Ankara's purchase of Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems opens a "turbulent period" in Turkey's relations with NATO, while elevating its partnership with Russia to a new era and allowing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pursue a more independent policy both in the international arena and, which is no less critical, at home, experts told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2019) Ankara's purchase of Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems opens a "turbulent period" in Turkey's relations with NATO, while elevating its partnership with Russia to a new era and allowing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pursue a more independent policy both in the international arena and, which is no less critical, at home, experts told Sputnik.On Wednesday, the White House announced that Turkey's imports of S-400s had made it impossible to keep Ankara in the US F-35 fighter jet international program. The Pentagon subsequently said that it was working to unwind its cooperation with Turkey as part of the F-35 project.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has already condemned the US move as a "mistake" that might cause irreparable damage to bilateral relations. According to Ankara, the United States' claims that S-400 is incompatible with NATO's air defense systems and might compromise operations of the F-35 are groundless. The ministry added that the fact that its suggestion to create a joint NATO-Turkey task force on the issue had remained unanswered was the "most obvious sign" of the US "prejudice" and "unwillingness to settle this issue in good faith."
The harsh exchange between the two NATO allies comes after Russia started deliveries of the defense systems under the 2017 contract, a deal that has long been drawing the ire of the United States. The shipments started on July 12. As of today, as many as 16 Russian aircraft carrying S-400 parts have already landed at Murted air base. The systems are expected to be fully installed on April 2020.
DRIFT AWAY FROM NATO, RATHER THAN TOWARD RUSSIA
According to experts, with its principled position on the S-400 deal, Ankara has laid the basis for an uneasy period in its relations with NATO, but at the same time won trust from such a partner as Russia.
"The main reality is ... that Turkey's relations with NATO and with the USA bilaterally will have turbulent period in coming days. Tayyip Erdogan's good relations with Putin ended now in 'strategic cooperation.' Then, for Turkey it is a 'new era' in Turkish-Russian relations. The Russian planes land every day in Ankara to deliver the Russian S-400 equipment and it is televised live!!! Never ever before happened like this!! The delivery of S-400 became a national issue and there is no return as far as one can see," Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, told Sputnik.
Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, agrees that the arms deal will add to the cracks between NATO and Turkey, noting, however, that the move, largely driven by domestic issues, may not necessarily bring the latter much closer to Russia.
"S-400 is just another big challenge, which comes on top of a lot of others, first and foremost disagreements [between Ankara and the alliance] on Syria, on Turkish-Israeli relations, etc. It's pretty clear that Turkey is drifting away from NATO - not 'to' Russia, but 'away' from NATO - and there is every reason to believe the process will continue. I think it's pretty clear that drivers are domestic (nationalism, etc.)," Sokov told Sputnik.
He suggested that US President Donald Trump administration's "publicly offensive" countermoves and sanctions would likely "only exacerbate and accelerate" Ankara's drift toward more nationalist policies.
Given the aforementioned facts, Gareth Jenkins, a non-resident senior research fellow with the Joint Center Silk Road Studies Program and Turkey Center at the Institute for Security & Development Policy in Stockholm, similarly shares belief that one could hardly expect that Russia and Turkey would create a "strategic partnership" as a result.
"The arrival of the S-400s in Turkey is a major victory for Moscow. It has intensified the tensions in US-Turkey relations and weakened NATO. But, although Moscow and Ankara can cooperate in some areas, I would be extremely surprised if they ever formed a strategic partnership and Russia effectively replaced the US as the main supplier of arms to Turkey. Moscow clearly has an interest in weakening the relationship between two members of NATO. But that does not mean that it wants Turkey to become stronger in its own right," Jenkins told Sputnik.
M. V. Ramana from the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, in turn, notes that Turkey's move will indeed "weaken the relationship between Turkey and other NATO allies," adding that "any potential weakening of the alliance should be seen in light of the relative irrelevance of NATO" after the Soviet Union's collapse.
