Is the S-400 Crisis Over?

Due to the March 1 resolution crisis, the relations between the two countries could not be brought to the desired level. After July 15, the Obama administration's refusal to cooperate with the FETO cases in Turkey to the extent expected, and the activation of the Zarab and Halkbank cases at the same time blocked Turkish-American relations. Relations between the two countries, which tended to partially improve after Trump became president; With the start of Turkey's purchase of the S-400 Missile Defense System from the Russian Federation, it has almost completely derailed.

According to some interpretations, the Ankara-focused problem for Washington is "Turkey's ability to produce discourse and act independently of the United States," and the main issue has been to keep Turkey under "control". Again, as Turkey moved away from the USA, Turkish-Russian and Turkish-Iranian relations became questioned by American politicians and the pentagon.

As a result of its versatile and multilateral foreign policy that it started to follow after 1964, Turkey sought to improve its relations with its northern neighbor, the Soviet Union, even at that time. It was possible to keep diplomatic channels open to Moscow, without prejudice to military matters falling within the scope of NATO. In terms of Turkey, its relations with Russia and Iran, especially in the context of Syria, emerged as a result of avoiding cooperation with Turkey in Syria in return for the developing relations with the YPG, which the USA wanted to use in the fight against DAESH.

However, in the context of Turkish-American relations, Ankara; The NATO alliance with Washington has been a party that wishes to have a relationship consistent with the historical past and in line with the interests of both parties. However, the development of Turkish-Russian relations and the fact that the closeness of Putin-Erdogan is closer than that of Trump-Erdogan has created a diplomatic relations network between Turkey and Russia, which talks to each other at the highest level. For this reason, possible problems between Ankara and Moscow can be resolved to a large extent before they turn into a crisis, thanks to the joint efforts and understanding of the two leaders, and can be left to cool down when necessary.

Supporting the FETO-member soldiers serving in NATO after the coup attempt on 15 July 2016, the events that made relations with NATO difficult, Turkey's failure to receive sufficient support from allied member countries in security problems, the USA's support of the PYD/YPG-PKK in Syria and Turkey's rapprochement with Russia.

Purchase of S-400 System from Russia

Turkey has been in a quest since the 1950s within the framework of its own self-defense needs against warplanes and/or various missile attacks, including ballistic missiles, that may be directed at it without mentioning the threat. In this context, MIM-14 NIKE Hercules radar-guided high-altitude air defense missile systems (Western Electric production) procured from the USA and deployed in Istanbul, with a range of 70-100 miles and capable of exceeding 100 thousand feet, will be used until the 2000s. has been continued. Procurement of a missile defense system to replace the obsolete NIKE missiles has been on Turkey's agenda since the same years. In this direction, by taking advantage of American military aid and FMS sales, US-made medium-range defense weapon systems were purchased. Raytheon's HAWK (Homing All the way to Kill) system has contributed to meeting the low-altitude defense needs of Turkish Air Defense with its missiles with a range of 15-20 miles, capable of reaching up to 54 thousand feet, and models developed over time.

Meanwhile, Turkey has sought to develop the necessary long-range missile defense weapon systems under the security umbrella of NATO in order to eliminate possible threats. In the meantime, before the 1991 Gulf War after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, at the request of Turkey, it was possible to partially defend Turkish territory by temporarily placing the American "Patriot" anti-ballistic missile system in Turkey as a precaution against Iraqi SCUD missiles. A similar need was also temporarily met by the transfer of missile defense systems of the allied countries to Turkey, within the framework of the NATO decision on February 16, 2003, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In this context, NATO's perspective on missile defense and the measures it can take have been the subject of intense discussions and studies since the period following the 1991 Gulf War. It took 1999 for this issue to be included in the NATO Strategic Concept by reaching a consensus on what was heard. Afterwards, at the NATO Summit held in Istanbul in June 2004, "Active Lay Tactical Ballistic Missile Defense - ALTBMD) decided to establish a "missile defense shield".

Turkish military personnel, who started to get used to the Patriot systems deployed in Turkey within the scope of the Gulf Operation and the Invasion of Iraq, wanted to buy the Patriot system in the first place. The relevant personnel of the Turkish Air Force and Defense Industry Presidency focused on the purchase of American-made Patriot missile defense weapon systems in order to easily integrate them into NATO systems and then meet their interoperability needs. Patriot systems have made a reputation as a system that is effective only in the lower tier and allows ballistic missiles to be hit when they are about to reach their targets. For this reason, Turkey has begun to take into account the need to have other systems to shoot missiles at higher layers. In this sense, the need for higher technology and costly upper layer or "mid-course" phase interceptor missiles that can hit the ballistic missiles on their way to their targets in the upper layers of the atmosphere or in space has not been ignored by Turkey.

