Turf war

Reader question:

Please explain “turf war”, as in: Turf war continues between two local governments.

My comments:

Turf is the surface of a piece of the ground, the grass pitch of a soccer field for example. Colloquially in America turf also refers to “an area that you think of as being your own” (Longman Dictionary). New immigrants, for example, are resented by many locals because the locals feel that their “turf” is being invaded (as immigrants compete for jobs).

In the example from the top, the said “two local governments” are fighting for control over something, whatever it is. Each government feels that it, instead of the other, is entitled to exercising authority over some disputed issue. And when that dispute escalates, it’s sometimes called a war, a war over turf (territory), hence “turf war”.

“Turf war” was originally a term describing the territorial disputes or competition for control of certain businesses among gangster (mafia) groups. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says this term “came in the 1970s”. If that is the case, this term might have gained currency thanks to the popularity of The Godfather movies about mafia groups. Mafia groups are organizations who operate at the other side of the law. In other words, their business is illegal. Usually, one gangster group controls the business of, say, the narcotics trade in one area of town. Another group controls the same business in another part of town. When one group uses force to try to take over the business in the other group’s turf, this leads to a turf war.

These days, of course, “turf war” is not restricted to the mafia. It may be used, metaphorically speaking, to describe a fight among any mainstream organizations for power, control, or, to use a geopolitical term, “sphere of influence”.

Here are two media examples:

1. A turf war has erupted in Brussels, pitting the EU Commission against member states in a bid for control of the top diplomatic jobs and the influential development aid purse strings.

At the centre of the battle for control is the EU’s nascent External Action Service (EAS) which will eventually boast some 7,000 eurocrats in Brussels and in EU offices worldwide.

Created by the bloc’s Lisbon Treaty of reforms, the huge diplomatic corps will be led by the European Union's first High Representative for foreign and security affairs Catherine Ashton, a British peer.

She uneasily straddles both camps, as a vice-president of the commission and the personal representative of the 27 EU member states.

As the European Union is the world’s biggest development aid donor, this has become a particular battleground in the fight for influence, with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, unwilling to cede ground to the new external service.

For Green Euro MP Franziska Brantner, who is closely following the discussions, the two bodies must find a way of working closely together because “the EU need coherent strategies on the ground.”

The development aid mechanism gives the EU a profile in areas such as the Middle East, for instance, where it is the biggest donor to the Palestinians.

Up to now the European Development Fund and Development Co-operation Instrument have been managed exclusively by the commission, led by Jose Manuel Barroso.

- EU turf war erupts over control of development aid, March 21, 2010, EUBusiness.com.

2. The White House has ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to rely on CIA station chiefs as the primary foreign intelligence liaisons at U.S. embassies instead of giving the director of national intelligence (DNI) authority to appoint his own representatives when he sees fit.

The decision ends a turf war in which the CIA successfully defied its parent organization, ODNI, which was created to supervise and coordinate the efforts of the U.S. intelligence community after the intelligence failures that led to 9-11.

The months-long battle over which agency would represent the U.S. intelligence community to foreign governments and international organizations pitted CIA Director Leon Panetta against Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence.

The bureaucratic battle began in May when Blair issued a directive that said he would choose his own top intelligence representatives at U.S. embassies overseas. Nevertheless, “the directive provided that, in ‘virtually all cases globally,’ the representative would be a CIA station chief and that, before the appointment of anyone else, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta and the local U.S. ambassador would be consulted,” reports The Washington Post. Panetta issued his own memorandum telling CIA officers to disregard Blair’s memo because the matter hadn’t been resolved yet.

The internal scuffle made its way up the chain to Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, where it was then handed to Vice President Joe Biden, who sided with the CIA.

- CIA Defies Its Boss and Wins Turf War, SecurityManagement.com, November 16, 2009.