Making Sense of Turkey’s Air and Missile Defense Merry-go-round

Year 2019, , 69 - 92, 02.01.2019

Sıtkı Egeli

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.470640

Cited By: 4

Abstract

At some point during 2013, Turkey’s political authority began to treat the
in-country development and production of long-range air and missile defense
systems as a priority. Soon after, they announced their decision to favor a
Chinese offer that came complete with licensed production and the promise of technology
transfer.  Yet, with this decision came NATO’s
objections and challenges around integration and information security. The 2015
decision to rollback the pro-China decision, and opt instead for the indigenous
development of air and missile defense systems (in close conjunction with a
foreign technological and industrial partner) was triggered by Turkey’s
disillusion with the content of China’s technology transfer package.
Subsequently, this new partner became a team comprising France and Italy; Turkish
industry tied itself to this team in developing Europe’s next-generation missile
defense capability. Then came the Turkish government’s 2017 decision to
purchase off-the-shelf, standalone S-400 systems from Russia. This decision was
an anomaly, and had all the characteristics of a top-down decision cycle
running afoul of technical, operational, and industrial criteria. Turkey’s
political figures have justified the S-400 order by citing the benefits of in-country
production, access to technologies, not to mention the West’s refusal to sell
comparable systems; but these justifications have been refuted by the Russian
side and/or in discordant statements by Turkish institutions, authorities, and
political figures themselves

Keywords

Air defense, missile defense, Turkish defense policy, Turkish defense industry, NATO

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