{"id":52724,"date":"2025-10-09T15:56:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T12:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/?p=52724"},"modified":"2025-10-09T15:56:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T12:56:16","slug":"kai-o-skylos-chortatos-kai-i-pita-atofia-borei-kai-prepei-i-technologiki-vasi-tis-amyntikis-viomichanias-tis-tourkias-na-epofelithei-apo-ton-epanexoplismo-tis-evropaikis-enosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too-can-and-should-turkeys-defence-industrial-technological-base-benefit-from-the-european-unions-rearmament\/","title":{"rendered":"Having your cake and eating it too? Can and should Turkey&#8217;s defence industrial technological base benefit from the European Union\u2019s Rearmament?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"the-content\"><p><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Since landing ships, made in Turkish shipyards in order to enable the invasion of Cyprus, reached their designated beachheads on the 20<sup>th<\/sup> of July of 1974, the Turkish defence technological industrial base (TDTIB) has been locked in a see saw pattern.<\/li>\n<li>From the late 1960\u2019s to today the TDTIB has advanced in order to enable Turkey to exercise strategic autonomy. The very exercise of this strategic autonomy has recurrently caused ruptures with Turkey\u2019s western allies. These ruptures have, in turn, disrupted the industrial partnerships on which the TDTIB depends.<\/li>\n<li>This pattern is experiencing a historic high currently with the TDTIB\u2019s product range, which includes sophisticated UAVs and naval ships being employed by Turkey in support of an aggressive challenge of European interests, and most prominently in a comprehensive challenge of Greek rights, solidly established under UNCLOS, to an exclusive economic zone and to the laying of a subsea electricity cable linking Greece with Cyprus.<\/li>\n<li>At the same time, due to the European Union\u2019 s (EU) rearmament effort, and the possibility of third countries participating in it, already provided from in the SAFE funding facility, the TDTIB has the opportunity to further grow in volume and sophistication.<\/li>\n<li>This policy paper will argue that this opportunity should be denied to the TDTIB both on the basis of past behavior of Turkey but also on solid evidence of the current and future priorities of the Erdogan regime.<\/li>\n<li>As in the past nearly sixty years, it is clear that the current Turkish leadership prioritises the exercise of its strategic autonomy, facilitated by the TDTIB, and not the TDTIB\u2019s participation in the EU\u2019s rearmament. Such a prioritization makes structurally unstable the relationship, and in particular highly prone to disruption, between the TDTIB and the EU\u2019s rearmament effort.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, the participation of the TDTIB in the EU\u2019s rearmament effort by boosting the capacity of Turkey to challenge Greece\u2019s and Cyprus\u2019 sovereign rights, corrodes the principles of collective security, and thus undermines the ability of the EU to mobilise the collective resources necessary for its own strategic autonomy.<\/li>\n<li>Thus the TDTIB neither can nor should participate in the EU\u2019s rearmament effort.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Policy-paper-187-Kamaras-EN-.pdf\">here<\/a> in pdf the Policy Paper by <strong>Antonis Kamaras<\/strong>, ELIAMEP Research Associate.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>This policy paper will posit that the Turkish defence technological industrial base (TDTIB) neither can nor should benefit from the EU\u2019s collective rearmament effort and for the same set of reasons.\u00a0 Turkey\u2019s internal repression and external aggression make participation of the TDTIB in the EU\u2019s rearmament both highly vulnerable to disruption and corrosive to the intra-EU consensus that collective rearmament requires for its realization.<\/p>\n<p>The first section will chart the evolution of the TDTIB, from the effort to prepare for military intervention in Cyprus, culminating in the invasion of the island in 1974, to today\u2019s integration of Turkish-made UAVs either in the cross border operations of the Turkish Armed Forces or in the military operations of Turkey\u2019s proxies and allies.\u00a0 The pattern will emerge of a see saw movement whereby strategic autonomy enabled by the TDIB creates bilateral or multilateral ruptures which in turn derail the TDTIB\u2019s partnerships with key western partners.<\/p>\n<p>The second section will argue that the interaction of the TDTIB with Turkey\u2019s striving for a strategic autonomy that is mostly antithetical to the EU\u2019s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), as well as increasing domestic repression, will continue to be a mainstay of the Erdogan regime. Consequently, even if the TDTIB is allowed to benefit from the EU\u2019s collective defence funding, the participation of the TDTIB in the EU\u2019s rearmament effort is bound to be a structurally unstable, and thus an inherently unreliable proposition.<\/p>\n<p>The third section will explore the way in which the EU\u2019s collective rearmament effort is both constitutive and reliant upon the construction of a new EU polity, as it involves greater collective mobilisation of resources in the service of the defence needs of all EU members. These defence needs are already more diverse than the Russo-Ukrainian war suggests and bound to get more so in the future, due to the size and diversity of the Union. By extension, this polity, the \u2018geopolitical Europe\u2019 as it has been called, cannot privilege one threat over another, nor one or more member-states\u2019 threat perception over the threat perceptions of other member-states, if it is to achieve the cohesion and mobilisational capacity that are indispensable to its viability.\u00a0 Yet the participation of the TDTIB in the EU\u2019s rearmament, by undermining the Greek and Cypriot deterrence over Turkish aggression, discriminates in terms of which threat is considered to be important, and for which member-states, at the EU-collective level and which is less so.<\/p>\n<p>The fourth section will review arguments made in favour of the participation of the TDTIB in Europe\u2019s rearmament, and policies recommended to that effect, and evaluate whether they can indeed supersede the considerable disadvantages of such participation indentified by the author.<\/p>\n<p>The concluding section will, on the basis of the above, argue that the TDTIB should be excluded from participating in the EU\u2019s collective rearmament effort.<\/p>\n<h2>The evolution of the relationship between the TDTIB and Turkey\u2019s strategic autonomy<\/h2>\n<p>On the 20<sup>th<\/sup> of July 1974 Turkish landing ships reached the designated beachheads in Cyprus out of which poured Turkish infantry, tanks and armoured personnel carriers.