None of the experts, however, suggested that the S-400 deal would cardinally affect the alliance.
INTERNAL politics BEHIND THE DEAL?
Reflecting about rationale behind Ankara's S-400 purchase, experts frequently point to domestic political issues in the first place, rather than security considerations themselves.
"Broadly speaking I don't think this affects [NATO] alliance stability, but there clearly are strains between Turkey and the rest of the alliance. However, how Turkish foreign policy evolves in the next few years is likely to depend in part on Mr. Erdogan's political fortunes as this action in part reflects his need to play the nationalist card given his sagging popularity as represented in the recent Istanbul [mayor] election [which resulted in the opposition candidate's victory, despite a rerun]," Miles Pomper, a senior fellow in the Washington DC office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute, told Sputnik.
Jenkins mostly shares the view that the S-400 was rather an attempt by Erdogan to reinforce his standing within the country and in the international arena, noting that the systems could be hardly of great help in Turkey's main conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party and its affiliates.
The expert, however, admits that Ankara could still dispatch the systems in either western or eastern Anatolia against its perceived threats from Greece or Iran and Syria respectively.
"But my feeling is that, given the threats that Turkey faces, the impact of the S-400s on the country's security will be primarily psychological in as much as they will make Erdogan feel safer," he added.
US SANCTIONS AND THEIR POSSIBLE TARGETS
According to Jenkins, the United States will not confine itself to expelling Turkey from the F-35 program and enact wider options under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which targets those cooperating with the Russian defense industry sector.
"The question is what else the US will do. Under CAATSA, President Donald Trump is obliged to impose at least five of the 12 measures detailed in CAATSA. If he fails to do so, Congress could - and would - force him to implement sanctions. Congress can also apply sanctions of its own in addition to those in CAATSA," the expert said.
He, however, noted that unlike the F-35 move, measures under CAATSA would not necessarily come immediately after the S-400 deliveries.
"The US is likely to take some time to decide which sanctions it will apply. Some are relatively mild. Others could potentially cripple the Turkish economy. At the moment, the feeling in Washington appears to be that the US will opt for something in the middle - not the five mildest measures but not the five harshest either," Jenkins suggested.
Much may, however, depend on what happens over the next few weeks, according to the expert, namely, "whether Ankara tries to secure milder sanctions by offering concessions to the US in other areas where there are disputes between the two countries."
The expert stressed that "it is also worth remembering that anti-Erdogan feeling" in the Congress and US media, was "very high," while Trump, in turn, "wants to be re-elected."
Admitting that there had been a "number of crises in US-Turkey relations" over the past few years, the experts expressed belief that the case with S-400s was something "different," since Turkey "is unlikely to send them back to Russia," meaning that the issue would remain a constant irritant in bilateral ties.
Dwelling on implications of Ankara's expulsion from the F-35 program, Jenkins noted that more than 100 F-35s that Turkey was going to buy "were supposed to form the core of its air power for decades to come," which now forces Ankara to look for a replacement.
"The first aircraft had been expected to arrive in Turkey in November 2019. Even if an alternative was available, there is obviously not enough time for Ankara to find replacements in the next four months. For the foreseeable future, it is going to have to depend on its fleet of F-16s. But these are reliant on the supply of spare parts from the US. If relations between Ankara and Washington deteriorate still further, the US could ban the supply of these spare parts too," he warned.
He also suggested that except for F-35, Russia's Su-57 fifth-generation jet fighter remained the only alternative for Turkey, but expressed doubt that Moscow would start actively exporting the advanced jets before arming own armed forces with them.
The expert also added that, despite claims in Turkish media, Ankara was currently unable to develop its own stealth fighter, which would after all have been "too expensive."
M. V. Ramana, in his turn, recalled that the Turkish leadership have themselves mentioned Russia's Su-57 and China's Shenyang J-31 among possible alternatives to F-35.
Yet, there are obviously other arms exporters, such as France and Sweden for instance, that could provide Turkey with fighters, Pomper suggested.
