The history of the Turkish Armed Forces began with its formation after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish military perceived itself as the guardian of Kemalism, the official state ideology, especially of its emphasis on secularism. After Soviet threats to the Turkish Straits after the Second World War, large amounts of U.S. aid initiated a modernization process.
The Turkish Army sent the Turkish Brigade to fight in the Korean War. Towards the end of the 1980s, a second restructuring process was initiated. The Turkish Armed Forces participate in an EU Battlegroup under the control of the European Council, the Italian-Romanian-Turkish Battlegroup. The TAF also contributes operational staff to the Eurocorps multinational army corps initiative of the EU and NATO.
Turkey is the second largest standing military force in NATO, after the United States. Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
As of 2026 Turkey's military budget is $27.34 billion (or 2.33% of GDP), an increase of 30% compared with 2025. The Turkish armed forces employ 481,000 active personnel and 380,000 reserve personnel.
History
War of Independence
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns waged by the Turkish National Movement after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. These campaigns were directed against Greece in the west, Armenia in the east, France in the south, loyalists and separatists in various cities, and British and Ottoman troops around Constantinople (Istanbul).
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish National Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations – a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I.
Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers occupied parts of the empire and sought to prosecute former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and others involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces.
This crisis reached a head when Sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia on paper to restore order and enforce the armistice; however, Mustafa Kemal was on a secret mission as an enabler and eventually became the leader of the Turkish National Movement against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and Christian minorities.
On 3 May 1920, Birinci Ferik Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak) was appointed the Minister of National Defence, and Mirliva İsmet Pasha (İnönü) was appointed the Minister of the Chief of General Staff of the Government of the Grand National Assembly (GNA).
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies persuaded Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos to launch an expeditionary force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), beginning the Turkish War of Independence. The nationalist Government of the Grand National Assembly (GNA) led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was backing the Allied powers.
The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople into suspending the constitution, shuttering the parliament, and signing the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty that the Ankara government declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, irregular militia defeated the French forces in the south, and demobilized units went on to partition Armenia with Bolshevik forces, resulting in the Treaty of Kars, signed in October 1921. The Western Front of the independence war was known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance.
However, İsmet Pasha's organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to attack Ankara, stretching their supply lines. On 3 August 1921, the GNA fired İsmet Pasha from the post of Minister of National Defence because of his failure at the Battle of Afyonkarahisar–Eskişehir and on 5 August, just before the Battle of Sakarya, appointed Mustafa Kemal as commander-in-chief of the Army of the GNA.
The Turks checked the Greek advance in the Battle of Sakarya and counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the Turkish capture of Smyrna and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of the Armistice of Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, and the Ottoman sultanate was subsequently abolished. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923.
Further consequences of the war included a population exchange between Greece and Turkey as well as reforms carried out by newly-elected president Mustafa Kemal that developed Turkey into a modern and secular nation-state. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was formally abolished.
First Kurdish rebellions
There were several rebellions southeastern Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s, the most important of which was the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion and the 1937 Dersim rebellion. All were suppressed by the TAF, sometimes involving large-scale mobilisations of up to 50,000 troops.
World War II
Turkey remained neutral until the final stages of World War II. In the initial stage of World War II, Turkey signed a treaty of mutual assistance with Great Britain and France. But after the fall of France, the Turkish government tried to maintain an equal distance with both the Allies and the Axis. Following Nazi Germany's occupation of the Balkans, upon which the Axis-controlled territory in Thrace and the eastern islands of the Aegean Sea bordered Turkey; the Turkish government signed treaties of friendship and non-aggression with Germany on 18 June 1941.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Turkish government sent a military delegation of observers under Lieutenant General Ali Fuat Erden to Germany and the Eastern Front. Following the German retreat from the Caucasus, the Turkish government then moved closer to the Allies and Winston Churchill secretly met with İsmet İnönü at the Adana Conference in Yenice Train Station in southern Turkey on 30 January 1943, with the intent of persuading Turkey to join the war on the side of the Allies.