\u00a0 As the authors of the definitive study of the Turkish invasion to Cyprus point out this was the commencement of \u201cthe only successfully completed amphibious and airborne landing against a determined defender since 1945\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>. The invasion of Cyprus was also one of the largest, in terms of the proportion of territory lost by a sovereign state via military means, partial conquests in the post WW II era, partial as opposed to total conquests being the dominant form of territorial conquest in this period<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0It is worthwhile mentioning that as a result of this military operation 36 % of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus is still occupied by Turkey whereas Russia, today and after more than three years of war, occupies approximately 20 % of Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n<p>Preparation for the invasion also included the founding act of the creation of the TDTIB, in the post WW II era, in the service of Turkey\u2019s strategic autonomy.\u00a0 \u00a0Although discussions among Turkish civilian and military policy makers on a possible invasion of Cyprus started as early as 1955 it was after the Cyprus crisis of 1964 and the humiliating Johnson letter, in which the US President explicitly forbade Turkey from employing US equipment to invade Cyprus, that Turkey set itself on a path to acquire its own technical means necessary for such a successful invasion. Specifically, a US embargo on the sale of landing ships, tank (LSTs), led Turkey to convert ships to this configuration, acquired by other countries, and more importantly for Turkish shipyards to acquire the capability to construct 600-ton LSTs in the 1970S, twelve of which had joined the Turkish navy by 1974<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, the invasion of Cyprus set in motion a see saw pattern which has exercised, still today, a bit more than half a century, determinative influence over the interaction between the TDTIB and Turkey\u2019s strategic autonomy. In essence, the TDTIB by enabling Turkey\u2019s strategic autonomy would contribute to the implementation of weapons embargoes by Turkey\u2019s main Western weapon systems suppliers, subsequent to the exercise of such an autonomy. In return these embargoes would both disrupt the evolution of the TDTIB while also pushing Turkish policy makers to double down in developing the TDTIB, with Turkey\u2019s own resources, albeit subject to the structural and fiscal constraints of the country<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The invasion of Cyprus catalysed the mobilization of the politically influential Greek-American community which, in the aftermath of Watergate, managed to convince the US Congress to impose a weapons embargo to Turkey on all US weapons sales, which lasted for three years. This \u2018rule of law\u2019 lobby successfully argued that the invasion of Cyprus was not simply a Greek and Greek-Cypriot matter but constituted a gross violation of the universal norm of sovereignty, and as such warranted Congressional restrictions placed on the US Administration, regarding the management of the US-Turkey relationship<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a>. \u00a0Analysts of the TDTIB are in agreement, that the US embargo catalyzed the determination of Turkey\u2019s policy makers to invest in a long term effort to develop comprehensively their defence industrial capacity such that a future embargo would not threaten to cripple the Turkish Armed Forces, considering for example that Turkey\u2019s Air Force in 1974 was completely depended on US spare parts<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A brief review<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a> of the key incidents that negatively affected Turkey\u2019s access to Western weapon systems, including the provision of such access via bilateral or multilateral DTIB partnerships, demonstrate continuity with the pivotal Cyprus invasion and its aftermath.<\/p>\n<p>The repression of the Kurds in the 1990\u2019s, at a time when Turkey was under military tutelage, resulted in suspension of weapon sales from Western European suppliers, particularly land systems. The 1996 Imia crisis with Greece had a similar effect. Both the repression of the Kurds, which entailed massive violations of human rights, and the Imia incident which was accompanied and justified by a baseless challenge of Greek sovereignty of the Imia as well as other Aegean islets constituted norm breaking behavior to Western perceptions<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Mavi Marmara crisis in 2010 which led to a complete breakdown of the defence relationship between Israel and Turkey, including the cessation of a productive for the TDTIB relationship with leading Israeli defence firms, also constituted an exception, in terms of a European and North American canon. This canon mandates that Europeans at the country and EU level, due to the status of the Holocaust as a genocide implemented in European soil, by Nazi Germany and the active collaboration of important societal forces in Nazi-occupied countries, from Lithuania to Greece, \u00a0will make allowances to the Jewish state (with suspension of weapons sales imposed on Israel in the 1960\u2019s \u00a0by France and the UK driven solely by commercial and geopolitical considerations and in particular the need to sustain relationships with the Arab world).\u00a0 Turkey, as a predominantly Muslim country which did not fall under Nazi occupation and was not a combatant in WW II, is clearly outside this canon. \u00a0\u00a0The point here is not whether the EU and its constituent member-countries are in the right in not taking a more robust attitude towards the death and destruction visited upon Gaza at the time of writing by Israel\u2019s armed forces \u2013 but rather to underline that EU member states, their diversity notwithstanding, share in a historical past and normative preferences to a greater degree among themselves than they do with Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>The acquisition of the Russian S400 ground to air system, and the resulting expulsion of the TDTIB from the dominant, globally, 5<sup>th<\/sup> generation aircraft\u2019s supply chain also reflects Turkish exceptionalism. In effect, Turkey struck such a close defence relationship with a country, Russia, presenting a clear threat to European security already two years prior, as the conquest of Crimea which reanimated fears of Russian intent in the Western camp had already taken place in 2014. Indicatively, France had to revisit its 2011 decision, under the Sarkozy Presidency, to sell two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia, cancelling the sale by 2014, under the Hollande Presidency. The decision to sell the Mistrals to Russia was misaligned, to say the least, with the strategic interests of the western alliance France was a member of, which furthermore threatened its overall defence relationship with front line states of the EU and NATO<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a>. To the extent that the S400 decision was motivated by Erdogan\u2019s suspicion that the US instigated the 2016 coup attempt against him and he had to, in effect, acquire a ground to air defence system that could guard him against his own US-equipped and trained Air Force<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a>, this procurement decision also points to an exceptional distrust of the US by a fellow NATO-member country, exceptional even by the standards set by the second Trump Presidency.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018 Turkey\u2019s deliberated-upon partnership with Italy and France for the co-production of SMT missiles was suspended due to Turkey\u2019s divergent interests in Syria and the Mediterranean<a href=\"#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\">[11]<\/a>.