By Dave Anderson
Ian believes that in a conventional war between Turkey and Israel that has escalated to full-scale armored warfare, the Turks have a significant advantage of having a larger, well trained, NATO-equipped army that actually has successful combat experience against guerrilla forces. The Turkish order of battle is impressive, but I think the logistics would not work for a large scale (corps or greater) attack into Gallilee from either Syria or Lebanon. Update: I might add that in the case of a war between Turkey and Israel, if Turkey is serious, unless Israel uses nukes, my money is on the Turks. They have a huge armored corp, and the nations between Israel and Turkey aren�t going to say no if Turkey asks for access (because if they do, Turkey will just roll right through them.) Also if Turkey and Israel goes to war, it�s at least 50/50 the Egypt jumps in as well. The problem is the road and rail network leading from Turkey to central Lebanon and Syria is not particularly dense. The Israeli air force has proven it can routinely penetrate Syrian and Lebanese air defenses. Turkish air defenses are optimized for fixed location defense instead of protecting mobile formations. Strike aircraft can create choke-points where any Turkish or Syrian forces will have to wait for engineers to repair and mobile air defense units to defend. Rinse and repeat several dozen times over three hundred kilometers and the Israeli worse case scenario of fighting a multi-front war against Western equipped foes does not materialize as Egypt would not get into such a fight where most of the IDF ground forces would have several days to a week to focus on Egyptian forward forces. More importantly from the Turkish perspective is that a full-scale confrontation with Israel leads to strategic logistical failure instead of merely the operational failure I outlined above. Most of the Turkish air force is US designed, even if the air frames are assembled in Turkey. This means the Turkish air force is dependent upon a steady supply of American spare parts. Spare parts would be one of the first areas Congress would cut-off in support of Israel even as US cargo jets landed at Tel Aviv to deliver rush orders for the IAF. The same situation applies for a smaller portion of the Turkish Army�s heavy equipment. Only the Turkish Navy has few critical Achilles heels that the US could pierce by withholding spare parts as most of the Turkish Navy is German designed. Full scale armored warfare does not make logistical sense for Turkey even if we assume a no-nuke scenario. Furthermore, it does not make strategic sense for Turkey to go to the mat for what is basically an insult to the flag instead of a threat to a vital interest. What would make sense for Turkey would be a punitive expedition or a coercive step that plays to Turkish strength (political, diplomatic and military) instead of Israeli strengths. The Turkish Navy has fourteen modern, German designed submarines. It also has a reasonably large and modern frigate force with air defense capacity. The Israeli Navy is a coastal defense force with minimal deep-water anti-submarine or anti-surface capability. The Israelis have five modern German submarines, but at least three are tasked to monitor and threaten Iran. Two submarines, a trio of corvettes and a few light anti-sub helicopters can not protect Israeli trade from any Turkish distant blockade threat. That again, would be a major escalation and could have unpredictable repercussions. The predictable repercussion of splitting NATO if the US Navy was ordered to escort merchant ships into Israeli Mediterranean ports is already severe. Turkey has other ways of demonstrating its displeasure. There are a wide array of Turkish responses short of full-scale military invasion that play to Turkey�s advantages instead of Israeli advantages. Naval, intelligence and training responses are far more likely than any ground or offensive air operations. The easiest is for the Turks to be very friendly with Iran, including sharing information with Iranian air defense planners concerning Israeli training patterns and proclivities. Further engagement in a low enriched uranium for medium enriched uranium escrow account holding for Iran is another easy step for Turkey to tell the Israelis to piss into the wind. Kicking the Israelis off Turkish training ranges will also be a very easy step for the Turks to take. Full scale war between Israel and Turkey over this matter does not make enough sense for any of the major decision players at this time.
Great analysis. And I sure hope you are right that Israel and Turkey will step back from drifting into a summer of 1914 folly.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that I don�t see any way for this to go to outright war. After all, if the Korea�s aren�t going to start shooting at each other over the deliberate torpedoing of a South Korean vessel, and these are countries that actually share a border, then I can�t see Turkey and Israel going at each other over the boarding of a civilian aid ship. The lack of a common border between the two belligerents makes such a confrontation even more unlikely.
ReplyDeleteI rather doubt Syria or Egypt is exactly itching for a fight with Israel either. Frankly, when you actually have to face the consequences of armed actions, their attractiveness fades pretty quickly. The prospect of missiles and strike aircraft raining down destruction on your cities tends to make all but the dumbest leaders think twice about starting an armed confrontation. The only people who do start such actions are those who figure they can get away with it, which is why Israel and the US are about the only folks on the planet still using their conventional forces with any regularity. The only other recent example was Georgia�s ill-advised attempt to conquer South Ossetia, believing the US had their back no doubt, and getting a harsh lesson about what it means to be wrong about such things.
Lest we forget, Syria had its air defenses penetrated with considerable ease when the Israelis bombed that suspected nuclear site some time ago, and the Israeli jets that carried out that mission travelled into Turkish airspace to get away. You can be sure that kind of cooperation won�t be forthcoming again anytime soon, but that, along with the destruction suffered by Lebanon during the conflict with Hezbollah and the repeated flattening of Gaza and other Palestinian areas serve as a useful reminder to the Syrians and the Egyptians about the possible fate of their cities should war break out. Such should be sufficient for them to want to avoid one on their territory. As you noted, expeditionary forces, the kinds that allow you to fight wars beyond your own borders, are a luxury that few nations partake in. Last I checked, Turkey wasn�t one of those, and certainly not on the scale that would allow them to launch an attack on a nation like Israel.
Any violent confrontation between Turkey and Israel would be more likely by proxy, or via long-range missiles and bombers. Hezbollah showed that the Israelis are no better at defending against such a threat as anyone else is, but I don�t see that being very likely either. As memory serves, Israeli intelligence has also been quite active with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, and Turkey is no doubt aware of possible blowback from that direction should things escalate too far.
Far better for the Turks to keep the Israelis in the position of the uncouth bullies, ignoring international law and killing helpless civilians. The possible aid convoy with Turkish naval escorts is a good move on their part. The Israelis can no doubt stop such a convoy, but to do so risks putting the reason Israel can get away with such actions in the first place, the uncritical support of the US, into jeopardy by attacking a NATO member. As Steve notes above, such a move will show just how much the tail wags the dog in the US-Israel relationship, something no one outside the Likudniks in the US likely wants to see tested. Meaning I see the most likely scenario being an embarrassing backdown of the blockade by the Israelis should the Turks go that route. Whether the Turks do or not is another matter. The ball is definitely in their court though.
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