The Economist - USA (2022-02-12)

44 Europe TheEconomistFebruary12th 2022

Turkey’sarmsexports

Drones of

their own

I

thasleftatrailofsmoulderingRus­

sian­made  tanks,  trucks  and  artillery  in

wars in Nagorno­Karabakh, Syria and Lib­

ya.  Soon  Turkey’s  tb2  drone  may  have  a

chance  to  do  so  again  in  Ukraine,  which

has  bought  dozens  of  them  over  the  past

couple  of  years  and  is  now  bracing  for  a

Russian  invasion  (see  International  sec­

tion). On February 3rd Ukraine’s president,

Volodymyr  Zelensky,  and  Turkey’s,  Recep

Tayyip Erdogan, inked a deal to build more

of them together. Some of the drones have

already  seen  action.  A  tb2  destroyed  a

howitzer  used  by  pro­Russian  separatists

in  Ukraine’s  Donbas  region  in  October.

American  officials  say  Russia  may  have

been planning to fake a tb2 strike against

civilians as a pretext for war.  

Mr Erdogan sees Turkey’s drones as the

harbinger  of  a  military  revolution.  He

wants  to  eliminate  Turkey’s  reliance  on

foreign suppliers and turn the country into

a big arms exporter. Some of his plans are

fanciful, but he has already made consider­

able headway. Next year Turkey expects to

deliver two corvettes to Ukraine, of a mod­

el used by its own navy.

Turkey’s  arms  industry  is  bigger  and

more  self­sufficient  than  ever.  Turnover

rose from $1bn in 2002 to $11bn in 2020. Its

army, the second­biggest in nato, once re­

lied  on  foreign  suppliers  for  70%  of  its

needs. That is now down to 30%. Last year

Turkish  arms  and  aerospace  exports

reached $3.2bn, a new record.

Plans to develop a homegrown defence

industry  first  picked  up  steam  after  1974,

when America responded to Turkey’s inva­

sion of Cyprus with an arms embargo. But

they  have  kicked  into  overdrive  under  Mr

Erdogan.  Foreign  pressure  is  again  a  big

motivator.  After  Mr  Erdogan  purchased  a

missile­defence  system  from  Russia  in

2017,  America  banished  Turkey  from  its

f-35  stealth­fighter  programme  and  im­

posed sanctions on the country’s procure­

ment  agency.  Other  nato allies  banned

some weapons sales after Turkey attacked

American­backed  Kurdish  rebels  in  Syria

and supported Azerbaijan in its recent war

with Armenia. Mr Erdogan now seems de­

termined to go it alone. “We will continue,”

he said last year, “until we completely free

our country from foreign dependence.”

Turkey’s  drone  programme  has  been

the industry’s calling card. (It has also be­

come  a  family  affair.  The  head  of  the  pro­

gramme, Selcuk Bayraktar, married one of

Mr Erdogan’s daughters in 2016.) At only a

few  million  dollars  a  pop,  the  tb2s  have

been flying off the assembly line. Last year

Poland  became  the  first  natomember  to

buy them. Turkey has sold them to at least

12 other countries, including Qatar, Moroc­

co  and  Ethiopia,  which  has  used  them

against  rebels  from  Tigray,  its  northern­

most  region.  Evidence  suggests  the  tb 2

was responsible for an air strike that killed

at least 58 civilians in Tigray in January. In

Turkey’s own forever war against the guer­

rillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk)

in northern Iraq and Syria, the tb2 has be­

come  a  routine  tool.  Mr  Erdogan  believes

total victory is within reach, and rules out

new peace talks. 

But Turkey’s ambitions go well beyond

drones.  The  country  plans  to  roll  out  its

first light aircraft carrier, the 25,000­tonne

tcgAnadolu,  later  this  year.  The  warship

was designed with the f­35 in mind but is

being refitted to carry the Akinci drone, the

tb2’s  more  advanced  cousin.  The  new

drone, equipped with a Ukrainian engine,

can  strike  targets  in  the  air  and  on  the

ground. Deliveries of Turkey’s first indige­

nous  battle  tank,  the  Altay,  are  scheduled

to  begin  in  2023,  though  the  project  has

been plagued by delays. Qatar, which owns

49.9%  of  the  company  that  produces  the

tanks,  has  promised  to  purchase  100  of

them.  Turkey  also  plans  to  build  its  own

submarines, unmanned attack helicopters

and fighter jets.

The industry has a bright future, but Mr

Erdogan’s  dream  of  self­sufficiency  is  un­

realistic.  Designing  and  building  compo­

nents  like  aircraft  and  naval  engines,  ad­

vanced sensors and microchips is prohibi­

tively  expensive,  says  Arda  Mevlutoglu,  a

defence analyst. Foreign sanctions, which

have inspired the industry’s growth, are al­

so holding it back, disrupting procurement

and exports. The most notable example is

Turkey’s planned sale of 30 attack helicop­

ters to Pakistan. The deal, worth $1.5bn, is

nearing  collapse  because  America  has  re­

fused tograntTurkeyanexportlicencefor

the chopper’sAmerican­madeengine.

Thebiggestholeistheoneleftbehind

by  the 100 f­35sTurkeyordered,butwill

not  receive. Aboard the tcg Anadoluor

elsewhere,Turkey’sdronesarenosubsti­

tute  for the advanced American fighter

jets. UnfortunatelyforUkraine,theyareal­

so  nomatchforRussia’sarmy.Thetb2s

couldlanda fewblowsinthewar’searly

stages,saysMichaelKofmanofcna, an

Americanthink­tank,butwouldeasilybe

knockedoutoftheskyordestroyedonthe

groundbyRussianairdefencesandwar­

planes.ConflictswithRussianproxiesal­

lowedTurkeytoshowoffitsnewweapons.

A  RussianwarwithUkraine wouldbea

vastlytoughertest.n

I STANBUL

A homegrown industry achieves

global success

ElectioninCastileandLeón

Thefew,theproud

“I

havefourchildren,”saysBlancaover

amidday glassofwinewitholives.

“Noneofthemliveshere.”Thereare 156

residentsregisteredinCasarejos,downal­

mosthalffrom 25 yearsago.Localsdiffer

onhowmanychildrenliveinthevillage,

butallusejustonehandtocountthem.

Blanca iscomplainingto LauraGil,a

candidateforSoriaYa(“SoriaNow”)inthe

regional elections in Castile and León,

scheduledforFebruary13th.SoriaYaisa

newpartythatwillcompeteonlyinSoria,

oneoftheregion’snineprovinces.Allied

groupswillruninotherprovinces,too,

unifiedlooselyunderthebannerofEspaña

Vaciada,or“EmptiedSpain”.

Thissloganisa twiston“EmptySpain”,

a bookpublishedbySergiodelMolino,a

journalist, in 2016. The parties say the

countrysideisnotsimplyempty,butisbe­

CASAREJOS

Spain’slocalpartiesfightdepopulation

SPAIN

Madrid

PORTUGAL

FRANCE

CASTILE

& LEÓN

ARAGÓN

CATALONIA

Teruel

BASQUE COUNTRY

Caserejos

Population density, July 202, per km²

Source:

National

50 100 250 500 1,000 statistics

250 km