\u00a0 Turkey\u2019s aggressive challenging in the field of Greek and Greek-Cypriot sovereign rights led to Turkey\u2019s exclusion from the PESCO and EDF R&amp;D defence funds in the early 2020\u2019s to today. Turkey\u2019s military operations in Syria, against Kurdish forces, its human rights record, and other such issues, also generated opposition to weapon sales in Holland which has a strong lobby arguing for a normative-informed weapons export policy<a href=\"#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\">[12]<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Last but not least, the sale of Eurofighter aircraft to Turkey was suspended, in early 2025, due to the opposition of the previous German government, engendered by the imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglou and Erdogan\u2019s most formidable challenger for the office of the Presidency. This decision was reversed by the succeeding CDU-led government while there is ongoing speculation on whether Greece will manage to impose commitments by the government of Turkey that the Typhoons will not be used against her.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, Turkey\u2019s policy in Libya which has alienated France was also induced by the former\u2019s need to challenge Greek sovereign rights in the Mediterranean, by advancing through an agreement with Libya, the notion that Greece\u2019s islands, even such large ones as Crete do not produce sovereign rights in terms of the delineation of exclusive economic zones, a notion widely accepted as contravening the international law of the seas<a href=\"#_ftn13\" name=\"_ftnref13\">[13]<\/a>. We also mention that Greece exerted pressure, albeit unsuccessfully, to freeze the partnership between Spain and Germany and Turkey, involving respectively, the manufacturing under license of an aircraft carrier and advanced T214 submarines.<\/p>\n<p>Overshadowing Turkey\u2019s relationships with Western counterparts, is the contributing role itself of TDTIB in Turkey\u2019s geopolitical exceptionalism. Turkish-made UAVs, and more largely their integration in combined arms operations initially in Southern Turkey and subsequently in Syria, Libya and Nagorno Karabach, have been a contributing factor in counter mobilization against Turkey by influential ethnic communities in Germany (Turkish Kurds) and the US (Greek-Americans, Armenian-Americans, Jewish-Americans).\u00a0 In an action-reaction dynamic techno-nationalism, namely the vested interest of the Erdogan regime to demonstrate to domestic audiences the superiority of Turkish arms, the martial virtues of the Turkish soldier being leveraged by the indigenous technical means at his disposal, has been adding fuel to the fire<a href=\"#_ftn14\" name=\"_ftnref14\">[14]<\/a>.\u00a0 Additionally, the ambitious naval shipbuilding programme of the Turkish Navy has fueled Turkish aggression in the Mediterranean, encapsulated in the Mavi Vatan doctrine, with parochial but influential economic and Service (Turkish Navy) interests being vested in Turkey\u2019s geopolitical aggrandizement.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This package gets wrapped up in Turkey\u2019s emergence as a classic middle power, its geopolitical ambitions informed by reimaginings of its imperial past and propelled forward by the US\u2019s profound ambivalence of its role as a global policeman<a href=\"#_ftn15\" name=\"_ftnref15\">[15]<\/a>. To top it all, the return of \u2018Big War, as evidenced in Ukraine, has reinforced the link between a country\u2019s ability to achieve escalation dominance and the size and capability of its DTIB, with even war gaming now including defence industrial capacity in the context of a sustained war effort<a href=\"#_ftn16\" name=\"_ftnref16\">[16]<\/a>.\u00a0 As such the TDTIB, depending on its evolution, can very well contribute to the \u2018war optimism\u2019 of Turkeys\u2019 leadership under an ever expanding range of military conflict scenarios.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, what is observed in Turkey is a recurrent pattern over a period of approximately sixty years of divergent geopolitical interests, informed by geography, history and identity, as well as of impossible to dislodge for long domestic authoritarianism, derailing bilateral or multilateral defence relationships. Domestic and international Western norm breaking, or even lack of sharing of historically-informed western preferences, as in the case of Israel, are also an important factor. Geopolitical divergence and norm breaking also create fertile ground for the seeding and growth of coalitions in Europe and North America which prioritise the breaking up of such bilateral and multilateral defence relationships between Turkey and the West.\u00a0 Such a counter-reaction is assisted by the fact that Erdogan has now been entrenched in a gallery of rogues, right next to Putin, of leaders willing to employ force to impose their will both to their own citizens and to neighbouring states<a href=\"#_ftn17\" name=\"_ftnref17\">[17]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the more capable the TDTIB has become and the greater a share of a sophisticated supply chain of a weapon system it can claim, the more disruptive the subsequent rupture becomes for its western partner(s).\u00a0 This highly volatile relationship of weapons manufacturing and sales by the West to Turkey, of sixty years standing, started with the denial and then suspension of sales of weapon systems for which the nascent TDTIB would provide limited \u00a0maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) support services, such as the technologically simple, WW II-vintage LSTs, and culminated in the need by Lockheed Martin, the US manufacturer of F35s, the world\u2019s leading fifth-generation fighter jet, \u00a0to replace in short order a total of 12 billion USD\u2019s worth of supply chain production\u00a0 by those Turkish firms which were expelled from the F35 manufacturing programme, after Erdogan\u2019s \u00a0decision to procure the S400s<a href=\"#_ftn18\" name=\"_ftnref18\">[18]<\/a>. Indeed, if the F35 imbroglio demonstrates anything is that the participation of the TDTIB to valuable for the Turkish economy supply chains, as much as to the its Western partners, will and can be sacrificed if domestic imperatives and or strategic autonomy rationales mandate so.<\/p>\n<h2>Can the Erdogan regime strike a viable partnership between the TDTIB and the EDTIB?<\/h2>\n<p>There is no doubt that the TDTIB stands to gain a lot in turns of both volume of sales and innovation capabilities were it to be incorporated in the European Defence Technological Industrial Base (EDTIB), in terms similar to those accessible to the UK and Norway. As with the case of South Korea, industrialised nations which doubled down in the development of their DTIBs due to geopolitical circumstances different from those enjoyed by most EU-members, are now in a position to meet rapidly increasing demand for everything military<a href=\"#_ftn19\" name=\"_ftnref19\">[19]<\/a>. More largely, Turkey\u2019s robust manufacturing base together with the geographic proximity to the EU, make the country one of the potential greatest beneficiaries of the EU\u2019s need to build up resilient supply chains via near-shoring partnerships. Naturally such a geopolitically driven partnership between the EU and Turkey can also be translated in political leverage in terms of the enhanced ability of Turkish policy makers to make what EU interlocutors, including Greek ones, would consider as legitimate Turkish interests and policy priorities appreciated and respected both in Brussels and the chancelleries of Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Equally, such an alignment of industrial and geopolitical interests is simply not realistic if Turkey, under Erdogan and his potential regime successors, stays on the same course, of a) geopolitical heterodoxy, a heterodoxy which includes the attempt to challenge the sovereignty of EU member-countries, namely Greece and Cyprus, as well as b) to effectively suspend democracy in Turkey, and go, as international commentators have noted, for \u2018full autocracy\u2019<a href=\"#_ftn20\" name=\"_ftnref20\">[20]<\/a>.