Two years ago, I blogged here about how Turkey had held secret air force war games with China, much to the surprise of both the Pentagon and NATO. The cooperation with China was especially unnerving considering the access to NATO secrets and U.S. technology that Turkey had and which it wanted. Now it seems Turkey is at it again. According to Hürriyet Daily News:
Turkey’s western allies look puzzled by a looming decision by Ankara to select Chinese long-range anti-missile and air defense systems which they think cannot be integrated into the NATO-sponsored early warning architecture currently deployed on Turkish soil. “That would certainly leave many of us speechless,” said one senior diplomat from a NATO country. “Turkey has every right to choose its own air defense system but we do not quite understand the logic of opting for a Chinese system with no interoperability with the existing [NATO] assets.” A NATO ally defense attaché in Ankara said that deploying a Chinese air defense system to protect Turkish airspace could have political repercussions. “Questioning Turkey’s geopolitical trajectory would then be legitimate,” he said.
Indeed. Then, again, Turkey’s leadership has been changing Turkey’s geopolitical trajectory for quite some time.
Turkey’s decision to become a “Dialogue Partner” with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was as blatant a hint as could come. If the European Union is a club of democracies, then the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a club for one-party, strongman dictatorships like Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran, as an observer. Unfortunately, as the tide has turned in Turkey, it looks increasingly like Ankara belongs in the latter camp, not in the former. Let us hope that neither the Pentagon nor NATO allows Turkey to do significant damage as it reorients itself to the autocratic east. Here, Congress could have much more of a role, if it requires significant Pentagon reporting to explore the damage the Turkish leadership could do should it leak new technologies to the Chinese.
