On a holiday weekend that has become synonymous with the latest deals, discounts and shop-til-you-drop spend-a-thons, a number of Drum Corps International organizations are aiming to keep things in perspective by getting involved with the 2014 #GivingTuesday campaign.
On December 2, coinciding with Thanksgiving and the kickoff of the holiday shopping season, #GivingTuesday is a national movement established to inspire people to take action in supporting nonprofit and charity organizations in their communities.
"#GivingTuesday is a counter narrative to Black Friday and Cyber Monday because it reminds us that the spirit of the holiday giving season should be about community and not just consumerism," says Kathy Calvin, CEO of the United Nations Foundation. "The most meaningful gift we can give our children, loved ones, friends and neighbors is the commitment to work together to help build a better world."
Financial contributions are a big part of #GivingTuesday, and the Mandarins organization will use the day as a springboard to kick off its year-end fundraising campaign. With a goal of $10,000, Fundraising Chair Kathleen Bakergumprecht-Davies said that the corps will put donations from December 2 toward its final payment on a new set of instruments purchased in 2014.
For those who may be less capable of making a financial contribution, Santa Clara Vanguard Development and Alumni Relations Manager Rosalind Achkar says that #GivingTuesday will additionally provide her organization with a platform to raise general awareness about Vanguard programs and to engage and call its alumni and supporters into action.
"#GivingTuesday is just as importantly about giving back to Vanguard through volunteering, sponsoring a meal or helping to promote our efforts through your own social media network," Achkar said. "Whether sharing your time, your passion for drum corps with others, or with donations, #GivingTuesday gives us the opportunity to continue providing once in a lifetime experiences for our members."
Jersey Surf: "There's no doubt that we appreciate tax-deductible donations as we begin to embark on our 25th anniversary season, but we also greatly appreciate the in-kind assistance and volunteer hours garnered through this outreach as well," Jersey Surf Executive Director Bob Jacobs said. "#GivingTuesday will help kick off our year-end fundraising campaign, and we're asking our alumni, family members and friends to don their Jersey Surf apparel to post #unselfie photos on social media accounts, creating additional awareness of the corps at the start of our #JS25 anniversary campaign drive."
Santa Clara Vanguard: "We will be reaching out to our alumni and fans to educate them about #GivingTuesday and how they can participate through their own social media platforms and share the message with their friends and family," Vanguard Development and Alumni Relations Manager Rosalind Achkar said. "We anticipate using the #unselfie and #santaclaravanguard hashtags along with "unselfie" pictures to promote Vanguard. It should be a lot of fun to see the kinds of photos and offers of help our friends, family and alumni come up with."
Bluecoats: "On #GivingTuesday, we'll be doing a social media campaign to garner support and collecting donations through our website," Bluecoats Executive Director David Glasgow said.
Mandarins: "Giving to the Mandarins isn't limited to monetary donations only," Mandarins Fundraising Chair Kathleen Bakergumprecht-Davies said. "Anyone interested in continuing our program of celebrating youth in transforming lives can donate in other ways as well ranging from giving a car or boat, donating electronic waste, or using Amazon Smile and selecting "Mandarins of Sacramento" as their designated charity. They can also purchase our merchandise from our online shop or at our souvenir booth during competitions."
Legends: "On #GivingTuesday we are launching our '10th Season Anniversary Campaign,'" Legends Executive Director Ibe Sodawalla said. "As part of this campaign, there are a number of projects we aim to accomplish including purchasing additional instruments and uniforms, replacing battery percussion instruments, making improvements to our food and equipment trailers, and developing an educational series to give students opportunities to engage in clinics and leadership development."


