NEW GEOPOLITICS OF TURKEY

Transcription

1 0 Risk Radar & Risk Shifts NEW GEOPOLITICS ISSUE OF TURKEY & EUROPEAN RIFT & INFOCALYPSE image: Demonstration in Afrin by Voice of America Kurdish

2 RISK RADAR & RISK SHIFTS RISK RADAR / FEBRUARY Kurdish YPG Fighters - Kurdishstruggle on Flickr. New geopolitics of Turkey The Syrian conflict has entered a new dark phase. On January 20, Turkey began an offensive against the members of the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG in the Syrian region Afrin. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees them as an extension of the Kurdish PKK movement, which he regards as a terrorist organization because for decades, the PKK waged rebellion against the Turkish state. The goal of Operation Olive Branch, as the offensive is called, is to protect the Turkish border, the Turkish president has stated. So far, more than 700 terrorists have been killed by Turkish forces. Syria s state has sent pro-assad forces to Afrin to join the resistance against the Turkish aggression. The Syrian Kurdish militia are supported by the U.S., who consider them the most reliable and effective ally in the fight against the Islamic State. Recently, Operation Olive Branch has drawn another party into the battle. According to the Washington Post, the pro-assad militias arriving at Afrin to support the Syrian Kurds are backed by Iran. This makes the conflict even more complex and entangled: Turkish troops in a messy battle against pro-assad militia with linkages to Iran, which is defending Syrian Kurds who are supported by the U.S. Especially due to the involvement of Russian troops in Syria, the conflict that first focused on fighting IS has become a concentrated geopolitical battle between major powers. Syria has become a melting pot of confronting superpowers. Over 700 social media users and nearly Vladimir 00 politicians Putin and and President journalists of have Iran been Hassan Rouhani arrested for criticizing the operation. Turkey s attacks and crackdown on critics have led to international criticism and a deteriorating relationship with the U.S. and EU. Turkey s efforts to repair relations with the U.S. and Europe, undertaken after the threat of losing investment, have been undercut by Ankara s oppression of critics. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson s recent visit to Ankara seems to have reduced tensions somewhat. But the relationship between the two NATO allies remains under strain, as anti-americanism rises in Turkey and the U.S. continues to support the Kurds. Turkey is on a course to more autonomy. The seventh year of the Syrian conflict sees Turkey extensively affected by the turmoil. While Turkey used to serve as a figurehead of democracy to the region, to the Middle East and to the North African countries of the Arab Spring, now the country has slid towards authoritarianism and conflict with the West. Kemal Kirişci, author of the recently published Turkey and the West: Fault lines in a troubled alliance (207), signals two dramatic geopolitical consequences if Turkey continues to steer its current course. The ongoing conflict in Syria risks bringing Turkey and the U.S. into a military confrontation, which was unheard of in the 70 years the states were allies. This could result, first, in Turkey s retreat from the trans-atlantic alliance and its languishing commitment to the tenets of international liberal order or even a withdrawal from NATO. Second, a divided trans-atlantic community would mean more instability for the region. For example, Russia would take this advantage to strengthen its influence in the region. The local battles in Afrin thus risk a wider range of geopolitical consequences. It shows that the Syrian war is becoming ever more complicated and can lead to more regional instability and insecurity. RISKS MARKED ON THE RISK RADAR AS NUMBER : LARGE-SCALE MIGRATION, TENSIONS THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE-EAST