\u00a0 As with the previous instances of the disruption in TDTIB bilateral and multilateral partnerships which we briefly reviewed above, sooner or later this domestic and foreign policy mix, catalyzed by any one or more future incidents that it is bound to generate, will derail Turkey\u2019s DTIB relationship with the EU.\u00a0 Simply put, this Turkish comportment will, as it has so often done in the past, create the coalitions between pressure groups and states, the mutually reinforcing loop between norms and interests that will compel the EU to show the door to TDTIB, notwithstanding any defence industrial partnerships that may have been struck in the meantime. Indeed, several EU reports recurrently produced long lists of policy items where there is massive divergence between Turkey and the EU, a veritable minefield of unbridgeable gaps in interests and norms that can explode at any moment<a href=\"#_ftn21\" name=\"_ftnref21\">[21]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the estimation of this policy paper, in the timeframe of any possible decision by the EU and its member-states, say the next 2-3 years, the second possibility of continuous divergence from CFSP is the most realistic one and not the first.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that Erdogan is determined to hold on to power, despite the near certainty that any under conceivable scenario of free and competitive elections he will lose by any one of his \u00a0most formidable opponents, among CHP\u2019s leadership roster, mandates repression at home and aggression abroad. The economic benefits of a geopolitically-based industrial partnership between the EU and Turkey are not enough, and cannot come fast enough, to make him prevail over any of his more charismatic opponents in the 2027 Presidential elections.\u00a0\u00a0 So he has to throw his opponents into prison, causing further trouble to the Turkish economy which has already eroded his popularity irrevocably.\u00a0 Indeed, the more times passes, the more inexorable the process of eliminating the regime\u2019s main political foe, CHP, as a viable political competitor becomes, with accretive imprisonments and suspensions from public life, directed against an ever widening circle of key CHP personalities<a href=\"#_ftn22\" name=\"_ftnref22\">[22]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Increased domestic repression, in turn, is legitimized by aggressive assertion abroad.\u00a0 The militarization of Turkish foreign policy as a pillar of Erdogan\u2019s effort to checkmate his domestic opponents has been well-documented, particularly through Turkish military operations in Syria<a href=\"#_ftn23\" name=\"_ftnref23\">[23]<\/a>.\u00a0 Turkey\u2019s currently ongoing challenge in the field, of Greece\u2019s effort to lay an electric energy interconnecting cable between Crete and Cyprus, the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI), a project of Common European Interest, partly funded by the EU, and executed by a leading French manufacturer with an expertise in subsea electricity cable laying, has reanimated Greece\u2019s objections to the TDTIB benefiting from the EU rearmament. These objections were most prominently demonstrated in Greek efforts to eliminate the possibility that Turkish defence firms will benefit, as subcontractors, from EU defence procurement orders funded by the concessionary rates of the 150-billio euro SAFE programme<a href=\"#_ftn24\" name=\"_ftnref24\">[24]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The bigger picture is one of a Turkish leader who, from the 2010\u2019s onwards, has grounded his hegemonic enterprise on extracting geopolitical rents and prestige from unilateral force projection as opposed through economic and geopolitical integration with the EU.<\/p>\n<p>This strategic choice of Erdogan has nullified politically most if not all of the advantages that accrued to the New Democracy (ND) Greek Government by the \u2018calm waters\u2019 Greco-Turkish agreement\u00a0 of 2023, namely the containment of illegal migration flows from the Turkish coast to the east Aegean islands, the visa facilitation of tourist flows from the Turkish\u00a0 coast\u00a0 to the East Aegean islands (essentially the agreement exchanged politically destabilizing migratory flows to Greece with politically beneficial tourist flows), the cessation of violations of the Greek air space by the Turkish Air Force and the containment of the geopolitical risk, as a factor which could derail\u00a0 Greece\u2019s still painfully gradual recovery from the ten year fiscal crisis and in particular threaten the lucrative for the Greek economy tourist season.<\/p>\n<p>It is illuminating that at the present juncture, when Turkey has every interest to \u2018play nice\u2019 with Greece on the basis of this \u2018calms water\u2019 agreement, in view of the potential benefits that may accrue to her from a partnership with the EU, it is challenging as we mentioned above in the field the right of Greece, according to the international law of the seas, to explore the seabed and proceed to lay the GSI cable between Crete and Cyprus.\u00a0 Turkish activism in Libya and Syria also aim at maintaining the idiosyncratic challenge, according to the international law of the seas, to Greece\u2019s right for an exclusive economic zone, based on the position and size of its island territories, most prominently, but not exclusively, the largest such island territory, Crete.<\/p>\n<p>This course of action pursued by Erdogan has created a dynamic in Greece in favour of a creation of yet another nationalistic party, threatening to eat into ND support, enabled the major opposition party, PASOK, to put the government on the spot on the issue of if and when the GSI will actually be implemented and has engendered critique, both within and outside ND, that primarily SAFE betrays the promise of collective European defence, by potentially benefiting the TDTIB.<\/p>\n<p>Considering the above, and the fact that elections are to be held in Greece in 2027 at the latest, we may as well take for granted that Greece and Cyprus will energetically lobby against any type of participation by the TDITB in the rearmament of Europe.\u00a0\u00a0 While disagreements between Greece and the Republic of Cyprus on the financial viability of GSI have cast a shadow over the project\u2019s viability, Greek policy makers have also provided assurances that Greece is determined to proceed with the laying of the cable, even if that means a testing of wills, militarily, in the field.