text:
Home » Astronomy » Facts About Solar System
Facts About Solar System
June 6, 2012 Astronomy
The universe has remained the prime source of curiosity among the human beings since the ancient times. Thankfully, most of the orthodox and misconceptions from those times came to an end—as science developed—with the exploration of this cosmic ocean. A number of times, stargazers came up with several theories held under varying beliefs; some were rejected while others became the foundation stone for further researches. Most of us have grown up clubbing that scattered knowledge about the universe and more specifically, our solar system, to derive conclusions in our very own ways which actually, rarely correlated with the reality! But thanks to curious scientists and efficient spacecrafts, we were and still are able to explore newer and distinctive facts about our solar system and universe at large, successfully. Now, it is time you go through the fact sheet to get deep insights about our solar system and several facts associated with it, which you may have never come across before. Get ready for the fascinating ride to the solar system!
Number Of Planets: 8
Planets' Names: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
Dwarf Planets: 5
Dwarf Planets' Names: Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea and Eris
Natural Satellites: 146
Artificial Satellites: More than 2,500
Interesting And Fun Facts About Solar System
Scientists believe that the Solar System was evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas which collapsed due to its own gravity, forming a spinning cloud.
It is considered that several small clumps of gases and dust in that spinning cloud resulted in the formation of our Solar System's sun, planets, moons, and other celestial bodies such as comets, asteroids, dwarf planets, dust and gas.
Solar System is located on the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy, which has a diameter of about 100,000 light years and contains about 200 billion stars. The sun lies between 25,000 and 28,000 lights years from the galactic centre of Milky Way.
It is believed that our Solar System's location in the Milky Way galaxy is a key factor for life on the Earth.
A major chunk of Solar System's mass, about 99.86 %, is in the Sun alone. This mass is known to dominate Sun's gravitational field. And about 99% of the remaining mass is contributed by the four gas planets.
About 98 percent of the material existing in the Solar System is present in the Sun.
Since gravity of an object is directly proportional to the size, the gravity of the Sun, due to its large size, pulls all other objects in the Solar System towards it. So, the planets, instead of flying away into the outer space, ultimately got trapped as orbiting around the Sun, their parent star.
The Sun is made up of 92.1% hydrogen and 7.8% helium, and it is estimated to be around 4.6 billion years old.
The life on the Earth is primarily backed by the intense energy and heat of the Sun.
The entire Solar System consists of eight planets. Out of these planets, first four (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are rocky and terrestrial in nature while the outer four (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) are gas giants.
The outer four planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have ring systems around them, though the rings of Saturn are the largest.
Except for our home planet Earth, all other planets are named after Greek/Roman Deities.
Most of the moons of the Solar System are named after mythological characters from one or the other culture with the only exception of Uranus. The moons of Uranus have taken their names from plays of William Shakespeare and the poem 'Rape of the Lock' by Alexander Pope, whereas Earth's moon too, is just called the 'Moon'.
The smallest planet of the Solar System is Mercury which is also closest to the Sun whereas Jupiter is the largest known planet in the galaxy and is the fifth planet from the Sun.
Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, bringing the number of known planets to eight.
The first five recognised dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.
The tiny, distant dwarf planet Pluto, orbiting at the Kuiper Belt, has a solid surface which is much icier than the terrestrial planets.
The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter includes the dwarf planet Ceres, along with a number of asteroids while the other four dwarf planets namely, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. These four dwarf planets are also termed as 'Plutoids'.
The asteroids have low mass that even the cumulative mass of all the asteroids would be less than that of the moon of the Earth.
The asteroids, also known as the 'minor planets', orbiting in the vicinity of the Earth are termed as Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
About 90,000 asteroids have been found in the Solar System, particularly in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The region far beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto is home to number of comets and is known as the 'Oort cloud'. Comets are the cosmic snowballs made of frozen gases, rock and dust particles.
Small chunks of rock and debris in space are called 'Meteoroids'. When they fall through a planet's atmosphere, leaving behind a bright trail due to heating by the friction of atmosphere, they are called as 'Meteors' or 'Shooting Stars'. Those meteors which successfully hit the ground are called 'Meteorites'.
The study of meteorites has ascertained that the Solar System may have formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
Almost all the known planets and some of the moons in the Solar System have an atmosphere.
The natural satellites, orbiting planets in our Solar System, count to be 146 and include, from bodies larger than our moon to small pieces of debris. The number does not include three moons of the dwarf planet Pluto named Charon, Nix and Hydra.
Initially, ancient astronomers considered that the Sun and other stars orbit around the Earth. Copernicus challenged the convention and proved that Earth and other planets orbit around the Sun.
The Solar System has more than 8,000 artificial objects orbiting the Earth. Out of these objects, about 2,500 are artificial satellites and rest is just space junk.
It is believed that, until the hydrogen in the core of the Sun has been completely consumed (turned into helium), our Solar System, more or less, will continue to remain as it is now for the next 5.4 billion years. It will then expand to 260 times its current diameter and will engulf the entire Solar System.
Despite more than 50 years of advanced scientific and space exploration, much is still unknown about the Solar System, let alone the galaxy in which it is located.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Two devices of ISIS are level-1, but the neighbor state is always down.
Log in the device and it is found that MTU configuration of both ends is the same, but MTU is small and it is smaller than default value of mtu-size set by global lsp-length originate. Change MTU as default one and the problem is solved.
1. The configuration is problematic.
2. The cooperation is problematic.
When enabling IS-IS under the interface, MTU of the interface must be larger than mtu-size of global lsp-length originate. Otherwise the interface regards MTU down. At the same time MTU of the interface must be larger than mtu-size of lsp-length receive, otherwise IS-IS packet cannot be correctly forwarded.


text:
Q: Laravel Cache helper "driver" not implemented I have a test that is calling a Controller, which literally handles a call to some logic service I mocked.
The test
public function test_it_can_list_all_folders()
{
    $mockedLogicResponse = [
        "id" => 1111,
        "parent_id" => 2222,
        "name" => "Some Name",
        "children" => [
             [
                 "id" => 3333,
                 "parent_id" => 5555,
                 "name" => "Ad-hoc"
             ],
             [
                "id" => 4444,
                "parent_id" => 6666,
                "name" => "Another thing"
            ]
        ]
    ];

    Cache::shouldReceive('has')
        ->once()
        ->with('campaign_folders')
        ->andReturn(false);

    $this->instance(
        Logic::class,
        Mockery::mock(Logic::class, function (MockInterface $mock) use ($mockedLogicResponse) {
            $mock->shouldReceive('fetchData')
                ->once()
                ->andReturn($mockedLogicResponse);
        })
    );

    // httpGet is just a wrapper for a call('GET', ..), it's tested and working fine
    $response = $this->httpGet($route);

    $response->assertOk(); //This goes well
    $this->assertEquals($mockedLogicResponse, $response->json()); //This goes well too
}

