Patriot missile systems Turkey requested from NATO and sent from Spain are seen after being installed in Adana, Turkey on January 26, 2015. (Photo by Ibrahim Erikan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
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NATO air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile over Turkish airspace on Monday in the fourth incident of its kind since the Iran war started on February 28. The incident served as another demonstration of Turkey’s reliance on its NATO allies for defense against ballistic threats.
“A ballistic munition, determined to have been launched from Iran and to have entered Turkish airspace, has been neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean,” the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement quoted by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.
Turkey’s NATO allies previously intercepted ballistic missiles targeting Turkey on March 4, 9, and 13. All of these missiles originated from Iran. Tehran officially denies firing at its eastern neighbor. Southeast Turkey is home to the enormous Incirlik air base and NATO’s Kurecik radar station.
The Turkish Defense Ministry statement noted the NATO defenses that intercepted the missile were based in the Eastern Mediterranean. Business Insider reported that U.S. destroyers there have actively defended Turkish airspace from these ballistic threats using their expensive SM-3 interceptors, which it noted cost between $10 million and $28 million each, depending on the variant.
In addition to sea-based defense, Turkey also relies on its allies for ground-based defenses against ballistic missiles. Turkey’s defense ministry announced on March 18 that NATO was bolstering its air defense by deploying another MIM-104 Patriot system in its Adana province in the southeast to reinforce a Spanish system already deployed. The ministry’s spokesperson noted that the deployment came “in addition to the measures taken at the national level to ensure the security of our airspace and citizens.”
Unlike its neighbor and fellow NATO member, Greece, Turkey never acquired the Patriot, although it had long had the option to buy it or other advanced American systems.
Turkey’s reliance on these allies for timely Patriot deployments during regional crises is anything but new. In January 1991, Patriots were deployed in southeast Turkey to defend against Scud-B ballistic missiles in the arsenal of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. Thirteen years later, the Netherlands deployed a Patriot system to help bolster Turkish defenses during the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq that toppled Hussein’s regime.
During the violent Syrian civil war in the 2010s, Turkey’s NATO allies deployed Patriots as its southern frontier faced occasional Syrian Scuds missing their targets and landing on the Turkish side of the border.
Turkey has several other assets for defending its airspace from various threats. Its air force boasts the third-largest F-16 fighter fleet in the world. Additionally, it has recently made a landmark order of up to 56 Eurofighter Typhoons, including the advanced Tranche 4+ variant.
On the ground, Turkey is also taking steps to build a national, integrated air defense system, consisting entirely of homegrown systems it dubs the Steel Dome. In an interview with Anadolu on Friday, the CEO of Turkey’s missile manufacturer Roketsan, Murat Ikinci, extolled the project. “I can say that we are working for it to be able to meet all of our country’s air defense needs,” he told the state-run outlet.
Nevertheless, Ikinci did not mention any anti-ballistic capability in Steel Dome. With its homegrown Hisar and Siper surface-to-air missiles and other systems, the Steel Dome will likely be highly capable of defending against a wide range of aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones. However, even the Siper, with its present 62-mile range, cannot substitute a system like the Patriot PAC-3 when it comes to combating ballistic threats, much less the American Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD, or Israel’s Arrow 3 systems.
The closest Turkey has to any of these systems is its Russian-built S-400s. Turkey’s acquisition of these systems in 2019 led to its swift suspension from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program by the United States. Ankara never introduced them into service and has no plans to use them to plug the anti-ballistic missile gap in the Steel Dome. Following the third ballistic missile interception on March 13, Turkey’s defense ministry clarified that the S-400 wasn’t used as the NATO systems were better suited. In Russian service, the S-400 has exhibited difficulties in combating ballistic missile threats during Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
With no plans to integrate the S-400 into the Steel Dome, or even to introduce it into active service as a standalone system, it’s unclear what purpose Ankara sees the Russian system ever fulfilling. In December, Bloomberg reported that Turkey had asked Russia to take the missiles back so it could rejoin the F-35 program. Ankara seeks to buy 40 F-35s to upgrade its air force if it does gain reentry. Ridding itself of S-400s, if it ultimately does so, could readily restore Ankara’s authorization to purchase top-tier American air defense systems, including the Patriot and possibly even THAAD in the future.
After the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey upgraded and modernized its military, which hitherto consisted of tanks dating back to the Korean War, in light of the instability created by that war along its frontier. The current Iran war may prove even more destabilizing in the long term, giving Ankara ample justification to strengthen its military through homegrown developments and the acquisition of some of the most advanced systems its NATO allies can provide.