A few days before the start of Operation Zitadelle in July 1943, the Turkish government sent a military delegation under General Cemil Cahit Toydemir to Russia and observed the exercises of the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion and its equipment. But after the failure of Operation Zitadelle, the Turkish government participated in the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943, where Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Churchill and İnönü reached an agreement on issues regarding Turkey's possible contribution to the Allies. On 23 February 1945, Turkey joined the Allies by declaring war against Germany and Japan, after it was announced at the Yalta Conference that only the states which were formally at war with Germany and Japan by 1 March 1945 would be admitted to the United Nations.
Korean War
Turkey participated in the Korean War as a member state of the United Nations and sent the Turkish Brigade to South Korea, and suffered 731 losses while displaying exceptional valor in combat. On 18 February 1952, Turkey became a member of NATO. The South Korean government donated a war memorial for Turkish soldiers who fought and died in Korea.
The Korean pagoda was donated in 1973 for the 50th anniversary of the Turkish Republic and is located in Ankara.
Cyprus
On 20 July 1974, the TAF launched an amphibious and airborne assault operation on Cyprus, in response to the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état which had been staged by EOKA-B and the Cypriot National Guard against president Makarios III with the intention of annexing the island to Greece; but the military intervention ended up with Turkey occupying a considerable area on the northern part of Cyprus and helping to establish a local government of Turkish Cypriots there, which has thus far been recognized only by Turkey.
The intervention came after more than a decade of intercommunal violence (1963–1974) between the island's Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, resulting from the constitutional breakdown of 1963. Turkey invoked its role as a guarantor under the Treaty of Guarantee in justification for the military intervention. Turkish forces landed on the island in two waves, invading and occupying 37% of the island's territory in the northeast for the Turkish Cypriots, who had been isolated in small enclaves across the island prior to the military intervention.
In the aftermath, the Turkish Cypriots declared a separate political entity in the form of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1975; and in 1983 made a unilateral declaration of independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey to this day. The United Nations continues to recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus according to the terms of its independence in 1960.
The conflict continues to overshadow Turkish relations with Greece and with the European Union. In 2004, during the referendum for the Annan Plan for Cyprus (a United Nations proposal to resolve the Cyprus dispute) 76% of the Greek Cypriots rejected the proposal, while 65% of the Turkish Cypriots accepted it.
Kurdish–Turkish conflict
The TAF are in a protracted campaign against the PKK (recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and NATO) which has involved frequent forays into neighbouring Iraq and Syria. The leader of the terrorist organisation PKK; Abdullah Öcalan was arrested in 1999 in Nairobi Kenya, taken to Turkey and publicly trialed for several crimes.
In 2015, the PKK cancelled their one-sided 2013 ceasefire after tension due to various events (Hendek Operasyonları) and threatened to attack dams in Turkey.
War in Bosnia and Kosovo
Turkey contributed troops in several NATO-led peace forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. Currently there are 402 Turkish troops in Kosovo Force.
War in Afghanistan
After the 2003 Istanbul Bombings were linked to Al-Qaeda, Turkey deployed troops to Afghanistan to fight Taliban forces and Al-Qaeda operatives, with the hopes of dismantling both groups. Turkey's responsibilities included providing security in Kabul (it formerly led Regional Command Capital), as well as in Wardak Province, where it led PRT Maidan Shahr.
Turkey was once the third largest contingent within the International Security Assistance Force. Turkey's troops were not engaged in combat operations and Ankara has long resisted pressure from Washington to offer more combat troops. According to the Washington Post, in December 2009, after US President Barack Obama announced he would deploy 30,000 more U.S. soldiers, and that Washington wants others to follow suit, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reacted with the message that Turkey would not contribute additional troops to Afghanistan. "Turkey has already done what it can do by boosting its contingent of soldiers there to 1,750 from around 700 without being asked", said Erdoğan, who stressed that Turkey would continue its training of Afghan security forces.
