U.S. halts F-35 equipment to Turkey, protests its plans to buy from Russia

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has halted delivery of equipment related to the stealthy F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, marking the first concrete U.S. step to block delivery of the jet to the NATO ally in light of Ankara’s planned purchase of a Russian missile defense system

We need to kick Turkey out of NATO. we need to close and empty Incirlik AB, and leave them to their own devices. We need to treat them as an enemy as long as they have that Islamic dictator for a leader continue to issue threats to our allies and us, and engage in anti-NATO/US activities.

Enough is enough. Turkey is not our friend.

a reply to: projectvxn

Add them to the list, sad they don't rank at the top.

It's a morbid truth they aren't the worse we cozy up with.

a reply to: projectvxn

Also let's add India to the list, no difference in what they buy and from who

a reply to: Malisa

Yeah there is. It's not about buying Russian, it's about buying the S400 when they're also buying the F-35. The S400 can potentially pick up a lot of information that could compromise the F-35s capabilities, and Russia would have access to that data.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Malisa

Yeah there is. It's not about buying Russian, it's about buying the S400 when they're also buying the F-35. The S400 can potentially pick up a lot of information that could compromise the F-35s capabilities, and Russia would have access to that data.

Yeah, i may have read something that wasn't correct but i thought India was interested in the F-35, now i can't find anything confirming this, thanks for bringing clarity into this. I was posting under wrong assumptions

a reply to: Malisa

There's been informal talk about India maybe getting them, but there's never been anything official about them wanting to buy them.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Malisa

There's been informal talk about India maybe getting them, but there's never been anything official about them wanting to buy them.

So i guess now that they are getting the S-400 it would be a roadblock for the F-35 right?

They will get into the same situation as Turkey, unless they being a bigger player can figure out a way around it. But seems unlikely

It seems like a bad plan in the short term, possibly also long term but what do i know

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Malisa

Yeah there is. It's not about buying Russian, it's about buying the S400 when they're also buying the F-35. The S400 can potentially pick up a lot of information that could compromise the F-35s capabilities, and Russia would have access to that data.

Turkey is also part of NATO, India isnt.
NATO countries have their air defence networks linked up, so NATO can see what for example Greece or the UK can see. One of the problems with the S400 was that exactly..how would they integrate it without the Russians compromising NATO. The other is of course the F35. Turkey operating both would allow them to use the S400 to figure out how to identify and track them, and that data would be accessible by Russia.

Those are the "technical" reasons for kicking Turkey out of the F35.

The real reasons are political and geostrategic. Those issues above could be overcome.
Turkey has changed. Its no longer an ally, and never really was. It was an alliance of convenience, theres nothing that binds Turkey to the west.
Western leaders know this. Thats why they allowed such significant investments in Turkey to happen because now itll be used as a lever against them with sanctions. They sold Turkey weapon blueprints and what not, letting them build their own copy-paste products. Again, another lever because without the inflow of western tech they cant do much.

Turkey cant just go Russian or Chinese overnight. Everything they have is nato oriented. To change everything to russian/Chinese would take billions and many years. Its going to be a logistical nightmare that will tax their economy heavily.

Turkey has threatened Israel many times. Theu have cozied up with Hamas and Iran. Who was circumventing sanctions on Iran? Who was running oil for ISIS? Turkey was.
Who is threatening stability in the east med when a new energy corridor is being developed that will help ease Europe off of Russian energy dependence? Turkey is.

And so so much more.

Turkey has never been a true ally.
Even under fake secular governments. You all think they were secular till Erdogan but the truth is they have always been fanatical islamists. They see them selves as the rulers of the Muslim world and think they will take their place as that.

And now they are building nuclear reactors. It is known Turkey was involved with helping Pakistan smuggle components and what not for their nuclear program.
Turkey has 'secret' plans to develop nuclear weapons of its own.
If Iran isnt stopped, Turkey will use it as a big excuse. But even if Iran is stopped they will use Israel as an excuse. They will use America as an excuse because they hate America and view it as a threat to Turkey. And even then, they will still try develop nukes even with out those excuses.

Turkey is fast becomming the next flash point and problem for the west.

