The National Interest: Gambling with 80 Million Lives: Why Erdoğan Lied about Coronavirus

When faced with both local and international disbelief about why coronavirus would bypass Turkey, Turkish authorities took a dual approach. As in China, they arrested whistleblowers. They went beyond simple repression as panelists on the state-controlled Turkish press insisted that Turkish genes rendered most Turkic peoples immune. Many Turks, Erdoğan included, may embrace the notion of both Islamic and Turkish supremacy, but his basic ignorance of science may have condemned Turks to once again prove Darwin correct. [...]

Part of the reason might be Erdoğan’s dangerous combination of arrogance and ignorance. The Turkish leader’s arrogance is reflected in the thin skin he has toward criticism. According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, Turkish police charged an average of 4,500 people each year from 2014 through 2017 with insulting the Turkish leader for criticizing Erdoğan or speaking about his corruption. (Full disclosure: I am one of them). In 2018, the Erdoğan regime initiated 26,000 new cases. Aa cracks began to show in the Turkish economy, Erdoğan spared no effort to muzzle growing criticism. Nor is the Turkish leader’s ignorance any secret as the crackdown on the free press has meant the surviving media merely amplifies the conspiracy theories in which Erdoğan and his top aides believe, such as the Jews targeting them with telekinesis, or that bands on migratory birds to be evidence of Israeli espionage. The Turkish accusation that followers of exiled theologian Fethullah Gülen contributed to the spread of the virus likely is only a matter of time. [...]

As Turkey’s economy teeters, the means to avoid catastrophe are narrowing. Looting Cypriot gas was one strategy, but even if Turkish exploration ships struck it rich, it would still be years to bring the gas to market. What Erdoğan really fears is the collapse of Turkey’s tourism industry. In 2018, the Turkish tourism industry accounts for nearly $30 billion dollars. Just a year ago, Erdoğan promised that Turkey would host 50 million tourists, raising that figure by at least 20 percent. Add into the mix Turkey’s investment of approximately $12 billion in a new Istanbul airport, expected to be the world’s largest, and one in which Erdoğan and his family are reportedly heavily invested. It seems Erdoğan sought to downplay reports of coronavirus in order to encourage tourist dollars to continue to flow. In doing so, he sought not only to play Russians, Europeans, and Americans for fools, but also endangered their lives. Unfortunately for Turkey, it will be Turks who will most pay the price as Turkey threatens to become the virus’ next big cluster. One Turkish doctor estimates that as many as 60 percent of Turks may now be infected and that Erdoğan is retarding testing in order to prevent the scale of the catastrophe from becoming known. Deaths were inevitable, but Erdoğan’s dishonest will likely cause many thousand additional deaths in his country added to the dozens Turkey reportedly has already experienced but will not officially report.

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The National Interest: Understanding Putin’s Paranoid Style

Specifically, two-thirds of the two thousand Russian citizens surveyed by VTsIOM in a nationwide survey carried out in late May are convinced that “there is a group of people who seek to rewrite Russian history and replace the historical fact in order to hurt Russia and diminish its greatness.” Another 63 percent concur that “a group of people are trying to destroy the spiritual values formed by Russians through the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.”

These views, moreover, are not those of the uninformed or uneducated. Rather, as the Times details, “the older a respondent became, and the more educated, the more likely they were to agree with the statements referencing a group of people working to undermine Russia in some form.”

Even in Russia’s increasingly authoritarian political climate, where the results of any polls and opinion surveys should be considered suspect, such statistics are striking. They suggest that the secret of Putin’s enduring political success stems at least partly from a sizeable base of Russians who are deeply nervous about the erosion of national identity—and eager to blame the outside world for it.

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The National Interest: The Creeping Miltiarization of American Culture

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of the “military-industrial complex” on American politics and policy. Interestingly, Eisenhower’s original formulation of the menace was the even more accurate “military-industrial-congressional complex.” (Emphasis added). Seeing how that network of special interests has worked its tentacles into so many aspects of American political and economic life in the intervening decades indicates just how prescient was Eisenhower’s warning. [...]

Americans are rapidly approaching the point where they must make a stark choice. Either the United States adopts a more circumspect role in the world—in part to preserve what is left of its domestic liberties—or those liberties will continue to erode (perhaps beyond the point of recovery) in the name of national security. That choice will determine not only how the United States is defended in the future but whether this country retains the values and principles that make it worth defending.

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