Controller:
class LogicController extends Controller {
protected $logic;

public function __construct(Logic $logic)
{
    $this->logic = $logic;
}

public function index(Request $request)
{
    $id = $request->get('folder_id');

    return $this->logic->fetchData($id);
}

}
Logic:
class Logic {
    public function fetchData(string $id): array
    {
        if (Cache::has('folders')) {
            return Cache::get('folders');
        }

        //This is returning correctly the data
        $foldersList = $this->getFolders(...);

        foreach ($foldersList[$folder['id']] as $folder) {
            $res = [....];
            // We perform some irrelevant logic
            $children = ['children' => $res[$folder['id']]];

            $fetchedFolders[] = array_merge($folder, $children);
        }

        Cache::put('folders', $fetchedFolders, 3600);

        return $fetchedFolders;
    }
}

The problem(s) are a few, for starters I'm receiving this:

*

*Mockery\Exception\BadMethodCallException : Received Mockery_2_Illuminate_Cache_CacheManager::driver(), but no expectations were specified
It's good to point out that I am literally copying an example from the documentation here Laravel docs, so I can't see I'm missing any step.
Also, as the Cache is being called from the mocked logic, but the method is calling them (I dumped the result of the "has" Cache method)

*As I also want to test (In another test) that the Cache::get() is begin called when requested the data for a second time, how can I clean the Cache (I set it for an hour), in order to test something like so:

Cache::shouldReceive('has')->twice();
Cache::shouldReceive('get')->once();
Cache::shouldReceive('put')->once();

Is there any step I am missing? If so, which ones?
UPDATE: After googling a bit, I found this solution, which in part solves my testing issues, but I'm concerned why the official documentation is not working, in order to use it instead of a custom solution.
Kind regards

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Sun., January 12, 2020
From Michelle Obama to E.L. James, women ruled the decade in books
By Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
There are many lenses through which to look at books in the decade just past. But one thing is certain: Women writers were a powerful force.
Early in the decade, best-seller lists were dominated (sorry) by E.L. James' "Fifty Shades of Grey" trilogy, which sold 35 million copies in the United States — making the novels the three best-selling books of the decade in any genre.
As the decade ended, the book-selling champ was Michelle Obama with her memoir, "Becoming." With more than 10 million copies sold worldwide (fueled by an unprecedented rock-star book tour), it was the best-selling book of 2018 and was on track to take the 2019 title. Another contender is Delia Owens, a 70-year-old wildlife biologist whose first novel, "Where the Crawdads Sing," is an unlikely phenomenon, selling more than 4.5 million copies and spending 30 weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list.
What these books have in common, and what they share with many other notable books of the decade, is that they were written by women. According to the NPD Group, a market research company that analyzes fields including book-selling data, women wrote eight of the 10 best-selling books between 2010 and 2019. (The only men on the list are John Green with "The Fault in Our Stars" and Stieg Larsson with "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" — both, by the way, books about female characters.)
It's not just a matter of copies sold, either. Many of the decade's major book prizes were won by women. Take fiction awards: Five of the 10 National Book Awards went to women — Jesmyn Ward won two, for "Salvage the Bones" and "Sing, Unburied, Sing" — as well as seven of nine National Book Critics Circle awards (but only two of nine Pulitzer Prizes).
The decade has seen an extraordinary run of literary fiction by women, starting in 2010 with Jennifer Egan's amazing "A Visit From the Goon Squad." It was followed by such standout books as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Americanah," Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch," Lauren Groff's "Fates and Furies," Elizabeth Strout's "My Name Is Lucy Barton" and many, many more.
And, of course, there is the comeback novel of the decade, Margaret Atwood's darkly stellar "The Handmaid's Tale," published in 1985 but suddenly relevant. Atwood followed it up this year with a timely sequel, "The Testaments."
Popular fiction by women included juggernauts like Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," Paula Hawkins' "The Girl on the Train" and Veronica Roth's "Divergent" series. Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" was published in 2008, but it ranks as the No. 4 best-seller of this decade with 8.7 million copies.
Women wrote major works of nonfiction as well. The decade had barely begun when Rebecca Skloot published "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"; the same year saw publication of Isabel Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns." Other nonfiction standouts include Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction," Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" and Jane Mayer's "Dark Money."
There have been a number of stunning memoirs by women since 2010, including Patti Smith's "Just Kids," Helen Macdonald's "H Is for Hawk," Margo Jefferson's "Negroland," Cheryl Strayed's "Wild," Roxane Gay's "Hunger," Valeria Luiselli's "Tell Me How It Ends" and Tara Westover's "Educated." The true crime genre is exploding in popularity, and much of it is written by women, such as "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" by Michelle McNamara, "Furious Hours" by Casey Cep and "American Fire" by Monica Hesse.
Women aren't just writing more; they read more. According to the Pew Research Center, 78% of women report having read one or more books in the last year, while only 68% of men have.
The surge of women's writing shows no sign of slowing. Among the most anticipated books of 2020: Zora Neale Hurston's "Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick," Hilary Mantel's "The Mirror and the Light," Louise Erdrich's "The Night Watchman" and Emily St. John Mandel's "The Glass Hotel." And that's just between January and March. Looks like a promising decade.
MORE Books ARTICLES TO READ NEXT ...
The Seine review: A travel memoir of the river that runs through Paris
Hopkins researcher finds rare copy of 19th-century book that helped lay foundation for gay rights
5 of the most highly anticipated books of 2020
Citizen 865 review: The Hunt for Hitler's Hidden Soldiers in America'
Mr. Nobody review: Best known for her role on 'Downton Abbey,' Catherine Steadman is making a splash as an author


