Turkey's acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system was a landmark event for a NATO member state, and in addition to the unprecedented tension in relations between Washington and Ankara, Turkey paid a direct price for its decision to exclude it from the program for the production of the latest fifth-generation fighter, "F-35." In light of the United States 'insistence on the impossibility of combining the Russian regime and the American aircraft in one army for any country, and in light of the two parties' adherence to their agreement, Turkey has to make a difficult choice between the Russian system and the American plane, which is a choice much more complex than just a direct comparison between two strategic weapons that needs Ankara hard to both.
On April 4, 2019, kilometers west of Phoenix, the capital of the US state of Arizona, where the "Lock" air base is located, two Lockheed Martin "F-35" warplanes arrived with the Turkish flag printed on their tail, to become the third and fourth A plane of that model carrying the Turkish flag in "Arizona", waiting for Turkey to officially receive the initial batch of "F-35" on its territory, as part of a broader agreement that requires Turkey to acquire a hundred aircraft over the coming years, as it is one of only nine countries in the world that participated From the start in its production project, along with the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and Norway.
But Turkey has become one of three countries contributing to the "F-35" project. It will not be allowed to possess aircraft on its soil, and will not receive it soon, despite the fact that the plane has already reached other buyers who did not contribute to its production, such as Israel and Japan. South Korea, Belgium and Finland also contracted to Buying it in the coming years, as the tension in Turkish-American relations brought Washington to eject Ankara from the project after it received the first batch of the Russian missile system.
The Turks have always seemed confident of their ability to run the complex and sometimes contradictory relations with major international and regional powers. They are rapidly approaching Moscow while their membership in NATO remains firmly in place, and they coordinate with Tehran while their support continues on the ground for its enemies in Syria, and they support Hamas. "While the official channels open between them and the Israelis continue, however, the world of solid and sensitive weapons at the same time does not go with the same flow of crossing the lines of friendship and enmity back and forth, as Turkish diplomacy has been professional for decades, especially the last decade, as there is a crossroads that has come. A crossroads, inevitably for Ankara the choice between Russian air defense or the newest American aircraft, which is a pivotal choice regarding the future of Turkish armament in particular, and its strategic location between East and West in general.
It took nearly ten years for the American company, "Lockheed Martin", before the first F-35 was released to light. Another ten years were added to it to begin the production and expanded development of the plane in cooperation with NATO allies, and then the United States began gradually to deliver its production to those countries. Years in which the cost of the entire project exceeded a trillion dollars.
The F-35 aircraft have a specially developed engine that can reach a speed of 2,000 kilometers per hour, a speed easily surpassed by other aircraft, but without the F-35's maneuverability while maintaining its high speed.
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The aircraft, apart from its dynamic specifications, is characterized by a remarkable development in the technologies it possesses, which allow it to evade most of the radars that pick up older American aircraft, in addition to a remote sensing system built into a system that feeds pilots with direct information, allowing them to see live on the ground. The battle in detail, all technical capabilities based on an advanced data processor that can perform four hundred billion operations per second.
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On the other side of the Earth, where the Russians are located on a wide geographical area and adjacent to NATO allies, air defense systems and their development are receiving great attention, the most famous of which during the Cold War was the "S-300" system, which witnessed many updates until the development of its successor, "S-400", began during the 1990s. The latter has a radar system covering a distance of six hundred kilometers, in addition to a working range of its missiles extending to four hundred kilometers, in addition to its flexibility and speed of movement and launching missiles of different types at the same time, and then the "S-400" becomes a strong addition to any defense arsenal, especially Turkey has a geographical location, but there is a problem with the main countries in the Western alliance, which lies in the contradiction between operating the "S-400" in their airspace in parallel with the latest types of Western equipment, the most important of which is the "S-35" plane.
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The main contradiction in having Turkey - or any country - owning F-35s along with the S-400 is the possibility of Russian radars detecting US planes, tracking them, and identifying their combat specifications after the Turkish army used them for a long time at a time when In it, the "S-400" system protects the same airspace in which you will fly, in addition to the possibility of being misled by the Russians if the encoded waves they use to communicate with "friendly" weapons systems owned by NATO countries, all of which are risks that may reduce their efficiency In any possible future US-Russian confrontation;
Or any confrontation between the allies of the United States on the one hand and its enemies on the one hand, whether those regimes directly supported by Russia, such as Syria or Belarus, or those who possess Russian weapons such as China and North Korea, as well as any confrontation between Turkey itself and Russia in any region in which the conflict may erupt Between them;
These areas are not few and extend from Syria to the Black Sea.
In addition, NATO aircraft use an accurate electronic system to identify friendly aircraft from the enemy in any airspace in which they fly, known as "IFF", which is a system that needs to be installed and integrated into the Russian missile defense system;
In order for the Turkish F-35s to be able to fly over Turkey's airspace under the protection of the S-400 without being targeted as an enemy aircraft;
What also represents a potential threat to the "IFF" system and the possibility of its penetration by Russian operators, especially since the information and security breach has become a pillar of the Russian strategy towards NATO countries in recent years.
