Turkey Effects of Flexible Response Strategy and Missile Crisis

At the beginning of the 1960s, various nuclear exercises were conducted at the instruction of the then US Secretary of Defense, Rober McNamara. As a result of these exercises, it has been revealed that in a nuclear war that may occur in Europe, there can be negligible destructions in NATO and the Warsaw Blocks. Despite the losses to be experienced, it has been understood that the superiority of NATO cannot be guaranteed. In line with the lessons learned from the nuclear exercises, the Americans began to emphasize that the NATO strategy should be rewritten with an understanding of flexible response based on nuclear and conventional weapons. Meanwhile, this approach, which increased the need for American conventional weapons, also included a function that increased arms sales to the allies.

As a matter of fact, at the NATO Defense Ministers meeting held in May 1962, McNamara brought up the issue of "flexible response". This approach, which is seen as an ideal solution for the USA both in terms of security and economy, has been met with suspicion by Turkey, especially since it means that the pressure on the flank countries such as Turkey and Norway, where the war will be experienced intensely, will increase.

Turkey was not willing to accept this strategy at the beginning. It resisted for a long time along with some other European members and was one of the last states to adopt this strategy (adopted in 1967).

In line with the logic of this strategy, the US offered to deploy medium-range missiles on the territory of its European partners. Britain, Italy and Turkey agreed to have Jupiter and Thor missiles on their soil. The Soviets reacted harshly to Turkey's positive response to the offer. Moscow radio threatened Turkey. Turkey, on the other hand, remained determined and did not give up the deployment of missiles on its territory. The agreement stipulating the placement of missiles in Turkey was made in secret and was signed on April 25, 1959 and entered into force without being passed by the parliament.

A limited conventional war situation, which came to the fore with the Flexible Response Strategy, could not prevent the attack on the flank regions of the Alliance, including Turkey, even though it protected the two superpowers from being nuclear targets. Since the nuclear weapons in Turkey were either connected to the double key system or were directly in the hands of the Americans, the degree of deterrence of these weapons depended on the will and decision of the USA to use them in favor of protecting Turkey. In the face of the uncertainty of whether NATO will use nuclear forces in the event of a possible Soviet conventional attack, opinions have begun to be put forward that NATO's deterrence for Turkey has decreased.

In this period, special attention was paid to the economic problems of Turkey and Greece at the NATO Ministerial Meeting held in Oslo on 8-10 May 1961. Various ways of helping these two countries accelerate their development programs and raise the standard of living of their rights are reviewed.

Effects of Missile Crisis on Turkey

After the United States, which wanted to develop countermeasures against Soviet ballistic missiles, and only England, Italy and Turkey among the allies, allowed the establishment of nuclear missile systems on their own soil, negotiations were held for missile systems to be installed in Turkey. Within the scope of the agreement signed between the USA and Turkey in October 1959, the process of placing 15 Jupiter missile systems (IRBM) on Turkish soil (Çiğli) was initiated. According to the agreement, the missiles would belong to Turkey and the nuclear warheads would belong to the USA. It was decided to operate a command-control mechanism so that the missiles could be used with the joint approval of the USA-Turkey by the Supreme Allied Commander-in-Chief of the USA (also NATO Commander-in-Chief SACEUR). It has been adopted that the missiles are under the joint control of the soldiers of the two countries and that the dual veto system is in effect.

The most important events in Turkish-US relations between 1960-1964 were the dismantling of the U-2 and Jupiter missiles. U-2 planes that took off from Incirlik on 16 May 1960 were shot down on Soviet soil. Thereupon, the Soviets reacted harshly to Turkey. However, Turkey is not aware of the departure of these planes. This situation has caused the problem of control of American bases and facilities in Turkey. It also revealed the possibility that the United States could endanger Turkey's security without her knowledge.

The Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting held in Vienna on 2-3 June 1961 clarified the differences of opinion between the West and the East. Afterwards, the Soviet leader Khrushchev announced on 8 July 1961 that he gave up on Russia's plan to reduce its armed forces and would increase its defense expenditures by more than one third. On August 7, he increased the Red Army's forces on the western border and, if necessary, called up the expedition reserves. 

