By Gauthier HORDEL in France (PCF Rouen)
Slowly but surely, tensions have been rising in recent weeks between Greece and Turkey in the Mediterranean basin, over the issue of gas exploration rights and there is a possibility of conflict on the horizon. France, too, has now become involved, along with Italy, as naval vessels square up to each other off the southern coast of Turkey.
France has up to now been a major player in the Levant but is now increasingly in competition with Turkey which is a growing regional power, aiming to extend its economic and political influence in the region. The military tension has reached a climax around the island of Kastellorizo off the coast of southeastern Turkey. Although it is a Greek island, it is only about three kilometers from the Turkish coast and Turkish exploration for gas in this area has created an area of conflict between the two countries.
Greece has many other islands off the west and southwest coasts of Turkey, often at distances of less than twelve miles and this is why Turkey is not a signatory to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows for the division of maritime space between states and which would then mean that these islands effectively have ‘Greek’ sea areas encroaching on ‘Turkish’ sea areas.
Natural gas deposits discovered
There are an estimated 3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas under the eastern Mediterranean and it is this huge reserve of gas that is generating tensions and potential conflict. Turkey is actively prospecting this part of the Mediterranean and is seeking to get its hands on these reserves, including around the island of Kastellorizo. Turkish seismic drilling vessels have been escorted by the Turkish navy vessels and this has already led to a clash between a Turkish and a Greek warship, leading to an intervention by the French Navy. The French have intervened to “help the Greeks” because, according French president Emmanuel Macron, “It would be a grave mistake to leave our security in the Mediterranean in the hands of others”.
What these words mean is that the French state is seeking to hang on to some control of the Mediterranean for the benefit of French capitalism, even if it means coming into conflict with burgeoning Turkish capitalism. Yet these three countries are all supposed ‘allies’, members of NATO, an alliance inherited from the Cold War between the USSR and the United States, and largely for the benefit of the United States.
Turkish foreign policy
To better understand the situation, we need to examine the basis of Turkey’s foreign policy in the region. In the course of the civil war in Syria, we have seen clashes between regional powers notably Russia and Turkey. The regime of Syrian president al-Assad became completely dependent on Russian support (as well as others on the ground) to win the war. By giving his military backing, Putin has gained an important strategic position on the Mediterranean, largely at the expense of the collapse of any influence of the USA. Russian influence in the region is not only important for the hydrocarbon resources in the region, but also for the transit of Russian natural gas to the west. The essential focus of the Russian intervention in the Syrian war, therefore, was to maintain the current regime and the ‘stability’ that comes from it.
For Turkey, on the other hand, its intervention in northern Syria and its support for far-right Islamist groups has been aimed at undermining the Kurdish militias (YPG) which had played such an important role in defeating ISIS in northern and western Syria. Turkey’s repression of its own Kurdish minority demanded that the Ankara government block any independent political or military movement of Kurds across its borders: hence its military intervention in northern Syria. The claims for an autonomous Kurdish territory in Syria, something that naturally arose after the YPG role in the war, represented a threat to Erdogan’s regime.
Russia played down military tensions
The result has been a degree of military tension in Syria between Russian and Turkish forces. Nevertheless, for the moment, economic interests dominate and it is for that reason that Russia has played down the military tensions, with even a muted response when the Turkish army shot down a Russian fighter jet on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Through its exploration for natural gas, Turkey is seeking greater independence from Russia, from whom it currently imports 70% of its needs. Despite what would be a high cost in extraction of gas off its southern coast, Turkey is seeking to control these resources as a means of asserting it “independence and power”. Erdogan’s stance is also based on his domestic policy strategy. Which is pro-capitalist and which has led him to implement many anti-social measures. He has, for example, dismissed more than 150,000 civil-servants since the abortive coup in 2016, and instigated purges “necessary” to meet the imperatives of Turkish business. His domestic policy has fueled dissent that threatens his position, which is based on the AKP his own party, in alliance with the MHP, an ultra-nationalist party.
