Two years ago, Turkey declared it would buy Russia’s S-400 missile defence system because the United States had dragged its feet in selling an American alternative.
But the deal, worth about $2 billion and consummated this week, has consequences far beyond the cost to Ankara’s defence budget. It calls into question the decades-long strategic relationship between Turkey and the US, and even Turkey’s credentials as a NATO member. It probably nullifies a massive contract for Turkey to buy US F-35 combat aircraft — a plane the S-400 is designed to shoot down.
The deal also solidifies a deepening relationship between Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — two leaders with little time for dissent at home and who need each other in Syria. And it provides the Turkish armed forces with an advanced weapon capable of covering most of Syria and their old adversary Greece (also a NATO member.)
The S-400 can shoot down aircraft at a distance of up to 150 miles (240 km) and intercept ballistic missiles up to 38 miles away.
In essence, it is a destabilizing purchase in a region that could do without any more destabilizing. It is also an assertion by Turkey of its independence as a major regional power.