3 RISK RADAR & RISK SHIFTS RISK RADAR / FEBRUARY European rift The most important date on Europe s political calendar is only a few days away: Italy s election on March 4, with a Eurosceptic party leading the polls. And after years of austerity and migration waves, European politics further splinters over another development. This is the development of a resurgent Southern Europe. With 2. trillion in debt, or 5% of its GDP and 20% of the Eurozone s total debt, Italy s upcoming elections next month will be crucial to the Eurozone s survival. Currently, the ECB s expansive monetary policy keeps Italy s debt sustainable while hurting frugal consumers in Northwestern Europe. However, for the first time in a decade, and after years of recession and fierce austerity, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece previously dubbed the Eurozone s PIGS now post accelerating growth. Paradoxically, a stronger Southern Europe could mean the internal cohesion in the Eurozone might deteriorate: although price, wage and income levels will converge across the Eurozone, Southern European member states might find themselves in a stronger bargaining position concerning the Eurozone s financial future (i.e. less stringent budget rules and/or extending the ECB s QE program). As a result, disagreement between Northwestern and Southern member states about the Eurozone s financial future might increase in the medium-term. And since Italy is too big to fail for the Eurozone, a victory by a Eurosceptic party would accelerate political rifts within the Eurozone And for the reforms to be successful, the EU has to realize that the geopolitical situation has changed since then. Russia s influence has grown. Turkey s role in the region is different and the country is gaining influence among Muslim communities in the Balkans. China takes the stage as the biggest foreign investor in Serbia this year, as a high-speed railway between the Greek port of Piraeus and Budapest, via Belgrade, is part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Europe has to act more effectively in the Balkans in order to face these geopolitical changes. How the above described developments play out will be significant to the direction the EU takes in the following years. At the same time, Europe is confronted with new geopolitical realities. RISKS MARKED ON THE RISK RADAR AS NUMBER 2: UNREST AND REGIME CHANGE IN PERIPHERY OF EU, POLICY UNCERTAINTY Meanwhile, The Italian election will be on the same day as the announcement of the outcome of Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) vote on whether to enter a new coalition with Angela Merkel s conservatives. The prize of a renewed grand coalition comes at a cost. Merkel loses key ministries to her junior coalition partner. In turn, Merkel receives critique from her own party. For example, the position for finance minister, a key role for the future direction of the Eurozone, could be taken by the SPD mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, thereby succeeding the powerful Wolfgang Schäuble. Merkel s weakened position comes at a time when Europe is in transition from a Germany-led model to a Europe with Germany leading Central and Northern Europe, France leading Southern Europe, and Poland leading Eastern Europe, as we wrote in our Macroscope. The internal regional tensions are accompanied by a difficult expansion in the southeast. In February, Brussels presented its Western Balkans strategy. Following this plan, the EU will encourage reform in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania, by renewing the prospect of membership. However, the Balkan states feel they have already been waiting for a long time, since the EU first promised membership in

4 RISK RADAR & RISK SHIFTS RISK RADAR / FEBRUARY not necessarily in new, but in more sophisticated misinformation techniques. It is now easier than ever to build false perceptions due to easy-to-use, seamless technological tools to manipulate perception and falsify reality. When we switch on our television and see images of a bombing near our house and the images are convincingly real, there is not much reason for us not to believe them. On the other hand, if we are aware of all the manipulated content on television, we might not even try to figure out what just happened. No source will be reliable anymore because anything could be manipulated. 208 will show the first signs of being an era in which it will become impossible to separate manipulated content from real content. AI technology, for example, will make it possible to create believable imitations of someone. Imagine a conversation with your mother that turns out to be a conversation with AI, based on her social media behavior. This will eventually lead to what Ovadya calls infocalypse. The problem is that technologies that enhance or distort what is real are evolving faster than our ability to understand, control or mitigate it.. Infocalypse Fake Facebook profiles, automated Twitter bots and hacked accounts are already an everyday reality to us. The negative effects of fake news are now widely acknowledged, the Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election being the most notorious case. It showed us that only a small team of Russian trolls could influence and steer the opinions of people on the other side of the globe. This process would have been impossible without the help of media organizations hunt for clicks and viewership. In the attention economy, big tech platforms are calibrated to reward information that is often misleading or polarizing, prioritizing clicks over quality of information. Now that we are aware of the force and consequences of fake news, our eyes have been opened to a new risk. According to technologist Aviv Ovadya, who already warned us about the 206 fake news crisis before the U.S. presidential elections, we are now heading for a crisis of misinformation. This time, it is about the growing difficulty to separate reality from manipulated content. A driving force of this can be found Illustrative are developments such as the open-source software that makes it easy to make convincing face-swap porn. Similarly, it is now possible to manipulate videos by combining and mixing recorded video footage with real-time face tracking. We are familiar with the basic face-swap option of Snapchat, where two faces in a picture are swapped, but having faces swapped in a video is already a lot more advanced and disturbing. Moreover, it is now possible to make a realistic, lip-synced video, as his video of a synthesized Obama shows us. Another development is automated laser phishing, a tactic that involves AI creating personalized and believable messages from traces on social media and other publicly available data. The advances in AI and deep learning are further pushing the boundaries of producing information, regardless of human checks and input. Imagine realistic pictures being created in a way that we cannot trace their origin: are these real or created by algorithms? For instance, generative adversarial networks or GANs are neural networks able to learn and create content without human input. The risks are manifold and as yet largely unknown. For one, there are the geopolitical risks. Influencing masses by leading them to believe something deeply affecting has happened, faking a speech by a leader declaring war, for example, can have severe consequences, especially in democracies. The question will be how to successfully convince audiences that some messages and news are real. Another consequence is what Ovadya calls reality apathy. An ongoing wave of misguiding information or a number of hoaxes might lead people to give up and stop informing themselves, also harmful to the functioning of democracy. RISKS MARKED ON THE RISK RADAR AS NUMBER : INFOCALYPSE

