The Road to July 15 in the Turkish Armed Forces and Combat Effectiveness in Its Aftermath

Analysis will scrutinize the challenges and probable courses to steer the TAF out of the current dilemmas, and will offer a perspective on the combat readiness and the transformation of the civil-military relation in the post-July 15 Turkey.

Turkey has experienced, for the first time in the Republic’s history, a coup attempt by a religious community, known as the Fetullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), who secretly flourished in the cadres of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). The significant issue is that the infiltrating body of FETÖ-members were well-known in so far as their presence, but were not well identified in terms of their exact identity and network. The overall discourse of the FETÖ infiltration of the TAF, the July 15 coup attempt, and the imposed measures of the AK Party government challenged the combat effectiveness of the TAF, especially in the realm of the witnessed crises in the Middle East. This paper will scrutinize the challenges and probable courses to steer the TAF out of the current dilemmas, and will offer a perspective on the combat readiness and the transformation of the civil-military relation in the post-July 15 Turkey.

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