves among their peers. An officer who has not served as Battalion Commander should not be appointed as Regiment Commander, and an officer who has not served as Regiment Commander should not be appointed as Brigade Commander.

17. While the right to pursue a master's degree and doctorate should not be taken away from every officer, in order for them to be promoted early, they should be required to work on a thesis that will contribute to the Turkish Armed Forces and this thesis should be put into practice.

18. The structure of the War Schools should be restored to its previous form. The Commandant of the War College and the Dean should not be at the same level. The Dean should report to the Commandant of the War College. The Commander should be responsible for everything at the Cadet School, as a Commander should be.

Some people may find it difficult to accept some of my ideas and suggestions. This is also natural. The important thing is that the ideas derived from such experiences should be valued, and the most appropriate courses of action should be determined by coming together when necessary. Only then will we be able to seize the opportunity together to move the TAF to the right and necessary point. Otherwise, by saying 'I said so', we will see that nothing 'happened', but we will not want to believe it.