Turkish armed forces
the Turkish armed forces (tr.: Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri) cover the military organizations army, navy and Air Force for the defense of Turkey. They have with 679.734 men the second largest man strength of NATO behind the USA. From these at present 35,000 is stationed in north Cyprus.
In times of peace Gendarmerie and coast guard are subordinate to the ministry of the Interior of Turkey, become in the Kriegsfall however the army command and/or. subordinates the naval command.
The supreme command over the Turkish armed forces is with the general staff boss, who acts usually on instruction of the president, who very often before high military was. At present (2006) general Hilmi Özkök holds the supreme command , the 25. Commander in chief since end of the Osmani realm.
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history
the beginning of the history of the modern Turkish military can be specified on the end of the First World War and the decay of the Osmani realm released thereby, after the monarchy already weakened had pulled still on sides of the Central Powers into the war. The osmanischen and vorosmanischen gentlemen in the area of today's Turkey appointed themselves particularly to the rider traditions of the Turkvölker, which came however since then in small extent to carrying. With the loss of the war the Turkish heartland was occupied and the armed forces was dissolved.
Mustafa Kemal (towards. Atatürk) created the armed forces after the republic also again.
During the Second World War Turkish soldiers did not participate in fighting, but against 1945 Turkey explained the war to the German Reich, in order to get a seat in the United Nations.
To 17. October 1950 occurred Turkey with a brigade, consisting of 5.090 men, on sides of the USA into the Korea war . In the course of the war 731 Turkish soldiers died, whereby about 2000 became was wounded. Altogether about 50,000 Turkish soldiers were sent to Korea.
18. February 1952 became Turkey member of NATO.
On initiative of the USA a southeast command was furnished, which was led in each case by an American general and a Turkish and a Greek deputy. Thereupon Turkey turned on both on recommending the USA as well as in the own interest the modernization of the army.
1974 marched Turkish troops into north Cyprus .
By the strategically favorable situation between Europe, Asia and Africa, surrounded of the black one, Ägäi and Mediterranean Turkey stands in a special geopolitical situation. She saves aufrgund the proximity to the permanent crisis centres the Balkans, the Near East and the Caucasus also special risks.
defense policy
the collapse of the Soviet Union released a making vacuum in central Asia, on the Balkans, in the Orient and in the Caucasus .
Turkey in terrorism, Langstreckenraketen and weapon of mass destruction sees special threats for its security.
spreading meaning of the Turkish armed forces for the Turkish commonwealth
the Turkish armed forces see themselves for decades as guards of the new state order introduced of Atatürk. Against the military no durably different politics were possible in the past 80 years.
Substantial point of many arguments around the Primat in the policy was in the sense Atatürks the clear separation between state and religion. Because of the abolition of the relevant laws so far all religious-conservative governments failed.
The course of the present conservative-religious Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdoğan, contains however also the Zurückdrängung of the traditionally strong influence of the military on the Turkish policy.
To that extent the meaning of the Turkish armed forces is zweischneidig in the times of the intercultural conflicts between the west and the Near East: the armed forces stand on the one hand for the western orientation of the separation from religion and state, on the other hand one they stand against the western principle of the Primats of the policy over the military.
Not wrongly might be to attribute to the high generals of the Turkish armed forces apart from the military tasks also a kind supervisory board function on the state happening.
