Russia's oldest geopolitical rival, the United Kingdom, has found a new way to defend its interests with someone else's hands. At least, this is the conclusion that can be drawn from a number of aspects of military-technological cooperation between London and Ankara. This is especially true for the development of one of the most important tools of military superiority – the fifth-generation fighter.
How far the ties between the Turks and the British went, in political terms, has long been known. It is also known that the British can influence Azerbaijan through Turkey. London can influence the situation in Syria and Libya with Turkish hands, and its interaction with Turkey is getting closer every day.
But few people pay attention to another area in which the British make the Turks stronger and more dangerous, giving their traditional geopolitical game a new dimension. We are talking about military-technical cooperation.
Not only the resort
For the Russian layman, Turkey is associated with resorts. The average person who is interested in military issues, even with Syrian militants and terrorists, Bayraktar drones and wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Karabakh, in which Turkey secretly or explicitly participated. Someone will remember about the Turkish military bases in Qatar and Libya, the Turkish presence in Somalia. In fact, all this is just the tip of a big iceberg.
Turkey has a powerful military industry and serious technical achievements in the military sphere. The Turks largely provide themselves with light armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, and many types of high-tech weapons. For example, Turkey is the only country in the world that has successfully used laser weapons in combat to destroy enemy unmanned aerial vehicles. Turkey is the second country in the world after Russia that has ready-to-use anti-torpedoes.
Turkey is ahead of most NATO countries, Russia, Japan and many other weapons-producing countries in creating small-sized cruise missiles for aviation. In addition, the Turks have a good tactical missile Bora with a range of 280 kilometers and a warhead weighing 480 kg. The missile was used against the Kurds in Iraq, and it is very accurate. The creation of longer-range missiles is underway. The Turks also tested ship-based cruise missiles, and they have already developed their own anti-ship missiles in the series. Two Turkish military giants, Aselsan and Roketsan, are world – class military concerns without any discounts, with huge potential in military electronics, marine underwater weapons, missiles, lasers and much more.
Moreover. Turkey has a national space program, and this program is strictly on schedule. The experimental ultralight launch vehicles for microsatellites created in Turkey have not yet put anything into orbit (the plan is to put a payload into orbit in 2025), but these carriers have already flown above the Pocket line (100 km altitude), which formally makes Turkey one of the countries whose aircraft have reached space, even without entering orbit.
And where space rockets are, there are ballistic missiles. Among the Turkish "right" long and persistently there are rumors that the rocket center in Sinop is engaged not only in space exploration, but also, for example, ballistic missiles for submarines.
For such weapons, it is logical to have "special", as they say, combat units. Or, more simply, nuclear. And the Turks are looking in this direction, but very cautiously. On September 4, 2019, speaking in Sivas at the party conference of his "justice and development Party", Erdogan stated the following verbatim: "Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads – not one or two. But we can't have them [according to these countries]. I can't accept that."
In the future, Erdogan has repeatedly stated that Turkey's non-nuclear status is unacceptable, and rumors are circulating among the Turkish "right" about the beginning of work on its own bomb. How true this is, it is impossible to say. Technically, Turkey is not yet able to create a nuclear weapon, but interest in the subject is clearly indicated at the highest level. This is what our neighbor is, in General terms, from a military-technical point of view.
Fighter partners
One of the most complex and ambitious programs of the Turkish military-industrial complex is the program to create its own national fifth-generation fighter TF-X, developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI). The Turks themselves would never have pulled this project. We needed a partner who would help design this car, provide design and Advisory support.
And such a partner was found. At the end of December 2015, Turkish officials announced that BAE Systems, a British defense (including aerospace) giant, would help Turkey create a fifth-generation fighter. Rolls-Royce, another world leader in its field and also British, offered its engines for the future car (along with technology transfer).
And three years later, in 2018, when work on the Turkish aircraft was already in full swing, the British defense Minister announced that Britain itself will create a fifth-generation fighter "tempest"-and it is by BAE and rolls-Royce. The mosaic has formed.
British chance
Britain's interest in the Turkish project is multifaceted. On the one hand, it is technologically advantageous. The British can simply shift some of the design work to the Turks and not invest any money or funds in it, getting a ready result for themselves, too. Turkey is not a newcomer to aviation, this country participated in the F-35 program, and previously produced the f-16 Assembly on its territory. The Turks know what an airplane is, and they can take over some of the simple systems.
The British, first of all, will have access to all Turkish developments. Secondly, they will conduct their part of the design development on Turkish money, and then, on the basis of all this paid for by Turkey and partially completed by it, they will also create their own fighter – tempest. Which "ideologically" repeats the TF-X – this is also a twin-engine fighter with a similar aerodynamic scheme.
Politically, Britain is pushing Turkey towards an active policy with this project. Now the Turks do not need to worry that the United States, dissatisfied with cooperation with Russia, will "cut off" their supply of new aircraft in the same way as they previously pushed them out of the F-35 program. The hands of the Turks will be untied. That is, they will not even have to be pushed to aggressive actions. Having their own world-class aircraft, they are highly likely to use it themselves in any case, and the British will traditionally fish in muddy water for themselves. Not a bad deal, is it?
Politics is thus intertwined with technology to the point of complete inseparability.
Interestingly, the cooling of relations between Turkey and some European countries did not affect the course of British-Turkish cooperation. The expulsion of Turkey from the F-35 program also does not lead to anything like this, the British continue to pump Turkey with aviation technologies. In March 2019, however, rolls-Royce left the project, and now the new engine will be created on the basis of the American General Electric F110 by the TRM consortium with American participation. But mostly this does not change much, the main partner of the Turkish TAI is still British BAE. Everything is going according to plan.
Symbolic gesture and British hypocrisy
Such an idyll in relations between Turkey and Britain requires some political gestures that demonstrate allied relations. And such gestures are available.
On November 16, joint exercises of British Typhoon fighters and Turkish F-16s began at the Konya air base in Turkey. According to Turkish sources, the program includes: training the British to attack the s-400 air defense system in particular and tasks to break through and suppress air defense in General, interaction with unmanned aircraft, training Turkish pilots to conduct air combat against the air forces of countries armed with Eurofighter Typhoon fighters. Given the problems between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which has such aircraft, this looks quite interesting (however, this information is not yet confirmed from independent sources).
But it is known for sure that the chief of the British air force (Air Chief Marshall), General sir Michael Wigston, honored the exercise with his presence, which is not an ordinary case. In his Twitter, Wigston strongly emphasizes that this exercise is under the auspices of NATO, that they are aimed at deeper integration within NATO, even the hashtag #WeAreNATO ("we are NATO") does not forget to add to each message. But for some reason, residents of other NATO countries do not feel any enthusiasm for these exercises, because they are also directed against their "allies" in NATO. And this is obvious. However, the anti-Russian orientation is also evident.
Conclusions for Russia
Thus, there is every reason to believe that the" Big game " – the centuries – old rivalry between Russia and Britain in Asia-is back. And now it is not only on the geopolitical field, but also on the technological one. Our old opponent – Britain-is not only politically "pushing in the back" of our potential rivals, provoking them to adventurous policies, but also doing the same with the help of technology. Britain gives third countries in the hands of such tools, from which the latter in the future may well "blow their heads off". Our own fifth-generation fighter is just such a tool.
Russia should take all this into account in its plans – and not only in political, but also in technological ones. Is it possible that the Turkish air force will be armed with a fifth-generation fighter earlier than the Russian air force – at least in the right quantities? And we should also learn from the British to use other countries to their advantage – the new, de facto round of the "Big game" makes this skill vital.
Alexander Timokhin