Sometime around 2010, Erdogan took the necessary steps to liberate the Turkish government from the military paternalism that had prevented the state from developing robust democratic institutions since its founding (as the direct result of a military coup) in 1923. The "civilianization" process, however, had begun decades earlier (after the Second World War) and proceeded by fits and starts (in '60, '71, '80, and '93 the military re-asserted its dominance). In the U.S., by contrast, since the Second World War, we have seen the exact reverse occur: American resistance to a standing army has given way to a near-complete capitulation to the military-industrial-complex. As our founding fathers knew (but we have since forgotten) militaries are autocracies, not democracies; they are inimical to democratic flourishing.
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