MESOPOTAMIA NEWS BACKGROUNDER : Why does it take ten months to deploy Turkey’s S-400s? – analysis
NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKEY) – By Seth J. Frantzman – JERUSALEM POST – July 16, 2019
Turkey’s political leadership is ecstatic amid the growing alliance with Russia and its spurning of the US through acquiring the Russian S-400 air defense system. Speaking symbolically on the third anniversary of the 2016 attempted coup President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that eight planes had landed with parts of the S-400 and that with “God’s permission, they will have been installed in their sites by April 2020.”
But why does it take so long to deliver and unpack and deploy the system? There are already two launchers, a crane and other vehicles deployed with the shipments in the planes. The system also includes radars and warheads and will require training to use it. But Turkish personnel were already supposed to be in Russia since the end of May to learn about the system.
The real trickle of details in regard to why it takes so long may not just be that this is a complex air defense system. Turkey hasn’t acquired the system because it fears being attacked from the air. Turkey is already a NATO ally which is working closely with Russia, so all the conceivable air powers that might threaten Turkey are ostensibly its ally. And Turkey isn’t apparently going to put the S-400s in northern Syria to keep the Syrian regime away from areas that Turkey controls in Syria.
The reality is more complex. The long process of acquisition since 2017 and now deployment is used as leverage over the US. Turkey knows that Washington wants to sanction it over acquiring the Russian system. But Turkey does not want the sanctions or to be pushed out o the F-35 program. The US has already tried to reduce Turkey’s role in that program by targeting Turkish personnel who were supposed to be in the US. This is what the US calls “unwinding” Turkey from the program. Ten months gives a new negotiating period to unwind. The first period was from 2017 to July 2019 when the first S-400 pieces arrived. Now comes the pre-deployment stage and then maybe a pro-operational stage. Maybe Turkey can successfully slow-play this high stakes game of Clausewitzian brinkmanship up until the next US election, when Ankara will hope to have more leverage.
Also Ankara has its sights set on Syria and moves by the US to backfill the US withdrawal. Turkey wants a “safe zone” and it hopes the US will acquiesce to a Turkish military adventure that might even target Manbij or other areas where the US and local Syrian Democratic Forces partners are located. Michael Rubin writing at The National Interest says the US is trying to “appease the unappeasable” in discussing a safe zone with Turkey in northeast Syria.
The S-400 is part of the leverage of an Ankara policy that blends a military role in northern Syria and closer energy relations with Russia and a willingness to call America’s bluff on sanctions over the S-400. The timer is now ticking and April 2020 is the new alarm.