The Psychological Warfare Culture of Turkey's Security Institutions

The liberal Taraf daily published an alleged military document that contains plans for a smear campaign against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement.

The report shows that documents reportedly prepared by a colonel on active duty revealed that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had a systematic plan to damage the image of the AK Party government and the Gülen movement in the eyes of the public, to play down the Ergenekon investigation and to gather support for members of the military arrested as part of the inquest.

A military court ruled to ban publishing any story about the document and the TSK has launched an investigation into the reports. Although it is banned to write on the substance of the document, it should be OK to write on the organizational culture and the process that led to produce such plans.

Perhaps the correct way to start is to ask how the psychological war concept became reality over the last two decades. Before the 1990s, the psychological war concept was considered a public relation campaign. However, starting from the 1990s, when the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) successfully recruited Kurds from the region, security institutions decided to take the psychological war concept much more seriously than had already been the case. In the 1990s, a new approach was developed for the psychological war concept. At that time, using religion, effective propaganda strategies and effective media strategies were included into the psychological war concept.

This new psychological war concept has helped the security institutions extend their influence over other civilian institutions, including the Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, state-owned TV stations and other related institutions. This, of course, has created a new organizational culture for both security institutions and civilian institutions to take the psychological war concept to the center of their social engineering plans and projects.

The Psychological War Center was within the body of the National Security Council (MGK). However, as part of the EU reform project, the center was abolished in 2002. In place of the MGK-run Psychological War Center, every security institution, including the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the Ministry of Interior and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), has strengthened its units which engage in psychological war. The names of the units were replaced to "information and support units."

These units are responsible for preparing psychological war stratagems targeting specific groups and increasing public support for existing plans. It seems the documents Taraf published were a psychological war plan for two targets: the AK Party government and the Gülen movement.

A plan for a target group is prepared under two conditions. First, if a group has long been a target of a security institution and requires psychological warfare to lessen public support for it, psychological war units prepare alternative plans to seek approval from higher authorities. In this case, the plans usually include an objective and why it is necessary to implement the plan. Such plans have always been prepared for established target groups such as the PKK, the Kurdish Hizbullah or other groups that are considered outlawed.

The second condition under which a psychological war plan is prepared is when a group is newly considered a target group. Under this condition, psychological war units do not prepare new plans for the newly targeted group upon their own initiative. Rather, they seek orders from higher authorities to include the new group in their psychological war concept.

It is not very likely that the AK Party and the Gülen movement have been targeted for long because the AK Party is the ruling party and the Gülen movement was recently acquitted unanimously in Turkey's highest court. Therefore, one can easily expect that the recent psychological war plan targeting the AK Party and the Gülen movement that Taraf published was prepared with the knowledge of senior authorities.

It is too early to say the plan was prepared with the knowledge of Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ. Yet one can easily speculate that the psychological war plan could have been prepared by mid-level officials to get ready for Gen. Başbuğ asking them to prepare plans targeting the Gülen movement. One of the reasons why this is likely is because Gen. Başbuğ has been one of the foremost advocates among those who think moderate Muslim networks are a major challenge to the nation-state. Since 2006, Gen. Başbuğ has been highlighting this argument. It is likely officials at low levels could have been encouraged by the general's statements to prepare such documents and to present psychological war plans to Gen. Başbuğ.

Dr. Emre Uslu is an analyst working with The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.