With mindset like this no wonder Turkey is behind in alot of important industries. Turkey should invest into everything including electronics and semiconductors. Countries like South Korea and japan are where they are today is because of electronic and now you can see china following suit and becoming successful.
Countries like South Korea, Japan and Germany are subservient to the US and are defended by the US military. In exchange, the US and allied countries like UK, France have allowed them to become and invested shit ton of billions of dollars in several industries to make such countries hubs of production (that and their people are very well educated and disciplined and hardworking). Same applies to Taiwan and Hongkong also flourished under British rule and same has happened to Singapore when they attracted foreign investment instead of investing in military like their neighbor Malaysia. (which made Singapore a home to multinational conglomorates and the country is basically protected by their presence and investment in the country). But their brands are still manufactured in China, Taiwan and Vietnam for cents on the dollar, something which Turkey can not compete with.
That's what Turkey could've done after becoming a NATO member: leave the country's defense to the US for 50 years and invest all resources into building industries like high tech products, invest in education and human capital, not only that but also arts and other sciences. Then Turkey could've been like Korea today. Turkey fought in a war which saw Korea split in two and today Turkey is far behind Korea, especially so in human capital.
I can see a lot of people here ignore the economic side of things. Dollar is almost 7 liras and after the pandemic we'll probably see a lot of bankruptcies in Turkey. Turkey has ambitions, that's good, but so little economic resources for everything. That's why alliances and friendships are important, especially for countries like Turkey. Even the US gets all his power from alliances. And it's cheap.
Another question: how many of you own Casper Laptops or Vestel Smartphones?
Turkish military I believe already nationalized her own operating systems and software so there's no problem with that. That's how it should be anyway.
Well my point was critical technology needed for developing our defence industry should be produced inhouse, otherwise we can't even dream of accomplishing more complicated projects.
Just look at how much the price of missiles dropped once Turkey became able to produce them ourselves. If you give up this knowhow and become dependant on foreign countries again the same shit will happen, this is one of the reason you should always keep your own domestic production alive.
I agree on certain things. Missiles are cheap and easy to make, so are drones. I don't agree on certain things like 5th generation stealth aircraft or trying to compete against global brands in computers if you're trying to do it with domestic production. Domestic production is expensive in Turkey, global brands get their manufacture in China, Vietnam or Taiwan, even Samsung is manufacturing 50 percent of its mobile phones in Vietnam and only 8 percent in Korea. It's cents on the dollar over there for labor costs. Turkey can't compete with those countries in labor costs anymore, it's not the 80s or 90s anymore. Would you work for 500 liras a month? How about 300?
That will change, however, as more and more production becomes automated, and all brands will take their production home eventually, so Turkish companies could invest in robotics and AI and make domestic production possible with low cost.