Turkey withdrew their troops from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul (2021).
Cross-border operations in the Middle East
Syria
The TAF have carried out major military operations against ISIS, YPG and the Assad Regime in Syria; Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016, Operation Olive Branch in 2018, Operation Peace Spring in 2019 and Operation Spring Shield in 2020. As a result of these operations, regions as Jarabulus, Al-Bab, Tell Abyad, Ras al-Ayn and Afrin were captured by Rebel Forces of the Syrian Interim Government and TAF.
The TAF implemented new tactics and techniques like the mass use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Thanks to these drone raids, which were used in coordination with electronic warfare, systems such as the Pantsir and Buk used by Ba'athist Syria were neutralized. International relations and policy think tanks as the Middle East Institute, Institute for the Study of War, Rand Corporation, Jamestown Foundation and many military analysts stated that the TAF have made significant changes in military doctrines and have created a new military approach based on drones and electronic warfare with the military operations it has carried out or helped to carry out in regions such as Syria, Libya, Iraq and Karabakh.
The developments it has made in drone technology in particular have been interpreted as Turkey's defense industry and armed forces becoming among the world's leading forces.
Humanitarian relief
The TAF have performed "Disaster Relief Operations," as in the 1999 İzmit earthquake in the Marmara region of Turkey. Apart from contributing to NATO, the Turkish Navy also contributes to the Black Sea Naval Co-operation Task Group, which was created in early 2001 by Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia and Ukraine for search and rescue and other humanitarian operations in the Black Sea.
Structure
Publicly available audit by the Court of Accounts in 2023 suggests that the Turkish Armed Forces consisted of 210,989 military staff in active service and 121,161 in reserve duties, aggregating a total of 332,150. The term reserve describes those in mandatory service under officer, non-commissioned officer, and enlisted positions.
By a 2016 reorganisation, the Gendarmerie General Command and the Coast Guard Command were subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and therefore, their personnel count is no longer included within the military.
The Turkish Armed Forces is headed by the Chief of the General Staff, the principal military officer. It reports to the Minister of National Defense, a cabinet-level civilian position. The service branches, the Land Forces, the Naval Forces, and the Air Force, all subordinate to the ministry under operational supervision of the General Staff.
In contrast to the rest of the military, where all elements are bound to a service branch, the Special Forces Command is responsible to the General Staff.
As of 2024, there are 327 general officers. The positions are dominated by the Land Forces, while the Air Force is the smallest service branch. In 2016, the Turkish Armed Forces had 326 generals, which plunged to 196 following the 2016 Turkish coup attempt. Although the military suffered personnel shortage, it over the years managed to restore its staff capacity.
The cadres were all-male dominated, albeit there was no restriction on women. In 2022, Özlem Yılmaz made history by getting promoted to brigadier general within the gendarmerie. The next year, the Naval Forces received its first female rear admiral.
Land Forces
The Land Forces Command (Turkish: Kara Kuvvetleri Komutanlığı) is the largest service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces, superdominating the other branches. It was de facto established in 1920, during the Turkish War of Independence, as a merger of the pre-existing irregular Kuva-yi Milliye forces. The government, however, acknowledges 209 BC as the symbolic date it was founded ─ the year when Mete Khan ascended to the throne of the Xiongnu Empire.
His heritage stands well-appreciated in Turkish historiography for the contributions to the later Turkish know-how, as he is thought to be the first Turkic ruler to introduce the local tribes into a complex military entity.
In 2022, the force is composed of four armies, nine corps, eight commando brigades, one mountain commando brigade, seven armoured brigades, 14 mechanised brigades, seven motorised infantry brigades, and three artillery brigades.
As of 2026, Turkish land forces include 2,284 tanks, 98,193 vehicles, 1,045 self-propelled artillery, 635 towed artillery, and 237 MLRS launchers.