May 10, 2017

The groups most affected by mass purges after the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey were the military cadets at high school and university levels. The government dismissed about 7,000 officer candidates attending four-year military high schools and four-year academies and transferred them to civilian schools.

In November, the government established the National Defense University, attaching it to the Ministry of Defense. The government also attached to the ministry the Army Military Academy in Ankara, Navy War Academy in Istanbul and Air Force War Academy in Istanbul, which all had offered undergraduate college-level education, and the Staff College at Levent/Istanbul, which had offered graduate-level degrees. Finally on April 7, new officer candidates were invited to submit their applications to the reconfigured academies. Public relations campaigns emphasize patriotism and the honor of serving in a highly esteemed institution such as the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). The application process runs through the end of May.

So far, 120,000 candidates, including 35,000 young women, have applied to become officers. The Defense Ministry is pleased with the number of applicants; officials see the high numbers as a solid indicator of respect for the TSK. But the applicants' performance results in national university entrance examinations were far below previous years, when military school candidates were chosen from the top 100,000 university applicants, out of 2.5 million applicants annually. This year, the applicants are generally from the top 400,000-500,000 bracket.

In years past, officer candidates had to attend four-year military high schools in Istanbul, Izmir or Bursa, then spend another four years at the war academies. Now there is a rapid increase in the use of "contract officers" who have graduated from civilian universities. Of course it is healthy to have diverse sources for officers, but this issue is still considered highly sensitive and thus subject to harsh ideological arguments.

Last week there was an interesting report in the daily Aydinlik, the mouthpiece of the Eurasianism-supporting Homeland Party. It said more than 30% of the candidates accepted at the Army War Academy were recommended by officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the provinces. It said some military officials are concerned by this highly disproportionate number of AKP-recommended candidates.