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed the fact that the Erdogan is being so reckless in pressing his claims against Greece, through diplomacy and force deployment, itself underlines the fragility of any future partnership between the EU\u2019s rearmament effort and the TDTIB \u2013 it is proof positive that for the Erdogan regime such a partnership is a \u2018nice to have\u2019 whereas aggression against two EU member countries, Greece and Cyprus, are politically speaking \u2018must haves\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As it is, it is only because the Greek government has refrained, thus far, from forcing this issue via military means, in the field, as she is perfectly entitled and capable of doing so, that its fellow EU member-countries have not been compelled to admit the incongruity of Turkey\u2019s participation in the EU\u2019s rearmament effort.<\/p>\n<h2>Should the Erdogan regime be given the opportunity to strike a partnership between the TDTIB and Europe\u2019s rearmament?<\/h2>\n<p>National commitments reached in NATO\u2019s Hague summit, of a rise to 3.5 % of GDP to defence spending, and an additional 1.5 % of GDP spending to domains supporting NATO\u2019s collective defence, should not be discounted as implausible. They reflect, on the one hand, the structural trend of the US to prioritise deterring a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which could be tantamount to nothing short of terminating US hegemony in Asia and the Pacific.\u00a0 And, on the other hand, they illuminate Europe\u2019s need to secure continued US fealty to NATO\u2019s Article 5, premised on European countries picking up an ever greater share of the bill for conventional deterrence in Europe and, in exchange, retaining the US nuclear guarantee, as the ultimate deterrent against Russian aggression.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, it is also commonly acknowledged that European states are determined to develop and deploy their own strategic enablers so that they do not become hostages to diverging US priorities, relating to collective European defence, or to US determination to leverage its military indispensability to extract rents from Europe via its trade and\/or monetary policy<a href=\"#_ftn25\" name=\"_ftnref25\">[25]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Such enablers refer, first, to achieving economies of scale in the production of weapon platforms that are already within the technological reach of EU member-states, via EDTIB consolidation. Economies of scale in already available technologies would underpin strategic autonomy by producing enough quantities of limited in number platforms, by a consolidated EDTIB, so that the EU can deter against Russia, with the massive quantities of war materiel that the return of peer to peer conflict necessitates.<\/p>\n<p>Second, strategic enablers are for the EU those technologies and weapon platforms which are currently provided by the US, as EU countries have not developed comparable capabilities. They refer, mainly, to strategic lift, ISR based on an extensive satellite network, sixth generation aircraft and long range ground to air and ground to ground missile systems.<\/p>\n<p>Obtaining such enablers is a profoundly political exercise, the success of which would be constitutive of an essentially evolved European polity, which has already received the relevant coined terms, such as \u2018a geopolitical Europe\u2019 of a European \u2018defence community\u2019 and so on<a href=\"#_ftn26\" name=\"_ftnref26\">[26]<\/a>.\u00a0 While EU member countries have indeed sacrificed the important for the sake of the urgent, as in the case of covering capability gaps which have accumulated over two decades by procuring US and Israeli weapon systems, setting back the cause of the EUs strategic autonomy, the direction of travel towards a European defence polity is still clear.<\/p>\n<p>Such a polity, to come into being, requires achieving consensus, as per the Draghi Report recommendations<a href=\"#_ftn27\" name=\"_ftnref27\">[27]<\/a>, on a massive, recurrent programme of debt issuance by the European Commission. Such issuance would fund, among other priority domains, the research, development and production of the EU\u2019s strategic enablers as well as provide the fiscal incentivisation of joint procurement necessary for the EDTIB\u2019s drive for economies of scale through industrial consolidation.\u00a0 The alternative, and more modest policy suggestion, is based on shifting resources from cohesion funding and the Common Agricultural Policy to collective European defence spending.<\/p>\n<p>Both courses of action are highly contestable politically<a href=\"#_ftn28\" name=\"_ftnref28\">[28]<\/a>. The former course of action needs to overcome the reluctance of net contributors among EU member states to underwrite fiscal issuance by the EU while the latter course of action means overcoming the reluctance of the net recipients, among EU member countries, to see a substantial decline in fiscal resources directed to those socioeconomic groups and regions most depended on EU transfers.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, either exercise can also command a unique common ground among EU member states which were only recently, during the euro\u2019s fiscal crisis, in opposing camps.\u00a0 Strengthening the EU\u2019s collective defence is a shared priority from the very end of both the North and the South, in the EU\u2019s eastern periphery, from Lithuania to Cyprus.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Defence has shortened if not collapsed the policy distance separating the \u2018frugals\u2019 from the \u2018spendthrifts\u2019 with leading members of both cohorts facing existential threats due to the partial disengagement and growing unreliability of the US security guarantee. \u00a0\u00a0To illustrate, when the US Department of Defence starts considering withdrawing military aid from the Baltics<a href=\"#_ftn29\" name=\"_ftnref29\">[29]<\/a>, Denmark, Sweden and Finland have every reason to boost the EU\u2019s common defence and entertain financial arrangements, such as common bond issuance, that a fiscally constrained Greece would most welcome.<\/p>\n<p>Significantly, the blatant assertion by the Trump Administration that Greenland will, one way or another, fall under US sovereignty, has universalized the perception of threat, cutting its unbiblical cord from Russia, and impressing on all member-states that the capacity for collective defence needs to be developed against all threat contingencies.\u00a0 Simply put, it makes it that much easier for Greek policy makers to relate to their EU colleagues how serious as much as unacceptable is Turkey\u2019s comportment on the basis of \u2018might is right\u2019 and, as such, deserving of a common European response. And once threat loses its specificity, threat representation becomes important, as each and every threat is entitled to be addressed and no threat posed to a member-states\u2019 national security can be airily dismissed as an unrealistic obsession, as a mere domestic perception as opposed to a geopolitical fact.