5 RISK RADAR & RISK SHIFTS RISK RADAR / FEBRUARY RISK RADAR EUROPE POLITICS HEGEMONIC KEY TO RISK SHIFTS IN FEBRUARY 208. New geopolitics of Turkey FEBRUARY 208 The potential political, sociological, economic and technological threats. PRIORITY OF RISK Is a determination of the likelihood of occurrence and the estimated impact. NEW RISK ESTIMATED IMPACT LIKELYHOOD OCCURENCE TIME HORIZON (IN YEARS) FRICTION OVER ARCTIC SEA INTERNAL STRAIN IN RUSSIA S ELITE DETERIORATING RELATION RUSSIA AND THE WEST DETERIORATING RELATION RUSSIA AND THE WEST POLICY UNCERTAINTY POLICY UNCERTAINTY UNREST AND REGIME CHANGE IN PERIPHERY OF EU 2 UNREST AND REGIME CHANGE IN PERIPHERY OF EU LARGE-SCALE MIGRATION 2 2 PROTECTIONISM PROTECTIONISM LARGE SCALE DISPLACEMENTS OF POPULATIONS CYBER-ATTACKS OR DOCUMENT LEAKS JOB DESTRUCTION ICT CYBER-ATTACKS OR DOCUMENT LEAKS JOB DESTRUCTION DUE TO AUTOMATION INFOCALYPSE 2. European rift. Infocalypse OTHER TOP EUROPE RISKS Friction over Arctic Sea Declining internet freedom Anti-establishment parties come to power Terrorism Secular stagnation Global debt glut Digital Infrastructure Failures Ageing population SOCIO-CULTURAL SOCIAL Exits from the EU -

6 RISK RADAR & RISK SHIFTS RISK RADAR / FEBRUARY RISK RADAR WORLD HEGEMONIC POLITICS KEY TO RISK SHIFTS IN JULY 207. New geopolitics of Turkey FEBRUARY 208 The potential political, sociological, economic and technological threats. PRIORITY OF RISK Is a determination of the likelihood of occurrence and the estimated impact. NEW RISK ESTIMATED IMPACT LIKELYHOOD OCCURENCE TIME HORIZON (IN YEARS) FRICTION OVER ARCTIC SEA IMPLOSION NORTH KOREAN STATE IMPLOSION NORTH KOREAN STATE INTERNAL STRAIN IN RUSSIA S ELITE DETERIORATING RELATION RUSSIA AND THE WEST UNREST IN SOUTH ASIA TENSIONS THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE-EAST POLICY UNCERTAINTY WATER CRISES LARGE-SCALE MIGRATION 2 CYBER-ATTACKS OR DOCUMENT LEAKS INFOCALYPSE PROTECTIONISM / REFORM LATAM PROTECTIONISM TRADE DISPUTE US CHINA CYBER-ATTACKS OR DOCUMENT LEAKS 2. European rift. Infocalypse OTHER TOP EUROPE RISKS Friction over Arctic Sea Declining internet freedom Anti-establishment parties come to power Terrorism Secular stagnation Global debt glut Digital Infrastructure Failures Ageing population Exits from the EU 5-0 SOCIO-CULTURAL -5 SOCIAL -

7 INTERNAL SOURCES Dasym Horizons Filtering Hegemonic Shift Filtering Technological Innovation The Macroscope EXTERNAL SOURCES Al Jazeera Brookings Buzzfeed Global Risk Insights Guardian IFEX The global network defending and promoting free expression NYT Washington Post