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

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.