In missile deal and 'indigenous' fighter jet plan, Ankara overreaches on defense
3 November 2013 /NOAH BLASER, İSTANBUL
NATO remains in an uproar over Turkey's choice of a Chinese missile defense system and Turkey is feeling the heat: This week, Turkey's defense minister suggested that the purchase process “has just started,” signaling that Turkey might change its decision after weeks of defending the deal.
But behind the acquisition it is Ankara's inflexible arms purchase policies that are hamstringing its military far more than the confusing signals it is sending to NATO allies, say defense analysts. If Turkey wants to professionalize its bloated military -- and if it wants to foster a business-savvy defense industry -- it will have to compromise on its nationalistic arms purchase policy that demands technology transfer and co-production with every foreign arms deal, those analysts say.
“First, almost everything written so far about the missile deal has simply been wrong,” said Aaron Stein, the Nonproliferation Program Manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM). In the international press, the decision to choose China's HQ-9 anti-aircraft and missile defense system over European and US competitors has been widely regarded as a signal that Turkey is moving away from its 61-year partnership with NATO -- China's weapons system that can't be integrated in NATO's existent missile shield -- but the decision “really comes down to Ankara's assertive policies on technology transfer arrangements in its foreign arms purchases,” said Stein.
Since the mid-1980s, Turkey has moved toward a blanket policy of demanding coproduction agreements and technology transfers from foreign deals, hoping to acquire the technology that Ankara says will make its arms industry "self-sufficient." That is why the generous technology sharing arrangements were provided by HQ-9 producer China Precision Machinery Import-Export (CPMIEC) likely made it Ankara's choice over Rayethon's Patriot, whose techonology is protected by US proprietary laws that severely restrict the tech transfers Ankara covers.
But the missile deal reveals a policy which is guiding Turkey to purchase sub-optimal weapons systems without a clear indication that the technology acquired can be retooled by Turkish defense firms into competitive and exportable weapons systems, says Stein. “Across the board in Turkey's weapons purchases, we're seeing performance being sacrificed for coproduction arrangements. What the arms industry needs to do is go for coproduction arrangements in specialized areas, and in others, choose weapons that are going to get the job done best,” said Stein. The EDAM researcher emphasizes China's HQ-9 system is indeed a potent weapons system, but less effective than the American and European competitors, both of which would have been interoperable with existing NATO missile defenses.
Turkey's defense industry is indeed awash in national defense projects. Reading the Turkish press, one might be convinced Turkish defense firms are on the cusp of producing a domestically designed submarine, battle tank, drone and a wide array of other sophisticated weapons. But the submarine will be built almost entirely in Germany, South Korean firms have shared technology for -- and in some cases helped build -- Turkish armor, and the helicopter is largely copied from a decades-old European attack chopper.
The approach of gaining technology from arms deals itself isn't wrongheaded, said Stein, who argues that South Korea's own scrupulous appropriation of US technology through arms deals could be a model for Turkey. The key difference is that South Korea has chosen select weapons systems to develop indigenously for export, whereas “Turkey’s ambitions outstrip the procurement budget,” he said. Observers have widely pointed to Ankara's recent pledges to build its own domestic fighter, or previous announcements that it would produce its own aircraft carrier, as evidence of that overstretch.
Turkey's recent decision to produce the T129, a co-produced version of AgustaWestland's A129 attack helicopter, rather than to acquire Bell's Cobra or Boeing's Apache, is a case in point, said Stein. “The A129 was the inferior choice from a performance standpoint,” he said, but Ankara gambled that it could produce and learn from the former, rather than the latter. “The question is, is missile defense really an example where they can use the technology they gain to have a competitive edge in making weapons in the future? You can't do this with everything and I am betting there are better things they could have chosen.”
Lale Kemal, a journalist who specializes in Turkish military affairs, agreed. “The policy that Turkey can build everything isn't even remotely realistic,” she said, pointing to recent announcements by Ankara that it may agree to have Swedish firm Saab sign on to help produce an indigenous fighter aircraft. At the least, said Kemal, the project would be under immense financial strain, as Turkey is also paying for its fleet of F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.
Ankara's procurement practices also have other shortcomings, say both Stein and Kemal. “Much of the missile decision may have been a pricing issue,” says Stein, who points out that Ankara might have also chosen a missile system from the pan-European defense company MBDA, which offered both technology sharing and interoperability with NATO systems, but the $3.4 billion Chinese system was far cheaper than MBDA's $4 billion system. “Decisions like [an acceptable] price may simply have been prioritized over the major issue of interoperability, but there's no way to know who made the decision ultimately or why. The process is very opaque.”
It's also hard to understand if the Chinese missile system will truly be less expensive. Kemal argues that the inability of the system to be integrated into NATO's defense network will mean that Turkey will have to get serious about developing its own anti-missile network. That won't be cheap, she says. “At the end of the day you're paying a higher amount because you're not integrated with the sophisticated radar and satellite system provided by NATO,” said Kemal. This year, Ankara said it could launch as many 16 satellites to help augment its missile defense. In August, it spent $103 million to hire ASELSAN, Turkey's largest defense contractor, to develop and build a phased radar array for an air defense frigate currently in the works. In 2011, ASELSAN was paid around $1 billion to develop and deliver low- and medium-altitude air defense systems to the military, the largest domestic arms deal in Turkey history. “That money has already been spent,” said Stein. “The question is, what will the outcome be?”
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