Meanwhile, at the Bucharest summit in April 2008, it was decided not only to include military units and high-value targets, but also all NATO territories under the umbrella of missile defense.

In September 2009, with the new missile defense approach called the "European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), NATO's work on the missile shield gained momentum. In line with the C3 infrastructure, which NATO has started to gain, within the framework of ALTMBMD, it is aimed to deploy warships carrying interceptor missiles to European seas since 2011 and land-based interceptor missiles since 2015, and to increase their capabilities over the years, both at the threat level and in line with the developments in technology.

At the Lisbon Summit in 2010, it was decided that the radar and interceptor missiles to be deployed by the USA in Europe would be at the center of the NATO missile shield system. UBMD; it is essentially a command control element that gathers information from sensors of various countries and then transmits it to all defined users as a tactical picture over the NATO C3 network.

The first of the two elements of missile defense that the USA envisages to be deployed in Europe is warships carrying SM3-IA anti-missiles to circulate in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean waters, and the second element is missile detection and tracking radars deployed near possible launch areas of threat missiles. The Kürecik radar (Malatya), deployed in Turkey in 2011, is a radar that serves this purpose. Despite the fact that this radar is deployed in Turkey, the fact that it is not technically possible to protect the east of Turkey against possible Iranian missiles was not wanted to be brought to the agenda. THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense), another missile defense system (mobile or fixed) developed by the USA for upper layer and non-atmospheric interception, is placed in areas where SM3 anti-missile systems deployed on American ships cannot provide protection, and for this purpose, in Romania and Anti-missile systems stationed in Poland are also intended to be used with THAAD. These systems will be supported by air platforms such as AWACS and UAV, and the NATO missile shield system will eventually reach 5,500 km. It is also aimed to provide defense against ballistic missiles at range. At this point, it was aimed to prevent Russian missiles from hitting the American continent, so that Russia opposed the deployment of NATO capabilities in Eastern Europe, which hindered its superiority, and as in 2022, a bargain was made between NATO and the USA and Russia (Egeli, 2014, p. p.59-62).

Turkey; While trying to supply the missile defense system, at the same time, after the Kürecik radar was deployed in Turkey, the Turkish demanded a long-range air defense system from NATO in order to protect its airspace against the missiles that could come from Iran without mentioning the name and the threats that could be directed against itself from the Syrian geography. In line with this demand of Turkey, Patriot Air Defense Systems, which belong to the USA in Gaziantep, Germany in Kahramanmaraş, and the Netherlands in Adana, served between 2013-2015 and later returned to their countries. In addition, since 2015, Spanish Patriot systems have served in Incirlik, and Italian SAMP-T (Surface-to-Air Missile Platform/Terrain) systems have served in Kahramanmaraş (Yiğittepe, 2018, p.284).

In the period when NATO countries transferred their missile defense systems to Turkish territory; He tried to buy Patriot missiles from the USA, but this sale could not be realized due to the opposition of the Senate. In this decision, the Senate's disapproval of the positive response to Turkey's expectations on 'technology transfer', as well as the political factors, is an important reason. 

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SAMP-T, which came to Turkey's procurement agenda in 2008, but remained in the background compared to the Chinese system, is a missile defense system that can meet Turkey's military needs. As a missile defense system jointly produced by Italy and France, it began to be called the "missile of Europe". The Aster 30 Blok1 NT1 version of SAMP-T, which is only in the defense inventory of Italy and France, is highly advanced and has superior features than the Patriot system in that it is capable of engaging against ballistic missiles at 20 kilometers altitude and against targets such as air-breathing aircraft at an altitude of 30 kilometers. .

When a positive development could not be achieved in the SAMP-T missile defense system purchase negotiations, Turkey turned its direction to China, and could not get the desired result due to the opposition of the USA. Finally, Turkey started to see the Russian Federation as a threat again since 2014, and therefore started deploying multinational NATO forces to the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria in 2016, Turkey decided to purchase the S-400 missile defense system. turned to Russia.

