Last news 06 February 2012, Monday
Turkey’s costly missile project draws close attention
The absence of full civilian democratic control over the Turkish military can also be seen in the methods pursued in the procurement of major arms systems.
Turkey’s plan to acquire a $4 billion (approximately TL 7 billion) Turkish Long-Range Air and Missile Defense Systems (T-LORAMIDS) can be cited as an example among many of unchecked arms procurement. Neither the government nor Parliament have so far seriously questioned whether NATO member Turkey really needs such a system, and if it does, what is the security environment that necessitates Ankara possessing its own long-range missiles? Turkey’s informed public also does not raise any questions over the rationale behind buying these systems.
To give you an idea about how costly the project is, a comparison with the budgets of some Turkish ministries will be useful. The national missile project, estimated to be around TL 7 billion, is, for example, TL 1.5 billion more than the budget of the Ministry of Justice (TL 5.2 billion for 2012) and almost half of the budget of the Ministry of Health (TL 14.3 billion). Both ministries are critical in ensuring a properly functioning justice system and access for all to health services, respectively.
If there existed a parliamentary and a governmental mechanism to scrutinize military expenditures, including decisions made on arms purchases, perhaps Turkey would not have acquired a costly long-range air and missile defense system. This is because, as a NATO member, Turkey has already come under NATO’s umbrella that also includes protecting allies from a possible ballistic missile threat. Instead of going ahead with an expensive national missile acquisition project, Ankara could have chosen to build more modest systems to supplement its NATO coverage.
As a matter of fact, Ankara has already allowed the radar component of a US-led NATO missile defense system to be deployed on its soil. This component is now operational.
For Turkey which has already come under NATO’s defense shield, there is no rationale behind its bid to buy missile systems through an international competition.
Under the T-LORAMIDS project, Eurosam, a French-Italian partnership, competes with SAMP/T Aster 30 against the Patriot system, offered by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon; the S-300 system put forward by Russia’s Rosoboronexport; and the HQ-9 proposed by the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation (CPMIEC).
The award schedule for this long-standing T-LORAMIDS project that involves the acquisition of 12 complete air defense systems having missiles with a range of 120 kilometers each, is expected to be announced in June of this year.
The fact that the Turkish national missile project is linked to NATO’s missile defense project is another issue that needs to be elaborated with regard to the high cost of T-LORAMIDS and how it has already whetted the appetite of Western missile manufacturers.
A report published on Feb. 3 by the UK-based Jane’s Defence Weekly (JDW), underlines the importance of the Turkish national missile project for the industrialists of both the US and Europe.
NATO countries are expected to spend around $47 billion on ballistic missile interceptors between 2012 and 2021. The majority of this funding is likely to come from the US, with Missile Defense Agency programs accounting for $40 billion, or 85 percent of total spending, the JDW report stressed.
The report goes on to say that while US spending is largely concentrated around three major missile programs, in Europe there are greater opportunities for non-US missile manufacturers, with several smaller requirements needing to be met. JDW estimates these opportunities to be worth $4.3 billion, or 63 percent of European spending on missile defense.
JDW says: “The largest of these opportunities comes from Turkey’s T-LORAMIDS, with the interceptor element of the programme worth an estimated USD955 million from 2015-21. However, Turkey has so far refused to rule out the potential procurement of the Russian S-300 or Chinese HQ-9 systems. Such an outcome would be a blow to both US and European industry while also raising issues for integration with the wider NATO missile defence plan.”
But as I mentioned in my earlier column, it is highly likely that Turkey will finally award the US competitors in its missile project.
Turkey should not, however, allow its taxpayers to come under a huge burden as a result of a missile purchase. Instead, it should stick to NATO’s protective shield.
