Recently the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a telephone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Central to the discussion was the SAMP/T “Mamba” weapon system of the Franco-Italian consortium Eurosam, the European analogue of the Russian S-400 “Triumf” system.
It is now clear that the Turks have realized that the S-400 procurement was a fatal mistake. They didn’t realize they were violating an inflexible US red line. The advanced Russian system, and especially its radar, posed a real threat to the American F-35 Lightning II fighter. Ankara, therefore, is now moving with the aim of overcoming the impasse.
The developments that followed led to a Washington-Ankara front. Turkey kicked out of the F-35 program. He misjudged that the Americans would tolerate this oriental “tangle” as well, because the Turkish Air Force had expressed a desire to supply 100+ F-35 fighters. The $10 billion of this commission was not enough of a lure to bend the American side.
Today, the Turks are trying to correct this mistake, even in a vengeful way against the USA. They will back down and get rid of the S-400, but resorting to a replacement not in the American but in the European defense industry. In this way they attempt to downplay the negative effects of their retreat inside Turkey, which is dominated by its anti-American reflexes.
What is Turkey trying to achieve?
To achieve its goal, Turkey will need to make significant concessions on the issue of know-how transfer as well. At the end of the day, he will find himself in a very difficult negotiating position, due to the reluctance of the French and Italians to give access to the source codes of the SAMP/T anti-aircraft anti-missile missiles to the Turks. And this, so that in the future they will not find rivals in the international markets with a cheaper Turkish version of SAMP/T.
All the prospective suppliers of Turkey refused to offer 100% of their know-how in the relevant international tender. Exception the Chinese who offered 100% of their own HQ-9 system know-how (export configuration standard: FD-2000). The Turks had initially chosen the Chinese, but then abandoned them! The lower performance of the Chinese system does not stand as a justification for the Turkish retreat. So they had resorted to the Russian S-400.
When Erdoğan bought the Russian S-400s he not only did not get access to the system software, he didn’t even get rudimentary infrastructure work! Turkey, vis-à-vis Moscow appeared as a simple buyer and both sides were generally and indefinitely limited to the continuation of negotiations with the object of the future co-production of the system.
The political dimension of the issue is precisely that this flagrant retreat from the established Turkish practice shows that there was political expediency in the procurement of the S-400. There was an intention to cause trouble, apparently with the intention of joining and blackmailing Turkey’s perpetual bargain with the West. But this time the tried and tested tactic backfired.
Does France know what Turkey is trying to do?
It is becoming clear that Turkey considers its complete distance from the West unthinkable, regardless of its rhetoric. Turks realize that the West needs Turkey as much as Turkey needs the West. In reality, then, Turkey realizes that complete withdrawal is not a viable option.
The times when Ankara boasted that Turkey is not burning to advance its accession path to the EU seem to have passed irretrievably. Turks may be aware of their inability to align with the EU acquis, but there is now no doubt that membership is a top goal for Ankara.
Logically, Erdogan’s attempt to procure the SAMP/T system will stumble in France.
Emmanuel Macron knows this and the balancing act is not easy. The problems with Turkey are not limited to Greek-Turkish. On the contrary, it was the Turkish stance on hot fronts such as Syria, Libya and the Sahel zone that provoked Franco-Turkish geostrategic rivalry and pushed Paris into a strategic alliance with Greece.
Of course, there are also Italian national interests, as the Italians also have a presence in areas where Turkey is active. On the other hand, there is long-term successful cooperation between the two countries in the field of defense industry. The Italians, in fact, have transferred relevant know-how to Turkey. The most emblematic program is that of the A129 Mangusta attack helicopter, which in its Turkish version is the T129 ATAK, which is now promoted to international markets.
If Italy proves more willing to sell the SAMP/T system, along with at least a level of co-production with the Turkish defense industry, how might Greece react?
The French defense pillar of the EU
There is also the dimension of France’s European policy. More specifically, its expressed desire to be the leader in EU defense integration. At this level, Greek-French defense cooperation is an interesting “hybrid” whose European “transition” is a distinct pursuit of the French.
However, it is France’s leadership ambition in the European defense sector that will lead to Paris’s involvement in Greek-Turkish affairs. In essence, a situation analogous to Greek-American relations will be created, where the change in Turkey’s behavior in bilateral relations will be set as a condition for the promotion of arms cooperation.
This is something that is largely desired by the Greek side, which rightly emphasizes that the Greek-Turkish escalation is not a bilateral, but a European problem. It is this position that opens wide the door for French diplomacy to prove in practice that it can respond to the European leadership role it seeks.
Finally, the case of SAMP/T as a substitute for the Russian S-400 Triumf seems to be of serious concern to us in the near future. Perhaps Erdogan is also betting that the French will be content with storing the system, while the Americans are asking for its complete removal from Turkish territory.