text:
Just Russia Eurasia
This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment's global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
Preview this publication
Addressing the Turkish Dimension in Creating a Euro-Atlantic Security Community
Turkey is a particularly critical key actor for building a Euro-Atlantic Security Community, with a growing influence within the Euro-Atlantic region.
by EASI Working Group Paper
Building a Euro-Atlantic Security Community has many dimensions, including the multiple and diverse sides of security—from its political-military aspects to economic, environmental, and energy security, as well as human security in the form of good governance and respect for the rights of individuals.
Other dimensions involve the evolving role and significance of key actors. On that front, none is more important than Turkey and the dramatic changes in its role in the Euro-Atlantic region. The Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative's Working Group on Turkey, which brought together experts from Turkey and from elsewhere in the region, examined the new assertiveness in Turkish foreign policy, Ankara's growing influence within its critical immediate neighborhood, and its evolving relationship with other key portions of the Euro-Atlantic region. The report that follows assesses each of these elements. It then recommends measures to be taken by the Turkish government and Turkey's partners in the Euro-Atlantic region to fit the Turkish component into the construction of a stronger Euro-Atlantic Security Community.
Igor Ivanov
Sam Nunn
The Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (EASI) was tasked, in the words of the commission's basic concept, with creating a Euro-Atlantic Security Community "free of opposing blocs and gray areas." The community should be a vast space in which "disputes would be expected to be resolved exclusively by diplomatic, legal or other nonviolent means, without recourse to military force or the threat of its use" and in which all countries "would be bound together by a shared understanding of the major security challenges facing member states and ready to respond to them with effective organization and action." If that is the objective, then integrating Turkey into the enterprise is key.
Turkey has obvious and unique geostrategic significance for the Euro-Atlantic area, given its location at the intersection of the Black and Mediterranean Seas and aside the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Caspian basin. A population of 75 million makes Turkey by far Europe's most populous Muslim-majority country. It is a dynamic business and commercial powerhouse; its economy outperformed China's in 2010; and, were it in the European Union (EU), for the last ten years Turkey would have been its fastest growing member.
Scarcely any issue crucial in the construction of a Euro-Atlantic Security Community lacks a Turkish dimension. Speak of energy security as a critical component of a Euro-Atlantic community and Turkey's role as a vital player in the development of the new southern corridor supply route into Europe immediately arises. Turkey is an important factor for such political-military issues as the future of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), missile defense cooperation, and the disposition of nonstrategic nuclear weapons. As the Euro-Atlantic states deal with historic changes in the broader Middle East, Ankara has great potential to help shape events, and its diplomats are active players in the Balkans at a time when the attention of others has shifted elsewhere. Turkey also has a major presence in the post-Soviet space and will play an important role as that region's countries deal with political, economic, and security challenges. Ankara's positive relations with Moscow and its stake in resolving conflicts in the Caucasus can be assets in stabilizing that area and integrating both it and Russia into the wider Euro-Atlantic region. Location and exposure make Turkey's cooperation and capabilities vital in the struggle against terrorism, illegal immigration, organized crime, drug trafficking, and other illicit trade.
So too does Turkey figure prominently in the historical obstacles that must be overcome if North America, Europe, and Russia are to make of themselves a common economic and security space. Overcoming tensions and mistrust rooted in long-standing grievances between countries represents another critical step along the way to integrating the Euro-Atlantic space. Unless deep-seated sources of tension in Turkey's relations with key neighbors fade, the larger objective will remain severely constrained.
Framing the Challenge
In the not too distant past, Turkey's effectiveness as a world or even regional player often appeared limited by internal weaknesses and the burdens of history and culture. Among the former were economic failings and a fractured political system that hampered effective government and led to military control. The latter included an incomplete relationship with Europe, circumscribed ties with Russia, and an estrangement from the Arab world, the Balkans, and Armenia. As a result Ankara often "punched below its weight" in international affairs. In many cases, it was seen as a marginal complicating factor rather than a driver or source of solutions. Today, Ankara's engagement and presence appear in a markedly different light.
Ankara is energetically articulating a Turkish view, a Turkish interest, and a Turkish role on an astonishing array of issues, and then asserting itself in a manner not observed since Ottoman times. Based on its own internal social, economic, and political transformations, which have roots in changes that began in the 1980s and that have accelerated dramatically in the last decade, the country has developed an image and an influence in the volatile region around it that are enlarged and important.
Hence, it is of no small importance that Europe, particularly the European Union, has too long kept Turkey at arm's length. Whatever the complex issues that weigh on Turkey's accession negotiations with the EU, the absence of an EU strategic vision for its relations with Turkey has grown critical, as Turkey's relations within the Euro-Atlantic region reach a decisive turning point. Turkey is now more important than ever to the larger Euro-Atlantic community and that community is more important than ever to Turkey.
