The other side of the coin: the growing opposition in turkey against to the european union accession

IV. 3. Military Power of Turkey
In general, political leaders define power as the possession of resources which include population, territory, national resources, economic size, military forces and political stability.⁵⁶ These resources are also determined as hard power because of being tangible sources of power that “makes power appear more concrete, measurable and predictable”. ⁵⁷ In this context, the military power of Turkey presents the conventional meaning of military sources of a country such as mainly the size and strengths of military forces of Turkey.
As well known, Turkey and the EU (except Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Finland) are both the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Therefore, both sides take decisions and make consultations according to rules of NATO by taking into consideration of their territorial and regional security. Besides having a political and military alliance, they unite under the principle of collective defence, which is stated in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty of the NATO.
Republic of Turkey has not only “the biggest military forces of the NATO after the USA”⁵⁸, but also provides “access to key strategic maritime routes”⁵⁹. In other words, as “the largest army in Middle East and the second-largest army in NATO”⁶⁰, Turkey has over half million troops.⁶¹ The force structure of Turkey is determined as “The Turkish Armed Forces is composed of Land Forces Command, Naval Forces Command and Air Forces Command subordinate to Turkish General Staff as well as the Gendarmerie General Command and the Coast Guard Command, which are subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime and to the Land Forces and the Naval Forces Commands in wartime”⁶².
On the other hand, the EU has no military forces as standing army. However, in accordance to its common security and defence policy (CSDP), the EU mostly contributes the “joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance, conflict prevention and peace-keeping, tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilization”.⁶³ In this context, European Defence Agency should also be taken into account because of having mission to support the Council and the Member States in their efforts to improve the European Union’s defence capabilities in the field of crisis management and to sustain the CSDP.
The European Defence Agency⁶⁴ was established on 12 July 2004 by emphasizing five main aims:

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  to develop defence capabilities in the field of crisis management,
  
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  to promote and enhance European armaments cooperation,
  
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  to strengthen the European industrial and technological base, in the field of defence,
  
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  to create a competitive European defence equipment market and
  
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  to promote research.
  

Every year, the EU publishes the national report of Turkey in accordance of the accession process of Turkey to the EU. Turkish Armed Forces are always one of the topics of these reports and, in general, it is written that the Turkish army should be more europeanised in terms of the size, budget and civil administration, etc. In this point, however, it should be underlined that one of the main characteristics of Turkish society is the army. Turkish people are the army based society from the beginning of all the Turkish societies. The history of Turkish has lots of military victories.⁶⁵ This is also why, for the people, who do not support the EU accession, is a very sensitive and crucial topic. Therefore, Turkish society should not be examined without its military or armed forces because it is one of the main features of the society.