A new
official report showcases how far Turkey has advanced its
defense industry, but it also points to the lack of resources for the country’s ambitious geopolitical outlook and indigenous military projects.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry earlier this month released its 2023 activities report. The breakdown of planned purchases for the military’s three main services — army, navy and air force — looks groundbreaking, because it promises to modernize almost all major combat and support elements or provide them with brand-new platforms.
On land, the Turkish military will continue acquiring dozens of new T-155 Firtina self-propelled howitzers and install hybrid engines and new turrets to its US-made M113 armored personnel carriers, to turn them into infantry fighting vehicles of which Turkey owns more than 2,000. Meanwhile, US-made M60 and German-made Leopard 2 tanks will be furnished with new fire control and armor plating to make them more compatible with Turkish-made Altay main battle tanks.
In the air, beside upgrading the fleet of F-16s and acquiring dozens of unmanned drones with increased capabilities, the Turkish air force is retrofitting its cargo planes with domestic avionics. The report also had a section on the country’s first domestically manufactured orbital ground surveillance satellite, IMECE, which came into operation after being launched from California last year. This section also mentioned Ankara’s intention to acquire new generation F-16s from the United States, which was made possible once Turkey
ratified Sweden’s NATO membership earlier this year.
Noteworthy leap in navy
Perhaps it is on the sea that the Turkish military’s biggest accomplishments were scored last year, the Defense Ministry report showed. Turkey launched its new amphibious assault ship and the flagship of the Turkish navy, TCG Anadolu. Sometimes billed as an "aircraft carrier" on Turkish media, Anadolu will be joined by I-class frigates that will also provide air defense and Hisar-class offshore patrol vessels that will focus on intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, coastal security and anti-piracy operations.
Under water, Reis-class submarines — under construction through a German license — and the nationally designed and produced submarines, known as MILDEN, which will join the Turkish navy in the 2030s, will ensure the safety of the fleet. Interestingly, the report did not mention that Turkey is soon to become less reliant on foreign suppliers, because it has completed testing the advanced munitions for its warships, such as the Atmaca anti-ship missile, the Akya heavyweight torpedo and the Hisar and Siper air defense batteries that will also be adopted for naval use.
The report provides a broad analysis on the acquisition of tanks, artillery pieces, land-based air defense systems and domestically built submarines and air defense frigates. Especially critical are new airplanes, including the indigenous fifth-generation national jet fighter project (MMU), nicknamed Kaan, which successfully completed its
maiden flight Feb. 21.
All told, these modernization and acquisition programs came to 102.4 billion liras ($3.2 billion).
According to the report, Turkey spent another 6.5 billion liras ($273 million per the exchange rate at the time) for the international peacekeeping operations in which it partakes and another 635 million liras ($26.6 million) to increase the defense capabilities of “friendly and allied countries” in 2023. Although the report did not state the revenues from arms exports, the ministry authorized 2,291 export licenses and 1,126 import licenses. According to the Sweden-based arms watchdog Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Turkish defense firms exported some $5.5 billion in goods and services in 2022.
But the report’s section on the defense budget risks dampening Ankara’s ambitions to become a self-reliant country with one of the most powerful militaries in the world — especially with respect to allocating a much smaller budget than its fellow middle powers and “big league” players — namely, the United States, Russia and China, the only three world powers that have produced fifth-generation fighter jets.
'Not adequate at all'
Per the Defense Ministry report, the Turkish military was allocated approximately 270 billion liras ($11.3 billion) in 2023, of which it spent 240 billion liras ($10.1 billion). Despite an improved economic outlook since the elections,
high inflation that annually hit 70% according to official data and the continued
weakening of the lira in 2023 — when $1 went from 19 liras in May to 30 liras by the end of the year — have made it hard to calculate Turkey’s defense budget in foreign currency. If the annual average of the exchange rate is taken at 23.8 liras to the US dollar, then the Turkish defense budget for 2023 comes to just over $10 billion — though the Turkish government used $16 billion as its baseline.
In comparison, the United States spent some $900 billion on defense last year. According to SIPRI, China spent $292 billion on its military in 2022. The watchdog has pointed out Turkey’s fellow middle powers India, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom spent $81.4 billion, $75 billion and $68.5 billion, respectively, in 2022. Russia will likely spend about $140 billion in 2024 due to the war in Ukraine.
According to Kubilay Yildirim, a leading defense analyst and co-host of the Turkish-language podcast "Guns and Butter," Turkey’s defense budget is hardly enough. “It is clear this budget will not be adequate at all. We need to be realistic,” he told Al-Monitor. “For a country like Turkey and its national security apparatus, that budget is too modest; $10 billion is supposed to pay personnel salaries and benefits and other expenses while the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] is expected to modernize its fleet, air force and ground forces and carry out operations in trouble spots such as Syria and Iraq.”
Yildirim noted that Turkey’s indigenous projects — including the modernization program for existing F-16s in the air force, new combat ships, the Altay tank and the long-awaited rollout of 6x6 and 8x8 armored vehicles for the Turkish army — require more budget.
Kozan Erkan, another leading defense analyst and writer for the website Defence Turk, thinks the Turkish defense industry is something of a “prototype heaven.”
“We are too slow to produce successful prototype products and put them into mass production,” he told Al-Monitor. “Unfortunately, it is impossible to carry out rapid mass production without fully establishing the production infrastructure, also known as the ecosystem. We are developing this ecosystem very slowly.”
The Defense Ministry’s support for domestic companies in the production of subsystems is inadequate, and these companies are trying to grow with the small support of the main contractor companies.
Kozan suggests that the development, mass production and sales processes can be expedited through exports.
“If we grow with exports, our companies and our national defense will be sustainable,” he added. “Our companies and the cost and volume of their work are growing; their ability to cover their research and development and operating costs only through [selling to the Turkish military] is decreasing day by day."
Still, Yildirim struck an optimistic tone. “Projects under development are finally bearing fruit and entering production. Once these projects are implemented, the TSK inventory … will once again be transformed into one of the world’s top forces,” he noted.
He pointed out that mass production of the systems mentioned above would alleviate shortcomings, but programs that increase Turkish military units’ battlefield situational awareness, sensors and communication systems, long-range radars, network-centric and data-link solutions are still under development.
There is cause for optimism. Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz announced in October that Turkey’s defense and security sector will be allocated 1.13 trillion liras for 2024, which stood at approximately $40.5 billion per that month’s exchange rate. Bringing down inflation and stabilizing Turkey’s foreign currency headaches will be a great contribution to the country’s domestic and international security outlook.
Other impediments
Accusations of nepotism and cronyism in Turkey’s state bureaucracy and private sector are additional concerns that might also affect the country’s military strength.
In a recent article on the defense- and politics-focused Strasam website, retired Turkish air force combat pilot and academic Huseyin Fazla argued that BMC, the Qatari-Turkish venture, delayed the rollout of MMU Kaan as it failed to produce its engine on time. BMC is also under fire for not being able to complete the engine for Turkey’s Altay tank, which was commissioned to his vehicle manufacturing company, whose Turkish partner is Ethem Sancak, known to have close ties with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a former member of his ruling Justice and Development Party.
All told, if Turkey wants to play in the “big leagues” with the United States, Russia and China, it has to provide its military-industrial complex with greater resources, foster reliable export markets and insulate its civilian and military bureaucracy from tiresome squabbling.