Heres the truth of the matter

Turkey looks at where its interests lie.At the current moment its with russia as tayip believes the coup was instigated by cia.Also I dont know if it has any truth to it but supposedly russia informed him hours before the coup and thus he feels like they are his true friends.

Turkey is more a frenemy and not an ally.They want to be sultans of the arab world and will stop at nothing.As for the geostrategical part we got greece we got cyprus we got israel.No need to rely on a crazy erdogan who backstabs us at every turn.

originally posted by: IMSAM
Heres the truth of the matter

Turkey looks at where its interests lie.At the current moment its with russia as tayip believes the coup was instigated by cia.Also I dont know if it has any truth to it but supposedly russia informed him hours before the coup and thus he feels like they are his true friends.

Turkey is more a frenemy and not an ally.They want to be sultans of the arab world and will stop at nothing.As for the geostrategical part we got greece we got cyprus we got israel.No need to rely on a crazy erdogan who backstabs us at every turn.

The coup was staged. There was no actual coup, except as they say fake news by the media.
What did you see? Thousands of civilians in the streets, a couple unarmed soldiers being beaten up.
Who stages a coup unarmed? Nobody.

Erdogan is a dictator. He's using various methods to remain in power. He used the fake coup to round up more Kemalists and imprison them. Not that Kemalists are any better then Erdogan. But to him they are the only real opposition. Well they were till he imprisoned most of them.
With the Kemalists who hid their islamist leanings the US could work with, as they were cooperative. Erdogan is just the next stage of Turkey, uncooperative and beligerent.

Sadly, the Turks having used the Jewish lobby groups in the US, have had a slight lasting impact thats slowly but surely being removed. That impact was to have westerners with their blinders on thinking that Turkey was an ally and a westernized Islamic country.

The British and others shouldnt have screwed the Greeks 100 or so years ago in their war agaisnt the Turks, and today most of Asia Minor and the straits would be Greek like they were in ancient times. Turkey would then have had less importance geostrategically, and instead the West would have had a reliable ally in Greece this whole time. You know, the guys whove actually fought two world wars side by side with other western countries.

Arm up the Kurds and stand back.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Theyre already being armed up.
Theres claims of the US kicks Turkey out of the F35 program, Turkey will launch an offensive in east Syria..ie against the Kurds who sided with the US against ISIS and other islamist trash.
Its basically another Turkish threat against US interests.

At what stage does the US activate contingency plans against Turkey? How many more times will they sit back while Turkey spits in the wests face?..

Maybe its time the West pushed the Kurds to declare independence across northern Iraq and Syria, from the border with Iran to the Mediterranean? Or an independent Kurdistan in Syria and autonomous Kurdistan within Iraq..
A few thousand troops from the western powers deployed semi permanently to Kurdistan, a new massive NATO base to replace Incirlik..
A joint Iraqi-Kurdish oil company so both benefit from the oil in the north of Iraq..keeping both happy.

Arm up Bulgaria and Romania in the Black Sea, Greece, Cyprus and Israel in the East Med region, Kurds and Iraq in the ME..you then have Turkey contained, Russia checked, and Iran checked.

a reply to: projectvxn

What is the cost of this to the economy?

Can Washington really afford to be this choosey with exports?

a reply to: mortex

I've been saying that since the 80's.

From what I understand turkey produces 130ish of the planes parts.

Will they not send those to the U.S. in retaliation?

a reply to: Nexttimemaybe

They'll send them to other manufacturers, either in the US or abroad, depending on who can best take up the slack.

a reply to: projectvxn


There was a think tank article from the early 2000's that laid out how Turkey would begin to align itself with China and Russia, that we should be cutting ties with them due to serious ideological differences between the countries and where we were each respectively heading.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

If it wouldn't be too much trouble I'd love to read it.

Any idea what search terms I should use?

a reply to: projectvxn

We need to kick Turkey out of NATO. we need to close and empty Incirlik AB, and leave them to their own devices. We need to treat them as an enemy 

There is so much more at stake than that. The answer(s) aren't that simple or easy, unfortunately.

a reply to: RadioRobert

I'm not the first person to say so, however. This has been on track to become a cluster F for nearly 20 years.