‘Yes’ is a security risk

The big picture
The United Nations has warned of the largest humanitarian crisis to face the world since 1945. More than twenty million people are threatened with drought and famine in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. Lying behind this crisis are global warming, instability and despotic regimes, Islamist terror and sectarian wars within Islam. The probability of crises of this nature increases in countries where democratic regimes are replaced by unsuccessful, despotic regimes. And crises of drought and famine stoke up wars over resources and accelerate migration. The total number of migrants in the world has reached 250 million.
Do not look at the four countries above and say, ‘Africa – what’s it to us?’ The international Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has pointed out that available supplies of fresh water in the Middle East have fallen by 75% over the past forty years. The latest findings indicate that the Middle East will become uninhabitable within the next 30-40 years (InterPres 14/03/2017). The rapidly deteriorating water shortage problem threatens the drinking water, agricultural and food resources of the region’s rapidly increasing population. The FAO expects a further 50% reduction in these water supplies by 2050. With the water resources of most of the countries in the region coming from abroad, this adds geopolitical risk to the water and food shortage problem. And geopolitical risks give rise to wars and migration. Lying behind Syria’s civil war, alongside external interference, and over and above this, are drought and crises in agricultural production. War has created a massive wave of migration.
 
New risk perception
I have previously stressed that financial markets have begun to show an interest in political risk. Two reports, one published by CitiGroup in recent weeks and one by fund manager Bridgewater last week, show that financial markets are now beginning to focus on political risk rather than economic risk. The main matter of concern is the rise of the social opposition known as ‘populism’. With populism having until recently been seen as a problem of underdeveloped, dependent countries, its recurrence in the USA and Europe is increasing global risk. Bridgewater’s report, having discussed the fascism of the 1930’s and stressed the similarities with the current wave of populism, comes to the conclusion that if social structure is flexible enough to accommodate this populist wave, there is no great problem. If society cannot flex with the pressure of this wave and is broken, fascism and then wars beckon.
The AKP has brought the country to a position in which all the above risks are entailed and political risk is enhanced, and, through this referendum, is trying to take it even further. For example, with the country even now categorised as being water poor with 1.52 square metres of drinking water available per-capita and this amount expected to fall to 1.12 square metres by 2030, the Islamist regime wants citizens to have more children, and a slaughter of trees has been going on ever since it came to power. Hydroelectric power station projects play havoc with the ecosystem and urban transformation increases urban water needs.
The AKP regime has lost the Middle Eastern market with its political adventures of recent years and is now on the verge of losing the European market. The country is stuck in an unsustainable slow rate of growth dependent on consumption, external credit and construction. The Syrian adventure has turned the country into a wayside inn where ISIL organises freely. Now, some analysts in the West are starting to discuss the risks that this state of affairs may engender in the near future with reference to the nuclear bombs at İncirlik.
Under these circumstances, are you going to say ‘Yes’ to a constitution that will surrender the state, and thus your security, to an individual who says, ‘We have plenty of blood to spill?’