The biggest factor in this decision was the rapprochement between Putin and Erdogan, which started before July 15. After July 15, most of the members of the government, especially Erdoğan, started to claim that the USA and the Western world in general were behind the failed coup attempt. Naturally, since the first interlocutor of the coup was President Erdogan, relations with the "Western world, which did not want Erdogan" began to deteriorate. Under the influence of these negative developments, it has become a priority for Turkey to develop its own self-defense systems against the "enemy" West. In a way, the anti-thesis of the West, Russia's missile defense system was stolen or the Russians invited Turkey. On the other hand, the high-altitude and long-range missile defense system that Turkey has been trying to buy for decades, but could not; Above all these political considerations, there has been an ongoing need. With this aspect, it has become obligatory to buy the weapon system that Turkey needs, no matter who sells it. In a sense, Turkey decided to buy the Russian system as a reaction to the West, as the US did not sell the Patriot system and then the supply of the Chinese system was prevented.

After this decision, Turkey signed the agreement to purchase the S-400 system from Russia. With the signing of the agreement, Turkey received reactions from NATO, especially the USA. In particular, the USA threatened to suspend the F-35 fighter jet project, including Turkey, and even to remove Turkey from the joint development and production program of this aircraft.

However, contrary to expectations, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg drew attention to the incompatibility of the Russian missiles with the NATO system in his statement in November 2016 regarding Turkey's plans to purchase the S-400, but did not pose a 'threat' (Özbek, 2017):

“What kind of equipment they will buy or invest in is entirely up to the member states. But we always focus on ensuring that the equipment to be purchased is interoperable between all NATO members. This is my message (to the Turkish authorities) on this issue.”

As a result, an agreement was reached with the Russians for the purchase of 2 defense systems and 4 sets of batteries on 27 December 2017 regarding the S-400s, which entered Turkey's inventory in 2020. The total procurement cost of this system was calculated as $2.5 billion.

Due to its features, the S-400 has attracted attention as an advanced system capable of hitting any manned or unmanned aerial vehicle and ballistic missile. Among its features, it has a maximum range of 400 km, a maximum altitude of 30 km, the ability to fire 2 missiles at each target and at the same time hit 80 targets. However, the system's algorithm, which does not comply with NATO and Turkish standards on friend-enemy recognition, and the logic of "everyone who enters the circle is the enemy" in a possible operation has made the S-400 system debatable. This system, which is claimed to be impossible to integrate into NATO systems for many reasons, should at least be integrated into national radar and weapon systems with an interface filtering. Meanwhile, since almost all the systems in Turkey's air defense are integrated into NATO and have been declared to the NATO system since the peace period, a question mark arises as to which systems and radars are 'national' in Turkey in this sense. Most importantly, it is understood that the rhetoric of "technology transfer is taking place", which was reflected in the press during the procurement phase of the S-400 system, remained in the air, and the Russian side was dragging its feet in taking the necessary steps. However, technology transfer is required for Turkey to purchase more S-400 systems. 

It is also seen that the Russians prefer to 'distress' the Turkish side as much as possible regarding the labor and joint production issues.

On the other hand, despite NATO's objection, Turkey's desire to purchase S-400 missile defense systems from Russia and the increase in American pressure against Turkey, and the support of the majority of leading NATO countries to this pressure, together with the Turkish public rightly " Should we leave NATO?” gave rise to the question.

As it is known, there is no article in the North Atlantic Treaty regarding the expulsion of a member from membership unless he/she wants it. In this context, a situation and conditions have not yet developed that would require Turkey to leave NATO voluntarily. Here, the US's removal of Turkey from the F-35 program, as a result of the purchase of the S-400 and other reasons, was a remarkable 'reminder' in that Turkey questioned NATO and other Western institutions. We do not have any information about whether an internal accounting has been made by the Turkish Government for de Gaulle-like departures (such as leaving the military wing), but it is undoubtedly possible. At this point, no policy change has been made by the Turkish Government in line with Turkey's turning its direction from the West to the East. In a way, the deteriorating political relations, especially with the USA, were not paid for by NATO membership.

With the establishment of the Republic, Turkey's policy of acting as a part of the developed Western civilization has not changed. In the past, Turkey had problems with the Western world, but there was no break with the Western world. However, after Johnson's letter, Turkey turned to multilateralism in its foreign policy and showed more effort to follow policies that prioritized national rights and interests rather than NATO. Today is no different from yesterday. Breaks can happen at any time… After this point, Turkey's recapturing of a multilateral and multi-faceted foreign policy atmosphere will enable the re-establishment of the mutual 'trust' dimension in relations with the Western world in the context of defense and security.