Turkey's military has long intervened in the country's politics, but a recent power play by leading military figures is remarkable — but for what did not happen. Turkey's top military resigned in a power struggle with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan late last month, yet that show of force did not topple his government. It is a long-awaited sign of the maturity of Turkish democracy; hopefully now Turkey's generals will understand their proper role in their country's politics.
Turkey's military has considered itself the guarantors of the country's secular traditions. That has meant that the military has shown no hesitance to intervene when the government appeared to stray from the path laid down by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern Turkish state in 1923. The result has been three coups and the removal of an Islamic prime minister in 1997. More often, however, the military has not had to intervene forcibly; instead, it has merely let its preferences be known and politicians have deferred to them, typically rubber stamping military decisions.
The civil-military relationship has been changing since the 2002 elections, which brought to power the Islamic Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish initials, AKP). Turkey is a predominately Muslim state, so the AKP's political ascension was probably only a matter of time. But the inevitability of that rise did not lessen the tensions between it and the military. Fortunately, the AKP is also a moderate party, which blunted the force of some of the military's objections. Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union, which demands rigorous democratic credentials from its members, also helped dampen military enthusiasm for direct action against the government.