\u00a0 Arguably, as the recommendations of the Niinisto report are implemented, particularly with regard to a common EU intelligence function, that will have the effect of Europeanising each member country\u2019s valid threat perceptions<a href=\"#_ftn30\" name=\"_ftnref30\">[30]<\/a>, rendering ever more untenable defence industrial and other policies that are incompatible with such Europeanised threat perceptions. Suffice it to say here that Turkey\u2019s gray zone playbook vis a vis Greece and Cyprus is starkly similar to that of Russia in CEE and in the Baltics and China in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n<p>Denmark is emblematic in that regard, a small Scandinavian country, one of the \u2018frugals\u2019 during the Eurozone crisis, now in favour of rising defence expenditures, in order to deter Russia, as in the case of all Scandinavian countries which are with the exception of Finland in the second line of defence against Russia, while also being the first EU member country to have its sovereignty challenged by the US<a href=\"#_ftn31\" name=\"_ftnref31\">[31]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u03a4he drive of the EU for strategic autonomy, tantamount to the construction of a new European polity, both puts the importance of the TDTIB, but also of the Turkish Armed Forces, in its appropriate scale, as important but by no stretch of imagination indispensable, in terms of providing scarce material and human resources to Europe\u2019s collective defence. It is the intra-European consensus necessary for collective mobilization that is indispensable, not the contribution to such a vast mobilization of any one third party, Turkey included.<\/p>\n<p>This is even more the case when such a third party participation is corrosive of the consensus that needs to be achieved. For that level of consensus to be generated, all member states need to be convinced that collective defence is one and indivisible, just as within any nation-state one region bordering to a third country has an absolutely equal claim to its integrity and rights, conferred by its inclusion in the sovereign entity, to all other regions of that country bordering with other third countries.\u00a0 It is that foundational assumption that is indispensable to the project of the EU\u2019s strategic autonomy.<\/p>\n<p>It is also important to note that it is inevitable that the more the EU develops its strategic autonomy the less this autonomy will come to be limited to countering the Russian threat.\u00a0 Military capabilities, as much as the modalities of their acquisition, will expand the domains of their application, commensurately with their growth.\u00a0 These capabilities may be deployed in a massive operation to stabilize sub-Saharan Africa. On another occasion, they could embolden the EU to risk rupture with the US, by imposing punitive regulations to US IT titans operating in the EU, in case of a forceful acquisition of Greenland by the US.\u00a0 In yet another possibility, the EU\u2019s military capabilities could provide leverage to the EU to exert moderating influence over Israel\u2019s behaviour in the West Bank due to the growing reliance of Israel\u2019s DTIB on the rapidly growing EDTIB.<\/p>\n<p>Greece together with Cyprus are not stowaways in this exciting European voyage but rather key members of the crew. Greece is the only country in the EU to be so physically distant to Moscow that in 2024 spent above 3 % of its GDP in defence &#8211; as much or nearly as much as those EU member countries close to Moscow.\u00a0 Through the port of Alexandroupolis it has proven its significance, in terms of military logistics, for the integrity of the Southern part of the EU\u2019s collective defence against the Russian Federation as well as for the support of the energy needs of Bulgaria and Romania through the Alexandroupolis FSRU.\u00a0 Greece has also taken the lead in the setting up of EUNAVFPOR ASPIDES which seeks to mitigate Houthi attacks against the merchant marine in the Red Sea \u2013 where the Turkish navy has been conspicuously absent<a href=\"#_ftn32\" name=\"_ftnref32\">[32]<\/a>.\u00a0 Needless to say in the years ahead, as the Hellenic Navy renews its fleet and as other EU Mediterranean Fleets similarly get strengthened, Greece will be a pillar of freedom of navigation in the critical seaways linking Asia with Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Both Greece and Cyprus reaffirmed their strategic importance due to the wars of the Middle East with the heavy use respectively of the US Suda Bay base in Crete and the UK Akrotiri base in Cyprus.\u00a0 Greece, as already suggested enjoys important leverage in the US, considering that US engagement will continue to be important for the EU\u2019s collective defence.\u00a0 The Suba Bay base is critical to the operations of the US Navy and Air Force in the Mediterranean. Alexandroupolis is a point of entry for US natural gas servicing Southern European energy needs, the defence relationship with Israel is growing as it involves strategic Israeli investments in the GDTIB and the Greek-American lobby, in alignment with the Jewish-American lobby enjoys considerable influence in the US Congress<a href=\"#_ftn33\" name=\"_ftnref33\">[33]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, Greece, both on its own and together with Cyprus, as a typically medium-sized EU member country, with its contribution to the ongoing defence effort against Russian aggression, its participation in mitigating the negative consequences of the Middle East wars, its exceptionally high defence spending and its military and geopolitical contributions that it will be able to make in the future strategically autonomous Europe &#8211;\u00a0 a Europe that will have to confront a threat diversity\u00a0 commensurate with its growing strategic autonomy \u2013 represents\u00a0 precisely the type of EU member country that needs to have its own threat environment acknowledged and addressed if there is to be a successful construction of a European polity that guarantees the safety of all its member-states. And in such a European polity there is no place for defence firms of a non-EU member that persists in threatening an EU member country, such as Turkey.<\/p>\n<h2>The TDTIB and the EU\u2019s Rearmament: Simply not worth the trouble<\/h2>\n<p>A flurry of policy papers and press coverage have presented the TDITB as indispensable to the EU\u2019s rearmament and\/or, more largely, argued for the vital role that Turkey needs to play in Europe\u2019s collective defence<a href=\"#_ftn34\" name=\"_ftnref34\">[34]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This advocacy is grounded in three claims.\u00a0 First, that the TDITB is critical both in terms of filling the need of the EU for manufacturing of mass, reliable quality, NATO-standard defence articles as well as in addressing important niche capabilities as in the UAV domain. Second, such an TDTIB participation will enable the EU to avail itself of the Turkey\u2019s Armed Forces manpower in case it decides to sent a peacekeeping force to Ukraine, considering that it is the second largest Army in NATO and that the Turkish government has a high tolerance, at least compared to European governments, for casualties in the field of battle. Third that such a package \u2013 TDTIB and the contribution of troops \u2013 will anchor Turkey in the Western alliance.<\/p>\n<p>None of these arguments are to be easily dismissed but rather carefully weighted in the cost benefit calculations and robust risk assessments that are attendant to any difficult policy choice.<\/p>\n<p>On the TDTIB aspect what is essential to point out is that its relative contribution to the EU\u2019s rearmament effort is a declining rather than a rising asset, precisely because of the mobilisation of resources in EU member countries catalyzed by country-member, EU funding and strategic and portfolio investments in the EDTIB as well as in parallel developments taking place in key EU-allied countries, European and non-European, such as the UK, Ukraine, Norway and Canada.