Not only is the threat posed by the "S-400" to the aircraft themselves, but also extends to the system of sensitive data that the "F-35" will communicate with to be part of an information network that communicates with other NATO-owned aircraft, as well as ships, and possibly some land-based equipment. On the ground, as all of this will be connected to each other in what is known as the "Link 16" network, which enables NATO allies to share military information together directly, up-to-date. Once again, the Turks would have to merge the "Link 16" system with "S-400", This poses a great information risk, given the possibility that the Russians could penetrate the network by implanting a program in the S-400 battery guidance system, which means that a huge amount of sensitive military information to NATO would be exposed to an endless risk of a Russian cyber penetration. (4)
In July 2017, the United States passed the "Facing American Adversaries Through Sanctions" Act, known as CAASTA, which stipulates in one of its clauses the imposition of economic sanctions on countries, companies, or persons that have large contracts with Entities linked to the Russian armed forces, and in August 2019, former US President Donald Trump adopted the National Defense Authorization Act, which obligated the US Department of Defense to issue a report assessing the US military and political presence in Turkey, as well as an assessment of Turkey's purchase of the S-400 and its effects on weapons systems. The US presence on its soil, as well as Turkey’s participation in the F-35 project, and what steps can be taken to mitigate the negative effects and then exclude them if necessary, and finally the alternatives to the S-400 system that can be presented to Ankara by Washington and NATO countries. The law states that Turkey will not hand over F-35 planes before the aforementioned report reaches Congress and its concerned committees. This was the first time that the intention to search for an alternative to Turkey in the F-35 project was clearly stated and excluded from it.
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Turkey, of course, will be chiefly affected by the US decision to exclude it from the "F-35" project, not only because it deprives it of enjoying the advanced technology of the plane, the advantages of its joint operation with major countries in the world and the important military information that will be circulated among them, but there will be an economic loss as well. Turkey is supplying more than 800 parts of the plane for the company, "Lockheed Martin" with huge financial contracts, which are contracts that Washington will grant to other partner countries in the program or alternative after the exclusion of Ankara, which will cause a financial loss for the latter, given the involvement of the largest Turkish military manufacturing companies in the project. For billions of dollars;
It will be a costly blow, especially in light of the current difficult Turkish economic situation.
But the Turks will not be affected alone, but the Americans will also be affected, as former US Defense Secretary James Mattis said (6) in a speech to the US Congress's Armament Committee, where he indicated that if Turkey is excluded from the project, Washington will delay the delivery of 50 to 75 F planes. 35 "To the allies, in addition to losing a year and a half or two years in which the production lines that Turkey participated in will be restructured in favor of other partners before the normal production resumed.
In this regard, (7) the former US ambassador to Turkey, Arik Edelman, indicated that Erdogan is betting on Washington to retreat from ultimately excluding Turkey, given the important role it played in the production of the plane, but apparently, Washington is determined to stick to its position. To the end, which was placed at a crossroads between the newest plane in the world, and one of the most powerful air defense systems that humans have invented in the post-Cold War world until now.
The American message was forthcoming in April 2019, in full view of everyone.
A message that most likely reached Turkish officials with the same clarity, before the Americans decided to also publish it in the New York Times with an article (8) explicitly entitled "Either the F-35 or the S-400, not both," in an explicit reference to the inevitability of Ankara choosing between the two.
The article was not just an opinion article written by an analyst, for example, but gained its importance from the fact that it was written by four important members of Congress, who are;
John Einhoff, the Republican Senator who heads the Congressional Armament Committee, Jack Reed, the Democratic Senator who is on the same committee, Jim Risch, the Republican Senator who chairs the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, and Bob Mendes, the Democratic Senator who is a member of the same committee.
By the end of the year, Turkey will have made its choice between acquiring the advanced F-35 fighter jet on its territory or the Russian surface-to-air S-400 missile defense system, but it will not have both, and the choice of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have enormous implications for his country's position in the world And on its relationship with the United States, and what it represents in NATO. "
With that paragraph, the four members opened their short article, clearly indicating that Turkey will be subject to the economic sanctions established by the American "Casta" law, which will "hit its economy hard", as they said, expelling it from huge foreign investments and negatively affecting its defense and air industry, in addition to that, it will not Turkey will naturally acquire any F-35 aircraft, and all its companies will be excluded from the production lines for all their parts, as mentioned, and the billion and a quarter of a billion that it invested in the project will be wasted, and then “President Erdogan's hopes for the transformation of the Turkish military industry into a basic pillar of growth will be destroyed. Future economist "As the article says, which seems to have hit almost everything except his prediction of when the Turks will stand before the two choices, the" end of the year "prophecy has turned into less than three months of writing the article.
