When U.S. military academies teach strategy, they talk about the “DIME model” of national power. The concept is simple: Every strategy should have diplomatic, informational, military, and economic components.
Across administrations, U.S. policymakers are prone to making two mistakes. The first is to try to sequence components of strategy: diplomacy first. If that does not work, then perhaps next an economic strategy like sanctions, with military options as a “last resort.” In reality, though, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Want to enable diplomacy to work with Iran? Military actions do not just mean bombing. To pull aircraft carriers out of the Persian Gulf so F-18s or F-35s potentially could strike at Iran without the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps being able to threaten the carriers with drones, missiles, or suicide speedboats would send a message to officials in Tehran that Washington is serious.
The second mistake is a tendency to ignore the “informational” component of strategy. Voice of America-Kurdish, for example, continues to operate in the same manner and with the same focus and linguistic breakdown as it did when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, never mind that Iraq is today free, Iraqi Kurds have open access to satellite channels, and the greatest repression occurs not in Iraq but in Turkey.
The lack of political and press freedom combines to make Turkey a petri dish for propaganda.
Turkey [Türkiye] officially may be a NATO ally, but it increasingly is a problem for U.S. national security. Within NATO, Turkey is unreliable, as the year-long extortion of Finland and Sweden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s blackmail of the defense alliance showed. Nor does any credible voice in the United States or Europe pretend anymore that Turkey is a democracy. Even Freedom House, whose scholars were too sympathetic to Turkey for too long, now ranks Turkey as among the worst of the worst, less free than Russia-occupied Abkhazia or China-occupied Hong Kong, and barely more free than gang-ridden Haiti. In terms of press freedom, Reporters Without Borders is even more scathing, with Turkey ranked below Venezuela and Yemen, and barely above Russia. The lack of political and press freedom combines to make Turkey a petri dish for propaganda. Erdoğan’s arguments, pronouncements, and policies cannot stand up to scrutiny and by creating an airtight bubble, he need not worry about dissent, debate, or challenge.
Under normal circumstances, the “I” in the DIME model kicks in. Information is crucial to breaking the stranglehold of dictators. It is one thing when only domestic freedom is at stake, but Erdoğan’s narratives and propaganda are more pernicious. He denies the Armenian genocide as his special forces and intelligence service work with Azerbaijan to spark a second one.
He castigates Syrian Kurds as terrorists and may use that accusation to justify an invasion, even as the violence is almost unidirectional, as Turkish drones and warplanes bomb civilian towns, farms, and infrastructure. He uses the American partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces to fan the flames of anti-Americanism while most Turks remain ignorant of the extensive ties between Turkish intelligence and the Islamic State that led the Pentagon to bypass Turkey and crystalize its relationship with the Kurds.
Erdoğan’s narrative regarding Cyprus is farcical, as Turkish settlers overwhelm and now by far outnumber the Turkish-speaking Cypriots whom Ankara says it seeks to protect. Human rights have nothing to do with Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus; Ankara’s real motivation is a desire to loot Cyprus’s offshore gas fields and use the occupied zone much as the Assad regime used Lebanon—as an outlet for money laundering.
Erdoğan’s treatment of Hamas as legitimate not only undermines Israel’s security but also betrays the Palestinian Authority.
Yet despite all this, Turks wallow in ignorance. The United States spends more than a quarter-billion dollars on Voice of America annually, and an additional $125 million on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Voice of America broadcasts news in Turkish only three hours per week, with an additional 30-minute television news summary daily. Many of these broadcasts, however, have nothing to do with Turkey itself. RFE/RL, meanwhile, does not broadcast in Turkish, though it does broadcast into Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
Voice of America and RFE/RL should broadcast into Turkey via radio and television at least ten hours daily.
This represents a strategic own goal. To invest in a Creole service but ignore a country of nearly 90 million people is national security negligence. Turkey today is among the most anti-American countries on earth; according to the Pew Research Center, Russians have a more positive attitude toward the United States than Turks. Yet neither Democratic nor Republican administrations address the problem by effectively countering Erdoğan’s poisonous, terror-sympathizing, and racist ideology and narratives.
If Voice of America and RFE/RL leaders cannot adjust, Congress should mandate they do so. Both Voice of America and RFE/RL should broadcast into Turkey via radio and television at least ten hours daily. There should be no shortage of personnel because Erdoğan has forced many Turkish journalists to flee into exile.
Programming should include interviews with Turkish dissidents, Syrian Kurdish leaders, and even Kurds from groups Erdoğan deems illegal to explain their positions. News investigations could also focus on corruption, the lifestyle of Erdoğan’s wife and children as they travel abroad, human rights abuses in Turkey’s prisons, and the destruction of cultural heritage. Lawyers might debate the utility of pursuing charges against Erdoğan and his top cronies. Historians could explain the Greek and Armenian genocides that the Young Turks perpetrated.
During the Cold War, families huddled around radios at great personal risk to listen to Voice of America or RFE/RL. They understood the Soviet Union was rotten, and the Kremlin lied to them. The “I” in the DIME was a critical component in the West’s ultimate victory over the forces of totalitarianism. Turkey may be a tougher nut to crack since many Turks remain ignorant and dangerously detached from reality, but regional security requires the West to try to penetrate the bubble. The alternative is to have Turkey descend further into terror sponsorship, genocide incitement, and ultimately, armed conflict.