\u00a0 On mass what we see in the EU is a combination of investment in new plants and machinery, investments in older plants including reactivation, with a special focus on the Central Eastern European defence industry which had not attracted FDI in the transition period, due to peace dividend dynamics. We can expect that German and CEE experience in activating industrial supply chains in the post \u2013 1989 period in the civilian sector where it has excelled, will now prove its worth in the military domain.\u00a0 In niche capabilities such as UAVs, innovation\u2019s baton has been decisively transferred from Turkey to Ukraine with a variety of European defence firms operating in Ukraine and \/ or partnering with Ukrainian firms in order to be able to be innovative. \u00a0\u00a0What is striking in the latest assessment of defence manufacturing in Europe<a href=\"#_ftn35\" name=\"_ftnref35\">[35]<\/a> is the common playbook, on top of increases in defence spending, adopted by all significant, in defence manufacturing terms, European countries, all geared to increasing the supply of defence platforms, systems and materiel: relaxation of regulatory environment relating to defence manufacturing, the speeding up of procurement through reform, increased funding for innovation in defence, investing in the defence sector\u2019s skills base, and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 Relatedly, the TDTIB is identified as a meaningful contributor only in one capability gap of collective European defence, in medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAVs and, potentially, in land attack systems up to 1,000 kms<a href=\"#_ftn36\" name=\"_ftnref36\">[36]<\/a>.\u00a0 This rather marginal role of the TDTIB in Europe\u2019s capability building is also reflected in its export record of defence systems to European countries which mostly involves low or middle range technologies such as MALE UAVs, corvettes and armoured personnel carriers<a href=\"#_ftn37\" name=\"_ftnref37\">[37]<\/a>. Inevitably Turkey\u2019s mid size economy, with its mediocre innovation record, cannot rise to the challenge of contributing, let alone replacing, such US-originating capabilities as space-based ISR, integrated air and missile defence, battle management systems and long range attack systems<a href=\"#_ftn38\" name=\"_ftnref38\">[38]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Relatedly, the increasingly well-funded defence industrial strategies of those EU member state\u2019s that have them, also focus on the UAVs and other niches so as to spur innovation in their own defence sectors.\u00a0\u00a0 Their twin motive is both to provide a qualitative edger to their own armed forces via homegrown innovation and to be able to leverage this edge to commercial success throughout Europe.\u00a0 Indeed, the TDTIB itself partakes in this process with the industrial\u00a0 presence in Ukraine of its most prominent UAV manufacturer, Bayraktar. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the end nobody intimated this decline in relative terms of the TDTIB than one of its most fervent advocates, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Pointing out that Europe in seeking to prevail militarily over Russia, needs \u00a0to prevail, by mobilising its economic prowess, over an \u201ceconomy [that] is not bigger than\u00a0<em><strong>Texas<\/strong><\/em>. So can\u00a0<em><strong>you<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0imagine that\u00a0<em><strong>Texas<\/strong><\/em>, the State of\u00a0<em><strong>Texas<\/strong><\/em>, producing more ammunition than the whole of NATO?\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn39\" name=\"_ftnref39\">[39]<\/a>. By the same token, how credible is to argue that the whole of the EDTIB cannot, when effectively mobilized, cannot produce the defence materiel necessary to deter against Russian aggression, without the participation of an economy, namely Turkey\u2019s, which is just a bit larger \u00a0than that of the state of Illinois, which is to say 1\/17th of the EU\u2019s GDP?<\/p>\n<p>Similar dynamics are operative in terms of the availability of sufficiently manned units to be fielded by EU and non-EU countries, most prominently the UK, in the much discussed prospect of a European peace keeping force in Ukraine.\u00a0 The advisability of such a mission has been contested but that is not the issue. As with the EDTIB there is an ongoing effort across Europe to both hire more professional soldiers and reintroduce conscription<a href=\"#_ftn40\" name=\"_ftnref40\">[40]<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We do not believe that higher tolerance of casualties, on the part of the Turkish government, and more largely polity and society is a valid argument for two reasons.\u00a0 First, European states have demonstrated in Afghanistan, through participation in ISAF, that they are willing to suffer casualties in the service of vital allied goals (in this case supporting US operations in Afghanistan not least so as to help preserve US commitment to the collective defence of Europe).\u00a0 It is worth pointing out that eight EU member countries, from Denmark (population 5.5. million) to Germany (population 82 million), suffered more casualties, both relative to their population and in absolute terms, through their ISAF participation, than Turkey did<a href=\"#_ftn41\" name=\"_ftnref41\">[41]<\/a>. \u00a0More generally the west\u2019s democracies have demonstrated their ability to generate parliamentary consensus when invoking allied commitments in order to put troops in harm\u2019s way<a href=\"#_ftn42\" name=\"_ftnref42\"><sup>[42]<\/sup><\/a>. \u00a0Indeed, the rise of the EU as a collective provider has added a case example in this canon by enabling the Greek government to participate in the high risk EUNAVFOR ASPIDES freedom of navigation mission where the Hellenic Navy employed its guns for the first time since WW II, in an allied operation. Nor is it credible to suggest that in any such operation in Ukraine Turkey would play the role of the mercenary, putting at risk of death of injury a disproportionate number of its soldiers than other European states, in a mission that is definitive for the collective will of Europe and more specifically for the EU and its member states to defend themselves.\u00a0 So, as in the case of the TDTIB, we are talking about a useful but not indispensable contribution in risk-taking troops.\u00a0\u00a0 As with the Rutte evocation of the disparity between collective European versus Russian economic-industrial mobilization, so with force generation we recall Poland\u2019s PM rhetorical evocation of the EU\u2019s collective population preponderance: \u2018500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans help fight 140 million Russians\u2019<a href=\"#_ftn43\" name=\"_ftnref43\">[43]<\/a>. To suggest that such a Europe, of 500 million Europeans, cannot muster a peacekeeping force in the tens of thousands, for the defence of Ukraine, without Turkey\u2019s troop contribution is simply risible.