We shouldn't be going back for F16's because you are basically saying to the americans you can screw me, but in the end ill still come back to beg you. Kicked me off F35 and portrayed me as the worthless ally to the world, now Turkey is going back to beg for the older 4th gen F16's from the americans.
Had we brought the s400 and said to the americans either you sell me the F35 i paid for, or i dont ever buy your fighter jets again. Then you would have a point, but the reality is that the americans have too much leverage over Turkey. Turkey is not in a position to walk away from American weapons. These issues should have been taken into account by AK party when they brought the S400. The fact they are going back for F16's tells me they didnt think about these things.
Now the americans have kicked us of the F35 and we are going back for F16's they know they can keep screwing us because they know we are going to keep going back. The americans needed to feel that they would lose Turkey, to create doubt in their minds about screwing Turkey.
However if American loses Turkey they still remain a global power, if Turkey completely loses America we know have to face the full might of the USA and the east will screw us harder knowing we are isolated.
As Turkiye exceeds certain tech levels, you can see that West is clearly beginning to be disturbed by this situation. As the technological level changes upwards, the Turks return to their essence, form their own alliance, approach the face other geographies, form Central Asian Turk union, expand sphere of influence and intervene in own favor in the problems of other geographies. The West on the other hand sees that the role they have assigned to Turks has disappeared and they realize that they have lost their control over Turkiye and they witness that the balance of power has been destroyed in the fake order they set up to consume Turkiye's energy and they are looking for new traps that will consume Turkiye's energy more to implement their policies. That's why they are hostile to Turks with their perceptual operations in their media. that's why political will always takes a precautionary stance against their "ally" Turkiye's technology requests in tenders.
The issue here is not actually S400. The main issue is Turkey's efforts to free itself against arrogance of West and its general attitude towards their dirty political plans/wishes. Since the US see themselves as the police of the world, the understanding of alliance for them has always been based on the obedience of others for their interests. In this way, they uses state of art weapons they have produced as a means of loyalty to their interests. Now, let's remember some of the major developments in the US-Turkiye relations...
Turkiye wanted to buy 145 AH-1Z and with the technology of that time, Turkiye had requested very limited domestic participation. At that time, the US-Turkiye relationship was in its golden age but the US political authority did not allow this sale. Now, 22 years have passed and Turkiye is striking the US-backed PKK, PYD, YPG with domestically produced T129s and is preparing for the roll-out of a heavier and completely natuonal attack helicopter. You can better understand the reason why US didn't give AH-1Z at that time. If US had given our paid F35s, how could they motivate their new leash ally which they intends to use against Turkiye in the coming years?
Same here. If they had given us Ah-1Z 20 years ago, would they find of a PKK that they could use against Turkiye now?
The US imposed a limited embargo on artillery rockets to Turkiye and refused to deliver the number of unguided rockets and ATACMS missiles that Turkiye wanted. At that time, there was no problem in US-Turkiye relations. After this attitude of the USA, Turkiye started its journey with unguided rockets which it started to produce by transferring technology from China about 35 years ago and reached a more capable rocket technology than HIMARS today, which we can now say is the best in the world. Currently, US-backed terrorist organizations are being hit in Syria and Iraq with these rockets.
Turkiye has requested drones from US for a long time. The US congress again took decisions to prevent this sale. Again, there were no major cracks in relations at that time. Upon the decision of the US, Turkiye started to develop its own drones. Currently, Turkiye is considered to be among the most capable drone manufacturers in the world and Turkiye alone holds a large part of the drone market. At present, Turkiye is destroying US backed terrorists with these drones but in the face of Turkey's success in drone technology, US has taken another decision to investigate the possibilities of embargo in order to prevent drone production in Turkiye why? Because
Turkey is now producing the best drones in the world, attacking US-backed terrorists and setting a precedent for the US's 100-year divide and control plan for ME.
The same Turkiye wanted to buy an air defense system at a time when the Syrian civil war was going on and the United States had started to openly establish alliances with the PKK and YPG. Despite all Turkey's warnings, US closed its ears to the interests of its "ally" as always and continued its attempts to establish a PKK state in Syria which poses a serious threat to the Turkiye. Despite Turkiye's offer at that time, "If the matter is ISIS, we can clean them with Turkish army, as long as you don't do business with the PKK", they continued their cooperation with PKK and Turkiye rejected the Patriot offer of the US, who repeatedly refused technology transfer(2013... 2017). To meet urgent need, Bilateral talks formed with Russia and decided to buy s400. The S400 deal would consist of two phases. The first package was built on urgent delivery against so-called allies trying to undermine Turkiye and the second package on technology transfer. This was an important issue at that time as it was a existional response to the US's unilateral inposing interest-based, hostile policies, coup attempt and embargoes.
On the other hand, The US responded Turkiye with CAATSA and used this situation as an excuse to remove Turkiye from the F35 project. The same US made an exception against India's S400 purchases, Egypt's billion-dollar Russian system purchases as well. Even this hypocritical attitude is a good example in terms of showing the desire for hegemony and control that the US is trying to establish over Turkiye. Turkiye, on the other hand, still shows that it will not openly accept US policies that threaten its own interests, with the balance policy it implements against Russia and this causes the US high ego to become even more irritable.