What Turkey brings to a potential Euro-Atlantic Security Community is, while crucial, also complicated and controversial. The country is pivotal in four regions that matter to Euro-Atlantic security—the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Therefore, the way it defines its role and executes its foreign policy bears significantly on how developments within these regions will affect the peace and welfare of the larger Euro-Atlantic region. But the exercise of that role at times has stirred misgivings in allied capitals—the May to June 2010 blowup with the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on Iran being the most obvious example. On that issue and others, new Turkish activism has not always brought consistent or unmixed successes. Ankara's ability to influence events has, at times, been limited. For instance, the risky and so far fruitless confrontation with Israel over Gaza remains, and despite increasingly strong remonstrances by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria's violence against activists within its borders continues.
When Turkey acts in ways divorced from the actions of its longtime friends and allies as well as from others in the Euro-Atlantic space, it is less successful in achieving its goals; Turkey in concert with others will accomplish more on crucial regional and global matters. Achieving this harmony is not, of course, only up to the EU or the United States but is also a task for Ankara. Thus, expectations of Turkey, as the states of the Euro-Atlantic seek to act in concert to reinforce regional stability and development, are as great as Ankara's expectations of others.
There are also domestic considerations. Almost universally, Turks are proud of their country's historic reemergence in world affairs for the first time in nearly one hundred years and resentful of those who criticize it, particularly when those critics' policies—in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on Israel-Palestine, among other issues—seem to Turks to have been deeply flawed. At the same time, Turkey's own society is polarized. Suspicion of Prime Minister Erdogan, his colleagues, and their agenda runs deep. Antipathy about and opposition to many specific policies toward Israel, the Arab world, Iran, the United States, and Russia are substantial. Turkey's ability to play an effective role and fashion more effective partnerships with the other Euro-Atlantic states depends in real measure on how these internal tensions are resolved, and the degree to which Ankara is seen to be acting at home and abroad in ways consistent with its modern secular and democratic character.
The Turkish dimension of the Euro-Atlantic enterprise, therefore, has two sides, and dealing with both in a balanced and frank fashion constitutes—for Turks as well as their Euro-Atlantic partners—the core challenge.
I. Turkey and the European Union
Like Russia, Turkey is a crucial European player whose relations with a key European institution are problematic and whose imperfect integration into European structures remains a challenge that clouds the vision of a Euro-Atlantic Security Community. But whereas Russia is decidedly skeptical about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Turkey's political culture and public have for decades expressed an eagerness to be part of the EU. That eagerness has not been reciprocated in all European capitals. Whether opposition to Turkey's entry reflects fears over bringing more Muslims into the community, jealousy that a state the size of Turkey will diminish the power and influence of others in EU institutions, or a genuine conviction that imperfect democracy and alienated neighbors make Turkey unfit for membership, the underlying reality is that much of Europe does not have a good understanding of contemporary Turkey—or, in fact, a desire to understand it.
Turkish-EU relations are characterized by paralysis, if not enmity. Far more negotiations chapters are off-limits than are open to negotiation, and, since no chapters can be closed, the talks, as they drag on year after year, lack an obvious end point. Fewer and fewer Europeans now speak about how and why Turkey should be part of the EU. The same holds true for Turkey, where leaders in Ankara have largely failed to make the case to their public of why it is a vital national interest to be a part of the EU. To the contrary, their repeated complaints about double standards and moving EU goalposts have halved public support for Turkey's EU accession project in just six years. So few Turks now expect the country will ever gain admission to the EU that this prospect's apparent hopelessness seems barely to be a political issue. Starved of oxygen on all sides, the negotiations are slowly suffocating.
The Turkish-EU relationship is fraught with structural and political problems. The 2004 decision to admit Cyprus even in the absence of a peace settlement there meant that Nicosia could veto any affirmative EU step in the talks with Turkey and that it could use Turkey's accession process as leverage in its UN-led negotiations with the Turkish Cypriots. The Cyprus issue has also amounted to a fig leaf behind which EU opponents could hide. Indeed, barely a year after their historic October 2005 decision to open accession negotiations with Turkey, EU leaders were maneuvered into circumscribing those negotiations by Cyprus and Ankara's other EU critics.
The fact that Turkey is an accession country means that relations with it are structurally "owned" by the enlargement directorate, limiting or at least crowding out a larger EU strategic foreign policy dialogue with Ankara. The conversations that the enlargement commissioner has with his Turkish counterpart cannot substitute for those that the high representative for foreign affairs and the Turkish foreign minister have only inadequately. Dialogue on specific issues, such as the Arab Spring or Caspian gas and energy, is pushed to the side and left unconnected to any broader vision for EU-Turkish relations.
This is not easy to fix. Ankara wants to be treated like every other country negotiating accession with the EU but also believes—correctly—that it is different and should be recognized as such. It is hard to have it both ways, and Ankara remains wary about developing relations outside of the accession context, not least for fear that doing so will be seen as accepting the second-best "privileged partnership" to which French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel want to consign it. As a result, the EU keeps Turkey at arm's length and renders itself more insular in the process. The EU should instead recognize that Turkey is an important window on Arab and other largely Muslim countries and communities with which the union's own relations have foundered. Turkey, in turn, deprives itself of the EU connection and synergies that would augment its regional role, influence European thinking and actions on key issues, and perhaps lead to better outcomes on issues where both share interests.
II. Managing and Resolving Regional Conflicts around Turkey
