Turkiye has at all times positioned a premium on its defence, initially shopping for then creating its personal weapons.
The proprietor of NATO’s second-largest standing military has additionally emerged as a notable weapons exporter, with some iconic merchandise on the worldwide market.
Turkiye’s exports elevated yr on yr to achieve $7.1bn in 2024 – from $1.9bn a decade prior – with clients throughout Europe and the Center East.
What’s behind this development? What are Turkiye’s capabilities? And why is it essential? Right here’s what we all know:
When did Turkiye transfer to home manufacturing?
Turkiye has sought navy self-sufficiency for some time, a gradual course of that noticed it set up the Defence Trade Growth and Assist Administration Workplace (SAGEB) in 1985.
For years, SAGEB targeted on worldwide collaboration in analysis and growth. However as Turkiye got here up towards restrictions on what weapons it might buy and the way it might use them, that switched to native manufacturing.
Within the 2010s, it switched focus to home design, leading to an enormous enhance in home defence manufacturing.
Right now, hundreds of Turkish defence producers span land, air, and naval capabilities, which is being more and more recognised internationally.
Have you ever heard about Turkish drones?
Maybe essentially the most well-known Turkish unmanned aerial car (UAV) is the enduring Bayraktar TB2, first deployed in 2014, some of the broadly bought Turkish defence merchandise.
There are a number of others, nevertheless, together with the medium-altitude long-endurance Anka-S, which has a payload of 200kg (441lb), and the Vestel Karayel tactical UAV with a 70kg (154lb) payload.
The nation can also be engaged on its “Metal Dome” (Celik Kubbe), described as a system that, augmented by AI, can establish and intercept any airborne menace.
Moreover, work is ongoing on the primary home fifth-generation fighter, the Turkish KAAN, which goals to interchange getting old American F-16s within the Turkish Air Pressure.
What else is in Turkiye’s catalogue?
On the bottom, Turkiye’s armoured car manufacturing is spearheaded by the Altay foremost battle tank, designed to rival Western fashions such because the German Leopard or the US Abrams.
The military additionally has a mine-resistant car, the Kirpi (Hedgehog), broadly utilized in counterinsurgency operations, in addition to trendy infantry preventing automobiles just like the FNSS Defence Programs’ Kaplan and the Pars.
There’s additionally naval manufacturing, with MILGEM (Milli Gemi Projesi, or the Nationwide Ship Challenge), which was arrange in 2004 to provide the following era of Turkish naval class ships.
MILGEM has produced state-of-the-art Ada-class corvettes and Istanbul-class frigates, with plans for extra superior warships and submarines.
Most outstanding is the amphibious drone-carrying assault ship, the TCG Anadolu, the biggest ship within the Turkish navy, which was deployed in 2023.
Lastly, there’s a protracted record of good munitions, air defence programs, and missiles, such because the Bora short-range ballistic missile and the long-range Atmaca (Hawk) missiles.
Why the curiosity in arms manufacturing?
Turkiye’s push to develop navy {hardware} may be stated to be as a lot a results of outdoors forces as inside drivers.
Within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, the US put an arms embargo on Turkiye over its navy intervention in Cyprus.
Within the early Nineteen Nineties, Germany instituted an export ban on arms to Turkiye, saying armoured automobiles it bought to Turkiye had been used domestically when the contract had specified they may solely be used towards an assault by a non-NATO state.
Then in 2020, the US sanctioned Turkiye over its buy of the Russian S-400 air defence system, by which period Turkiye was already established as an arms producer.
Right now, there are about 3,000 weapons firms in Turkiye.
So how a lot is Turkiye exporting?
Exports have elevated in order that they now comprise 1.7 p.c of world arms exports, placing the nation in eleventh place for the interval from 2020 to 2024 within the rating of the world’s defence exporters, in keeping with the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute (SIPRI).
In keeping with displays, over the past yr, Turkiye’s exports reached 178 nations, marking a 103 p.c enhance in contrast with 2015-2019.
Its foremost clients within the 202-2024 interval have been the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Qatar, in keeping with SIPRI.
As for its most well-known export, the Bayraktar medium-altitude long-endurance drone has reportedly been exported to no less than 31 nations, together with Iraq, Ukraine, Kenya, Bangladesh and Japan.
Final yr, its producer Baykar introduced the funding of $300m in creating its personal jet engines, aiming to tackle extra part manufacturing and keep away from worldwide provide chain challenges.
It goals to develop an in-house engine for its Akinci drone, then a turbofan engine for Kizilelma, an unmanned air-to-air fight car that’s beneath growth. Thus far, each use Ukrainian engines.