He threatened to implement the plan. Fearing this crisis, some East Germans crossed over to the West (103,000 people in total) in the first six months of 1961. In order to prevent such crossings, Pankow, as the head of the East German Government, closed the western part of Berlin on the night of 13 August and started the construction process of the Berlin Wall, despite the objections of the three major NATO countries (USA, England and France).

Under these circumstances, NATO, which constitutes the Allied Mobility Force (AMF), has, meanwhile, formed a delegation of authorized persons to assist Turkey and Greece in their development plans.

Meanwhile, from the second half of 1962, the Alliance found it necessary to support the American response to the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba in the Caribbean Sea near the United States. This event, which went down in history as the Cuban Crisis, showed that the members of the Alliance could be affected by the policies of the great powers and inevitably suffered from their political consequences. Throughout the Depression, NATO supported the US position.

The growth of the crisis and the discomfort caused by the ongoing American blockade in Cuba and thus the Soviet regime, and the fact that ships carrying additional missiles to Cuba became the target of American weapons in the same period, strained the international community. Khrushchev, who wanted to take advantage of this tension, negotiated with President Kennedy by exchanging letters. Khrushchev stated that if the USA dismantled similar missiles in Turkey, the USSR would also dismantle the missiles in Cuba, that he had assured Turkey's territorial integrity and that he expected the same assurance from the USA. In his reply on the same day, Kennedy stated that if the missiles in Cuba were removed, the blockade would be lifted and that he had assured Cuba's territorial integrity. However, he preferred to gloss over the missiles issue in Turkey.

During this period, Robert F. Kennedy, brother of US President Kennedy, met with Dobrinin, the USSR ambassador to Washington. In this meeting, the American side accepted the dismantling of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, but wanted this agreement to be kept secret. The Soviet Ambassador stated that the Jupiter missiles were on a definite target and threatened that İzmir would become the Hiroshima of the third world war in case of a crisis. John F. Kennedy evaluated that such a bargain would increase Nikita Khrushchev's demands and that Turkey would be very concerned about being a bargaining chip.

The missile bargaining process has increased Turkey's security concerns. Despite this, the İnönü Government supported the USA during the Cuban crisis, taking into account the risk of war. The USA has announced that it will send Polaris submarines equipped with more advanced technology to protect Turkey instead of Jupiter missiles. As a result, the dismantling of the missiles was completed in line with the unilateral American decision.

In any case, the problem of dismantling the Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey has led to a relative cooling in Turkish-American relations for the first time since 1947. Turkish officials and the public have seen that the United States can endanger Turkey's security and existence when necessary for its interests. This caused the first seeds of anti-Americanism to be planted in the Turkish public opinion.

In the statement made by Foreign Minister Feridun Cemal Erkin on April 24, 1963, it was stated that the last missile had been removed from the country. Thus, the missile crisis came to an end for Turkey.

During his speech in the Turkish Grand National Assembly in January 1970, İnönü referred to the missile crisis:

“The Americans told us they were going to dismantle the Jupiters because they were out of date. However, we learned that they had bargained with the Soviets. (Today's) Administrators must not allow the Americans to bring Turkey into undesirable crises.”

The dismantling of the Jupiter missiles enabled the removal of an important obstacle to the normalization of Turkish-Soviet relations. In addition, it has actually provided a significant relief for Turkey's security, since it has eliminated the situation of Turkey being the first target in a nuclear war.

The problem of missiles also revealed the drawbacks of following a unilateral, unconditionally dependent policy on the USA. The search for versatility in Turkish politics, which started in the 1960s, was shaped by the lessons given by the Cuban crisis and the missile crisis.

References

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Bölme S.M. (2012). İncirlik Üssü. İletişim yayınları. 1. Baskı. İstanbul.

Uslu N. (2000), “Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri”, 21.Yüzyıl Yayınları, Ankara.