Ankara's has not been a historically easy neighborhood. Throughout much of the Cold War, as Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, Turks thought of their country as having "three sides of seas and four sides of enemies." He sought to replace that with a policy of achieving "zero problems with neighbors." Indeed, well before the Justice and Development Party government was seated in 2002, Turkey set about overcoming historically friction-ridden relationships, beginning with Syria, Greece, and Armenia. At a time when others could not or would not take up the promotion of resumed negotiations between Syria and Israel, Turkey stepped into the void and made progress in 2007–2008. It played a helpful role with Qatar and others in mediating an end to Lebanon's presidential crisis in 2009. After sitting on the sidelines following the U.S. invasion of Iraq and allowing too much of its policy toward that country to be held hostage by terrorism organized by the Kurdistan Workers' Party and its supporters in northern Iraq, Turkey from March 2008 largely embraced the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, involved itself in Iraqi internal political issues as a balance to Iran, achieved rapprochement with the Iraqi Kurds and their leader Massoud Barzani, and successfully developed trade and investment with the region. The inclusion of Turkey proved important for NATO's confrontation with Muammar Qaddafi, even though the Turks' military role in Libya was passive. In the Balkans, Turkey has been welcomed by Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia. It found a role for itself in promoting dialogue between Bosnia and Serbia, with which ties have flourished, and Ankara has involved itself in easing the complex Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship.
True, these initiatives have come with limitations. Work in 2009–2010 to mediate the Iran nuclear issue led to a confrontation with others over the Turkey-Brazil-Iran uranium swap deal and Ankara's vote against expanded United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran. Israel-Syria mediation and back-channel efforts in the conflict between Israel and Hamas (including on the fate of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held by Hamas for five years and released in October 2011) collapsed after Israel's Operation Cast Lead into Gaza, a change of government in Israel, the Mavi Marmara flotilla confrontation, and sharp public rhetoric by key leaders. The deterioration of relations with the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2010–2011 suggests that any renewal of a Turkish mediating role with or among Israel, Syria, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, or the Hamas regime in Gaza will be a very long time coming.
Work to increase Ankara's role in the Caucasus foundered after the sidelining of a 2009 agreement with Armenia to normalize ties and deal with the difficult legacy of the Armenians' fate at Ottoman hands during World War I. The setback in Turkish-Armenian relations has had the indirect effect of slowing a bilateral rapprochement and a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Still, Ankara's attempts at reconciliation and mediation serve a larger strategic objective whose action elements are potentially a natural complement to the European Union's European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), including its European Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). If it is to make headway on issues of immediate interest—including Cyprus—while also enhancing its external role, Turkey needs to exercise leadership in promoting stability as well as intercourse within and among these regions. To accomplish this, Ankara has significant soft power tools. They include promoting freedom of movement through visa-free regimes, the development of joint social and cultural projects, and large trade and investment resources. This is precisely the approach and these are many of the tools at the heart of the EU's ENP/EMP. By most accounts the returns to Turkey's efforts exceed those to the EU, suggesting both lessons to be learned and success to be valued.
III. Dealing with the Arab Spring
A new and vital extension of Turkey's role on the Euro-Atlantic's southern front, Ankara's constructive engagement with the Arab Spring is potentially as important to Euro-Atlantic security as the actions of other powers, including the United States and the European Union. True, like others, its history has been more with leaders now ousted or under siege than with the Arab public. Its influence is spread unevenly, being much weaker in the Maghreb than in the Eastern Mediterranean, and until recently was overlaid with historical resentment of Ottoman subjugation and Turkish paternalism. But Turkish culture and ways have become increasingly familiar and popular in neighboring Arab states, not least because of the wide viewership of Turkish television, the image Prime Minister Erdogan has generated by standing up to Israel, and also Turkey's acceptance of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing Bashar al-Assad's oppressive regime.
While democracy promotion, an important component of the European Union's EMP and of America's approach to the region, has seldom been an operationally articulated dimension of Turkish policy, leaders in Ankara have made increasingly clear in recent months their view that democracy is essential for long-term regional stability, and they have pressed regional autocrats to respond to the public will or find themselves swept away by it. Aspects of Turkey's development aid programs have focused on good governance, women's rights, and broader political participation. Ultimately, while it is commonplace to add to this list the hope-filled notion that Turkey, as a modern Muslim-majority society, can serve as a model for a Middle East struggling to find a new identity, Turkey's real contribution at this level is more likely to be as an object lesson based on its successes and failures in managing the four-sided challenge of reconciling Islam, secularism, democracy, and modernization.
But the Arab Spring plays another way, too. Part of the case for including Turkey in the EU is the need for a strong and closely linked Ankara to secure Europe's southeastern borders. However, with the Arab world's future even more uncertain than in the wake of the Iraq war, Turkey looks exposed on the front lines of turbulence, the end of which cannot be predicted. Why, EU members may ask, bring this turbulence to new EU borders? Better, it might seem, to keep Turkey a buffer state. And to the extent security concerns make Turkey an essential frontline partner, it is in any case a NATO member, implicitly diminishing the importance of the EU connection.
IV. Energy