Then came the confirmation of former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of his country's position, in a statement he made to a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of Congress about the impossibility of operating the "F-35" plane in an atmosphere in which the Russian "S-400" defense system is operating, indicating that the Americans made it clear to their counterparts in Ankara. The nature of this "technical problem" as he called it through their diplomatic and military channels (9), all of which follow the passage of a law in the US Congress requiring Turkey not to deliver any F-35 aircraft until Washington is sure that the S-400 deal has not been completed.
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Turkey, therefore, continued its bet on accepting the Americans with a kind of reconciliation between the presence of the "S-400" and "F-35" within the same airspace, and the Americans continued to insist that this is impossible for purely technical and security reasons, to the extent of their statements before the American administration implemented the order excluding Ankara from The program is in effect, and Turkey actually receives the first batch of Russian system units, and despite Turkish officials indicating the presence of the oldest "S-300" system in Greece, which is a member of NATO, America has maintained that the "S-400" in particular is a red line, especially in the country. Like Turkey, it is central to US military operations in the Middle East, and very close to circles in which Russia poses a threat to NATO and, paradoxically, Turkey as well.
As usual, the separation between the Turks and the Americans always comes when the Turks follow their own vision of themselves as a central state in the region, and not just a pivotal state in the southern European belt, as American officials like to see them always, which is a separation that opened the door to several clashes between them, the first of which was in the 1970s The war between Turkey and Greece flared up against Washington's desire, and the second time when the Americans invaded Iraq and granted the Kurds air protection, contrary to Ankara's desire, before the Iraqi Kurds crisis repeated in 2003, and finally the Syrian Kurds now, but the two sides always found a diplomatic way to return Water flows into its streams for many reasons, the most important of which is the continued view of Russia as an existential threat to Ankara, as well as Turkey's need for the structure and advantages of the American alliance to confront its enemies, two features that continue to this day in view of the recent Russian expansions in Georgia, Ukraine, Crimea and Syria, which are all areas bordering Turkey.
Today,
The crisis appears to be more complex, as it concerns a purely and highly sensitive military file in an era in which wars are increasingly developing.
It is a point that the Americans are well aware of, and therefore their steps seem to have been to secure their most advanced military technologies ever, even at the expense of the important Turkish partnership in the "F-35". As for Ankara, it seems that the political debate between it and Washington in general, in which it has always found a way that satisfies Everyone, probably clouded her perceptions in that crisis.
Today, the crisis appears to be reaching its final chapter, after Turkey has already received the S-400 system, after the departure of Donald Trump and the arrival of Joe Biden, whose policy in this file appears to be not much different from that of his predecessor.
While Ankara is showing flexibility to reach new compromises by freezing the operation of the Russian system, it appears that the United States is committed to pushing Turkey to abandon it completely, which Ankara rejects.
In light of the mutual clinging to positions, the two allies find themselves on a collision course that impedes their cooperation again, but Turkey will be the party that has to make the most important decision: Either it goes ahead with operating the Russian system and exposes its alliance with Washington to a breach, it will not be easy, or it will take A step back and avoids operating the Russian system, in the hope that the parties will eventually reach a satisfactory compromise for all.
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Sources:
(1) - Factbox: The F-35 - stealthy, numerous and expensive
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35-factbox/factbox-the-f-35-stealthy-numerous-and-expensive-idUSKCN1RM2D0
(2) - Multi-Mission Capability for Emerging Global Threats
https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities
(3) - Why Russia's S-400 Is No Joke (And Why No Air Force Wants to Fight Against It)
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-russias-s-400-no-joke-and-why-no-air-force-wants-fight-against-it-33952
(4) - Here's how F-35 technology would be compromised if Turkey also had the S-400 anti-aircraft system
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/05/heres-how-f-35-technology-would-be-compromised-if-turkey-also-had-the-s- 400-anti-aircraft-system /
(5) - HR5515 - John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5515/text#toc-H745971F2C4454A1FAC9B70C2D677AE4D
(6) - Mattis criticizes Turkey on human rights but still wants it to get stealth jets
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/20/politics/mattis-turkey-jets/index.html
(7) - US-Turkey Standoff Over F-35 Escalates As Each Side Waits For The Other To Blink
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709222963/us-turkey-standoff-over-f-35-escalates-as-each-side-waits-for-the-other-to-blin
(8) - A US Fighter Jet or a Russian Missile System.
Not Both.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opinion/turkey-united-states-f35conflict.html
(9) - Pompeo: F-35s, S-400 cannot operate together
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/pompeo-f-35s-s-400-cannot-operate-together/1448373
(10) US halts F-35 equipment to Turkey, its protests to buy from Russia
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-turkey-f35-exclusive/us-halts-f-35-equipment-to-turkey-protests-its-plans-to-buy-from-russia- idUSKCN1RD316