The Turkish Policy of Deception toward the U.S.: How Ankara Uses Lawfare to Return to the F-35 Co-production Program
Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has arrived in Tehran to pay an official visit at the invitation of President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi of Iran. Photo via Turkish Presidency
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The amendment that poses rules to Turkish purchase of the F-16 passed from the House of Representatives and now it is in front of the Senate’s door. Robert Menendez has repeatedly stated that Turkey must solve the issues that are poisoning Turkish-American relations in order to acquire American weaponry.
After the first loss in the House of Representatives, Erdogan is signaling that Turkey will continue blackmailing the U.S. But why does Turkey desire so badly the F-16?
Firstly, it is necessary to mention a general consensus about Turkey. In the age of Erdogan, the Turkish foreign policy has been militarized. In late 2017, Erdogan announced the purchase of the Russian S-400. Acquiring such a piece of Russian military equipment could make it obvious that Turkey doesn’t perceive itself as a pro-western state.
More and more influential analysts in Washington can grasp the obvious, that Turkey won’t be again the “eastern guarantor” of NATO. In a way, the U.S. officials have already conducted a dialogue of deafness with Turkey. From the side of a concrete part of the State Department that insists on carrot diplomacy toward Turkey, Erdogan will be calmed down if the U.S. provides him with the F-16.
In other words, there is a “game changer” status that those officials gave to the issue of F-16. The amelioration of the heavily damaged U.S.-Turkish relations is the scope of the State Department, a view that it seems President Biden has adopted. But this is not the case in the context of Turkey.
Putting aside that Erdogan is constantly trying to manipulate U.S. foreign policy, some American officials are missing the point of the Turkish effort to purchase advanced American weaponry. Erdogan is searching the back door in order to return to the F-35 co-production program.
Senator Menendez, who is the President of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations, is perhaps one of the few that have completely understood the new Turkish bargaining. This is the reason why he unstoppably repeats that the S-400 issue is important for the Congressional voting regarding the purchase of the F-16 from Turkey. The CAATSA has confined the military diplomacy of Turkey, and the Americans are in great danger because they are again close enough to be deceived by Erdogan.
Turkey is searching for convenient precedents that could use to claim that the F-35 blockade is useless or illegal or both. Moreover, Erdogan invests in Lockheed Martin’s role in both programs (F-16 and F-35) and the potential pressure that will be put on the American government by the colossal company. Another argument is that Turkey madly asks for an anti-missile system from the West. Erdogan asked the French President to buy the French-Italian SAMP-T.
His goal is again to trick everyone. The authoritarian leader of Turkey could stress that NATO members (as France and Italy are) do not pose obstacles to a potential coexistence between the S-400 and another western system. Also, there are rumors that the Turkish President discussed with his French counterpart the possibility of a 4.5 generation jet, Rafale.
There is dual blackmail to the U.S. First and foremost, he signals that he would substitute Lockheed Martin with Dassault as jets provider and again, that France sees nothing wrong about the interoperability of the S-400 with any western jet with stealth abilities. It is essential for the U.S. to understand Turkish mind games.
Spreading fake news, conducting psyops, and, trying to confine their NATO allies, compοund the big picture of Turkish foreign policy. The group that drives the train of Turkish foreign policy is targeting the CAATSA in order to weaken its paragraph regarding Russia (CRIEEA). This is nothing else than the Turkish usage of lawfare against its supreme ally, the U.S. Not only that, but also, NATO cohesion and interoperability are up in the air during the war in Ukraine.
For the whole AKP, the S-400 is the cornerstone of the post-coup era, symbolizing that Turkey is a critical power in world politics and it has freedoms and liberties that couldn’t be controlled even by the U.S. But again, there is not only the cynical mindset of Erdogan who is searching for loopholes in American legislation. There are more.
It is the worst period to show that the U.S. is desperate with Turkey and letting it go. A responsible leader wouldn’t spend his pre-elective year acquiring weapons. Especially when his state suffers from an 80% degree of inflation. Erdogan simply desires to further militarize his foreign policy.
Furthermore, the Turkish President will not abandon Russia because his state’s economy is fully dependent on Russian hydrocarbons. He will do anything to show Putin until their last days in power that he is the Russian trojan horse in NATO. The blackmail of Sweden and Finland hasn’t ended from the Turkish side.
Also, the Turkish decision-makers are waiting for an outburst in Ukraine, so President Biden will use his “supreme waiver” in the context of the F-16 amendment, which is the “state of emergency” for national security. It wouldn’t be an accurate decision for the State Department to send a gift to Erdogan because after that, he will feel successful in using its deleterious ways and God knows what else he is going to ask from the U.S. Putting all together, a wise policy towards Turkey from the American side, is to wait for the Turkish elections, without making a decision on issues that have to do with the sale of any kind of military equipment to Turkey.
If Erdogan loses the elections, then will be the appropriate time to reset U.S.-Turkish relations with a new perspective. Turkey must follow the rules. Until then. the U.S. should give the aid to Turkish people to find out how their leader followed the wrong way by putting in jail everyone who voted for him in order to create a state under rule of law and a society that enjoys prosperity.
Counter to the Turkish people’s ambitions, Erdogan is spreading war and chaos in Syria, Libya, and Northern Iraq and threatening Greece and Cyprus. Behind closed doors, every democratic leader wonders how a brutal tyrant like Erdogan, has the right to dictate stipulations in NATO. Turkish people should get the message that nationalism and aggressiveness in foreign affairs could have a severe cost on domestic politics and the change in the Turkish political system will only benefit them and the whole Eastern Mediterranean.
The U.S. should send a strict message to Erdogan and to his future imitators and that message should exclude the sale of F-16s to Turkey.
*Strategic Analyst
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