US President Joe Biden's administration has backed Turkey's request to purchase new Lockheed
Martin Corp F-16 fighter jets along with modernization kits for its existing warplanes.
Biden said, "I stand ready to work
with President Erdogan and Turkey on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area”
Turkey has been seeking to buy 40 new Lockheed Martin F-16s as well
as nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes from the U.S.,
looking to revamp and refresh its aging fleet. The deal could be worth around $20 billion.
But Turkey was in line to acquire F-35,
and F-16, while being a great platform, is no match to the stealth jet.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why Turkey is getting F-16 instead of F-35 ?
Let’s get into the details.
Turkey had more than 100 F 35s on order. It had already received two F-35s.
Not only this, being one of the major partners, it is s responsible for
the production of certain components of F-35 and would have provided maintenance
support to other European customers of the jet. Turkish companies are responsible for 937 parts
used to build the F-35, and 400 of these were supposed to be solely sourced from Turkish firms.
It is to be noted that Turkey is not only an important player in the F-35 program, but it is
also an important NATO member. NATO is a block formed mainly to defend against the Soviet Union.
But as Turkey signed and eventually acquired S-400 Air Defense System
from Russia, it was ejected from the F-35 deal.
There are 3 main technical reasons that prevented F-35 sales.
1. NATO, as an organization, wants to have interoperability. So, the Russian system will
be out of place and reduce tactical flexibility.
2. When Turkey operates the jets in the airspace,
which is monitored by S-400, S-400 will be able to gather technical data such as the radar
signature of F 35s. This could potentially pass onto Russian hands and would undercut
the main advantage of F35s, that’s ‘stealth.'
3. S-400 could be hooked to Turkish air defense
as part of an integrated air defense setup. This could be a major security breach as having
the S-400 linked into Turkish defense networks could potentially give Russian analysts access
to sensitive information that passes through the cloud-based, multi-national Autonomic Logistics
Information System (ALIS) of F-35s. ALIS has critical mission data and flight routes.
Several important people had expressed
reservations after Turkey signed the deal for S-400.
US Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the head of U.S. forces in Europe, told a Senate Armed Services
Committee, “My best military advice would be that we don't then follow through with the F-35,
flying it or working with an ally that's working with Russian systems, particularly air-defense
systems, with what I would say is probably one of most advanced technological capabilities.”
NATO Allied Air Commander Gen. Tod Wolters had stated,
“Anything that an S-400 can do that affords it the ability to better understand a capability
like the F-35 is certainly not to the advantage of the coalition."
Support from
the Biden administration came after Turkey lifted its opposition to Sweden’s NATO bid.
Turkish President Erdogan said that his country's ratification of Sweden's NATO
membership bid and the sale of F-16 jets are not to be linked to each other. He made
the comments before leaving for the NATO summit in Vilnius. Erdogan is expected to
hold further discussion with Biden at the meeting on the purchase of F-16 fighters.
But the sequence of events indicates that a desperate
Turkey had no other options after it was ejected from the F-35 program.
Last year, Turkey stated that it is no longer planning to purchase Russian-made
Su-57 and Su-35 fighter aircraft. The Su-57 and Su-35 fighters were
initially thought to be strong contenders for the Turkish Air Force’s key role in the future.
It is believed the technical deficiencies in Russian jets,
like low-power radars, compelled Turkey not to go for them.
It is evident that Turkey had little maneuvering room, and even for F-16,
it had to make a U-turn on its earlier position regarding Sweden’s entry into NATO.