Turkey lies at the nexus of a complex network of transit routes for oil and gas flowing to Europe from the south. As a result, Ankara will have an important say on whether the pipelines constructed enhance European energy security in an economically optimal fashion, whether they are built cooperatively or competitively, and whether the Russian dimension of Caspian energy contributes to or hinders this process. Today's issue is gas, and Turkey will play a significant role in decisions on whether new, larger-volume pipelines from the Caspian to Europe are built, and, then, which ones are built—Nabucco, the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy, or the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. It will also play a large part in the related issues of where new gas will go in Europe and whether second-stage Shah Deniz gas from Azerbaijan will be developed and brought to Europe. The same is true of other potential new gas from Iraq and Turkmenistan. Were the obstacles to drawing Iran into Europe's energy grid one day to be lifted, Turkey would be its obvious transit corridor to Europe, too, and possibly a key developer of Iran's vast South Pars gas field.
The outcome in each case, and the extent to which Turkey (and others) succeed in becoming energy-trade exchanges and hubs, will have a lot to do with whether and how energy competition develops in Europe, with obvious implications for Russia and Russian interests in Europe and Central Asia. To the extent that new gas via the southern corridor and a new series of regional gas interconnectors in southern and eastern Europe progress, gas-to-gas competition will increase within Europe, benefiting consumers and adding pressure on Russia's Gazprom to move toward a more commercial approach to gas sales.
Yet, Ankara's hard-line, self-contradictory, or at least confusing, negotiating tactics on Caspian gas and the pipeline issue have seemed to undermine EU energy security goals, slowed decisionmaking on these projects, and alienated both Europeans involved in the project and Azerbaijan. Ankara's agreement with Azerbaijan in late October 2011 on Shah Deniz gas sales to Turkey and transit of volumes onward to Europe resolved many of these contradictions, but a number of issues remain to be worked out.
V. New Threats
Terrorism, drug trafficking, and illegal migration have become major security preoccupations for virtually every Euro-Atlantic state. Geography means that Ankara has a critical role to play in curbing these new threats, even while the country's location as well as its openness and freedoms make fulfilling that role difficult. Law enforcement cooperation, it appears, has developed more fully on narcotics trafficking and terrorism (for example, with the United States on al-Qaeda and with Russia on groups affiliated with Chechen rebels) than on migration, where porous borders, the extraordinarily close proximity of the Turkish shore to Greek islands, and historical grievances, claims, and resentments have hindered cooperation.
A major objective of the European Union's ENP and EMP is to reduce the danger of terrorism, constrain the operations of transnational organized crime, stem the flow of narcotics, and manage the impact of migration. At a more basic level, freedom of movement, as has long been known, is a critical element in fashioning a community. If a Euro-Atlantic Security Community is to be a serious objective, Turkey's emphasis on promoting visa-free relations with its neighbors—particularly Syria—along with the question of visa-free travel between Russia and the EU, represent an opportunity. But it is an opportunity with serious potential complications that need to be assessed in a regional, and not just a bilateral, context.
VI. Turkey-Russia Relations
Increasingly elaborate relations between Ankara and Moscow are a positive factor for advancing the idea of a more integrated and effective Euro-Atlantic Security Community. Without gainsaying occasional areas of discord—energy, mutual suspicions over one another's actions in the Caucasus, and Russia's 2007 CFE Treaty suspension—the level of economic and energy cooperation between the two, their potential to work together or in parallel in dealing with tensions in the Caucasus and the Balkans, and the steps they have taken to put Cold War attitudes behind them both set a positive example and create a potential element to help overcome Europe's divides.
But this positive picture sometimes looks different in other Euro-Atlantic capitals. The image of Ankara's seeming deference to Moscow has jarred Western officials long accustomed to Turkish deference on matters related to Russia, whether the matter is Turkey's awarding of a nuclear power plant tender to Russia or other nontransparent bilateral energy deals, the enforcement during the August 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict of Montreux Convention rules that curbed NATO and U.S. naval support for the Georgian government, or the stiff-arming of efforts to plant a stronger NATO flag in the Black Sea following the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the alliance. That these pictures have not always comported with reality has not mattered. And for Russia, Turkey remains an integral part of NATO, seems now to support U.S. and NATO ideas on missile defense, and is an antagonist on the CFE Treaty and the broader issue of Europe's future security arrangements. At a practical level, the two countries cooperate too little on regional matters and clearly also compete with one another, including in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and even in Abkhazia, where Turks would like to see their ethnic kinsman develop options other than reliance on the Kremlin.
Finally, one of the obstacles to transforming the Euro-Atlantic region into a cohesive space is how to overcome competing projects of economic integration. Russia's efforts to promote both a customs union and the Eurasian Economic Community in the post-Soviet space complicate the process of integrating these states with—never mind into—the EU. Turkey's efforts to promote its own economic integration in surrounding regions, such as through its free trade agreement with Georgia, pose a generically similar problem. Here Turkey, like Russia, is central to another crucial opportunity that comes with complications: how to secure the advantages flowing from greater economic cooperation and integration among clusters of states without impeding the merger of all states within the Euro-Atlantic region into a greater economic whole.
To enhance Turkey's role in helping to build a Euro-Atlantic Security Community, we recommend initiatives in three dimensions.
I. Turkey and the EU