Erdogan’s belligerance
Erdogan’s belligerent striving for greater Turkish “independence” and power is aimed at flattering MHP supporters and playing to an anti-Western, nationalist sentiment that has lingered among a part of the population ever since the old Ottoman Empire was dismembered by the Allies after the First World War. The nationalist flag-waving, attempting to draw Turks behind the banner of nationalism is a deliberate attempt to paper over the growing class division in society.
Another important domestic factor is the development in Turkey of a sizeable military-industrial complex. Erdogan has a policy of developing a domestic arms industry, in order to have armed forces equipped with all the latest technologies, and thereby to be less dependent on arms imports, particularly those from Israel. Turkey is even developing its own military drones with machine guns and has deployed them in the current civil war in Libya.
Turkey forces in Libya
France has now intervened in support of Greece, by sending two frigates and two fighter jets. Already in January, a French frigate was radar-illuminated (targetted) three times by a Turkish warship which was escorting a weapons ship for Libya. Since the fall of Gaddafi, Libya has been embroiled in a civil war between the National Union Government (GNA), based in Tripoli, and General Haftar’s forces based in the east of the country. But the Libyan war has become a battle ground from several ‘proxy’ armies from different countries. Turkey has been actively supporting the GNA, not only with Turkish troops, but also with Syrian troops it has recruited from among anti-Assad forces. On the other side, supporting Haftar, are Egypt, the UAE, France and, again, Russian forces.
As a reward for Turkish support for the GNA, Tripoli has made an agreement with Turkey for the latter to ‘protect’ its maritime borders and this allows Turkey to conduct yet more hydrocarbon exploration in the area.
Thus France and Turkey, with a variety of other countries involved as well, are waging a struggle for strategic influence in the Mediterranean. The outcome – whether or not it means a shooting war – will depend on the level of tension between the two countries, but alos on the intensity of class struggle within each.
French troops sent to Lebanon
Lebanon is another example of a country is a state of crisis. Since the explosion ammonium nitrate explosion in the port of Beirut some weeks ago, on the pretext of ‘support’, Macron deployed 750 soldiers there. Lebanon is another country formerly under French control and since independence in 1943, under French economic dominance. Here again, French capitalism aims to maintain its influence by its troop deployment, at the same time sending a signal to Turkey. Seeing French soldiers once again in Lebanon, Erdogan hypocritically commented that “Macron and company want to restore the colonial order”.
These demonstrations of military force are only an extension of the economic war in which all capitalist states are permanently engaged, particularly in a world where the control of resources is a major factor in establishing that economic power and domination. Any state like Turkey that aspires to become a regional superpower will inevitably act in a belligerent manner and come up against established world powers like France. That is why, as long as capitalism reigns, ‘peace’ will be impossible. War, or at least the demonstrations of military force, are a necessity for capitalist states to realise their poliitcal and strategic ambitions.
Empty calls for ‘peace’
Economic and military conflicts between states have been further aggravated recently by the post-Covid economic crisis, as states are seeking to recapture a share of a much-reduced world market and when leaders of these states argue for ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’, it is pure lies. The same is true for all those organisations (political, trade union, NGOs, etc) that argue for “peace” but pay no attention to the very system that creates war: capitalism and the private ownership of the means of production. Empty calls for ‘peace’ are at best utopian and at worst an attempt to cover up the wounds caused by capitalism.
As long as capitalism imposes its domination as a system, tensions, conflicts and wars will be on the agenda between the great powers in different corners of the world. The worsening economic situation will only exacerbate the tensions that already exist and as long as the capitalist class has the instruments of war in its hands, the world cannot be at peace. The fight against war must go hand in hand with the struggle for the expropriation of the capitalist class. This is the only possible way that we can pave the way for peace in the world.
Based on the article on the French Marxist website, La Riposte
August 28, 2020