Although frustrated by the current stalemate in the accession negotiations, the Turkey-EU relationship remains crucial. It will be decisive in shaping Turkey's place in and approach to the broader Euro-Atlantic region. It will be an important mechanism for coordinating and collaborating on issues of great importance in European capitals and in Ankara, of which Libya and Syria are two current, prominent examples. A better relationship and fuller dialogue at all levels is more likely to contribute to progress on accession than are poorer relations and a constricted conversation on important international issues. Both sides—as well as the larger Euro-Atlantic community—would benefit were Turkey and the EU to upgrade their foreign policy dialogue. To that end we recommend that:
Turkey and the European Union should establish a broad and regular foreign policy dialogue that is separate from the accession negotiations but framed in ways clearly distinct from a "privileged partnership" or any other alternative to accession.
This dialogue should be given a strong base by including Turkish leaders on an ad hoc basis in EU summits devoted to foreign policy issues; by ensuring the Turkish foreign minister's participation at Gymnich meetings; by regularizing the four-way meetings among the EU high representative for foreign affairs, the enlargement commissioner, and the Turkish foreign and EU affairs ministers; and by frequent consultations on specific issues among senior EU and Turkish officials in capitals and in the field.
Substantively, the EU-Turkey dialogue should include issues that affect the interests of both and should be wide-ranging, including matters beyond Turkey's immediate periphery such as those regarding China, Pakistan, and Africa. Ankara should not be excluded from EU deliberations on issues in which it has an interest and is active, such as Bosnia, Syria, and Iran, to take three current examples.
EU member states and Turkey should examine the advantages and feasibility of including Turkey as a nonvoting member in the EU Political and Security Committee.
In order to enhance the effectiveness of such a dialogue and to put the Turkish-EU relationship on better footing, initiatives should be taken to begin breaking the Cyprus impasse, including as a first step the unblocking of Cypriot trade (from both Greek and Turkish sides of the island) with Turkey and the EU.
II. Turkey and the Management and Resolution of Regional Conflicts
Turkey has played an active role in mediating conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond and has a potentially salutary role to play in dealing with evolving events in the new Middle East. In order to maximize the positive synergy between Turkey and other states and organizations in the Euro-Atlantic region, we urge that:
The EU should more actively strive to draw a variety of Turkish actors (ministries, agencies, and nongovernmental organizations) into the formulation and implementation of the new European Neighborhood Policy and as a direct participant in the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument, allowing Turkey to share its development experience within an EU framework. Turkey should respond positively to such EU efforts.
Turkey should be drawn more closely into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group's effort to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and should more fully coordinate its regional initiatives with the Minsk process.
The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations should resume, and the EU should find ways to support it. Not only will this help address a long-standing historical grievance within the Euro-Atlantic region, but it will also help expand Turkey's conflict prevention and resolution role in the Caucasus.
Practical steps should be taken to normalize Turkey-EU security and defense cooperation, as well as NATO-EU cooperation where both organizations are active.
Turkey should coordinate more closely with the EU and others in the Euro-Atlantic community on its mediating efforts in Middle East, the Balkans, and elsewhere.
III. Turkey and the Euro-Atlantic Political-Military Agenda
Turkey figures in every effort to provide a more stable and cooperative defense and security environment in the Euro-Atlantic region. It has important interests in a renegotiated Adapted CFE agreement, in issues related to nonstrategic nuclear weapons, and in European missile defense. It plays an important role in Black Sea security arrangements and undertakings. It is on the front lines in the defense against terrorism, illegal migration, drug trafficking, and other illicit trade. To enhance cooperation in this sphere, we recommend that:
The Euro-Atlantic states, before simply abandoning the one-sided flank limitations in the CFE Treaty and when negotiating further conventional arms control in Europe, should consider the creation of "safety zones" in their place in which all parties' armament levels, military exercises, and troop reinforcements would be limited and regulated.
If a natural attrition of its forward-based European nuclear deterrent occurs, NATO should ensure that Turkey is not left isolated as a single host for B61 nuclear weapons.
The United States should consult regularly with Turkey as it proceeds with the European Phased Adaptive Approach missile defense effort.
NATO and Turkey should continue and enhance information sharing and operational collaboration between Turkey's Operation Black Sea Harmony and NATO's Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean.
EASI WORKING GROUP ON TURKEY
Hikmet Çetin (co-chair, Turkey). Former Turkish minister of foreign affairs.
Ross Wilson (co-chair, United States). Director, Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council.
Robert H. Legvold (executive director, United States). Marshall D. Shulman Professor Emeritus, Columbia University. Director, Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative.
Mustafa Aydin (Turkey). Rector, Kadir Has University. President, International Relations Council of Turkey.
Henri Barkey (United States). Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Professor, Lehigh University. Former visiting scholar, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Katinka Barysch (United Kingdom). Deputy director, Center for European Reform.
Desmond Browne (United Kingdom). Convenor, Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Convenor, European Leadership Network for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Former British secretary of defense.
István Gyarmati (Hungary). President and chief executive officer of the International Center for Democratic Transition and the Tom Lantos Institute. Former diplomat.
Suat Kiniklioğlu (Turkey). Member of the Turkish Parliament.
Osman Faruk Loğoğolu (Turkey). Deputy chairman, Turkish National Commission, UNESCO. Former ambassador to the United States.
Vitaly Naumkin (Russia). President, International Center for Strategic and Political Studies. Director, Center for Arab Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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