<\/p>\n<p>The third argument of the TDTIB\u2019s participation in the EU\u2019s rearmament is about Turkey\u2019s geopolitical and economic importance, and the importance of TDTIB participation in Europe\u2019s rearmament as a means of engaging with Turkey, of in effect \u2018not losing\u2019 Turkey. It is important to note that within Turkish opinion, there is a diversity of opinion. We do have Imamoglou\u2019s own advocacy in favour of lifting the embargo to the sale of Typhoons to Turkey<a href=\"#_ftn44\" name=\"_ftnref44\">[44]<\/a> \u00a0as well as arguments of critics of the Erdogan regime to the effect that an EDTIB-TDTIB relationship will affirm Turkey\u2019s European vocation and is bound to outlive Erdogan\u2019s authoritarian turn<a href=\"#_ftn45\" name=\"_ftnref45\">[45]<\/a>. Equally, we have voices arguing that the EU should not reward Turkey\u2019s authoritarian backsliding, due to its potential contribution to the EU\u2019s rearmament, as this backsliding no more entrenched it becomes there more bound it is to make Turkey even more of an unreliable security partner to the EU<a href=\"#_ftn46\" name=\"_ftnref46\">[46]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The position of this paper is that the imperative of Erdogan\u2019s maintaining himself in power privileges further internal repression and external aggression and that the opportunity of the TDTIB to participate in the EU\u2019s rearmament is not a sufficient incentive for him to abandon this twin track approach.\u00a0\u00a0 At the point of writing developments on both tracks prove our point, with further politically-engineered court actions seeking to neutralize CHP as an effective political force and the threat of military brinkmanship hanging over Greece\u2019s and Cyprus\u2019 perfectly legitimate plans to connect themselves energy-wise by laying the GSI undersea cable.\u00a0 It is indeed hard to see how Turkey, even if its TDTIB is definitively excluded from the EU\u2019s rearmament, can be lost to Europe more than it already has. It is, however, much more plausible to envisage a situation whereby a growing reliance ofEurope on the TDTIB could lead Erdogan to miscalculate his personal importance, and that of his country, and make him even more reckless vis a vis Greece and Cyprus.<\/p>\n<h2>Concluding Remarks<\/h2>\n<p>Turkey neither can nor should participate, through the TDTIB, in Europe\u2019s rearmament effort and for the same set of reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Under Erdogan\u2019s leadership and in the current geopolitical juncture Turkey has reaffirmed a pattern in its relations with the West that has rendered partnering with the TDTIB highly unstable as much as undesirable.\u00a0 Unstable because the combination of internal repression and external aggression, by the Turkish leadership, mobilises an influential counter-reaction by western states and influential lobby groups in these states, which prioritises the cut-off of bilateral or multilateral defence industrial relationships. Undesirable, because allowing for such defence industrial relationships to continue, despite Turkey\u2019s internal and external comportment, is bound to be corrosive to the norms and interests binding collective security arrangements among EU member-states.<\/p>\n<p>Greek-Turkish relations, from this \u2018neither can nor should\u2019 prism are both illuminating and definitive, historically and currently.\u00a0 Historically, the birth of TDITB in the post WWII period was due to the need of Turkey to invade and partly conquer Cyprus, an act that destabilised NATO, led to an unprecedented US embargo of weapons sales to Turkey and which has as its only peer event in the European continent, in the entire post WW II period, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. \u00a0Currently, Erdogan\u2019s determination to challenge Greek sovereign rights through actions in the field and diplomatically, even more so if they are successful, they are bound to either create insurmountable blocks to the entry or generate risks in the ongoing participation of the TDITB in Europe\u2019s rearmament effort. Appropriately enough such an incongruity is addressed by the SAFE regulation conditionalities, as in the case of article 17<a href=\"#_ftn51\" name=\"_ftnref51\">[51]<\/a>. We have argued in these pages that Erdogan has, through his policy choices, to let these roadblocks in place, because doing so is a \u2018must have\u2019 whereas participation of the TDITB in Europe\u2019s rearmament is only a \u2018nice to have\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>This calculation between the \u2018must have\u2019 and \u2018nice to have\u2019 is even more pronounced in the case of Erdogan\u2019s uninhibited suppression of democratic contestation, as allowing such contestation would be equal to his loss of power. Inevitably, external aggression and internal repression compound each other, strengthening both the \u2018cant\u2019 and \u2018shouldn\u2019t\u2019 of the participation of the TDTIB in Europe\u2019s rearmament.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have argued that the resource mobilization necessary for the EU to gain strategic autonomy, both in the ambitious scenario (Draghi recommendations) and the modest scenario (reordering of the EU budget), would render the TDIB contribution to Europe\u2019s rearmament if not marginal definitely not critical. At the same time such a participation, under the \u2018can\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t\u2019 perspective would be both highly uncertain in its implementation and much more trouble than its worth, due to the resulting corrosion of the intra-EU consensus on which this mobilization needs to rest upon.<\/p>\n<p>As for the icing of the European cake, a strategically autonomous Europe would substantially fill the vacuum left from an Asia-oriented US, put an end to Turkey\u2019s geopolitical heterodoxy and convince its leadership to integrate Turkey with the EU\u2019s CS<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Erickson, Edward J., and Mesut Uyar.\u00a0<em>Phase Line Attila: The Amphibious Campaign for Cyprus, 1974<\/em>. Marine Corps University Press, 2020, p. 90.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> See, Altman, Dan. &#8220;The evolution of territorial conquest after 1945 and the limits of the territorial integrity norm.&#8221;\u00a0<em>International Organization<\/em>\u00a074.3 (2020): 490-522.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a>Erickson, Edward J., and Mesut Uyar.\u00a0<em>Phase Line Attila: The Amphibious Campaign for Cyprus, 1974<\/em>. Marine Corps University Press, 2020, p. 55.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a>Turkey belongs to the emerging innovator category, the lowest category of the European Innovation Scoreboard, dedicating modest resources to R&amp;D, being ranked 31<sup>st<\/sup> among 39 EU member states and neighbouring countries, see European Commission, European Innovation Scoreboard 2024, 2024, p. 104.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Kitroeff, Alexander. &#8220;Diaspora-Homeland Relations and Greek-American Lobbying: the Panhellenic Emergency Committee, 1974\u201378.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of Modern Hellenism<\/em>\u00a011 (1994): 19-40.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> See indicatively, Ba\u011fc\u0131, H\u00fcseyin, and \u00c7a\u011flar Kur\u00e7. &#8220;Turkey\u2019s strategic choice: buy or make weapons?.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Defence Studies<\/em>\u00a017.1 (2017): 38-62 and Mevl\u00fcto\u011flu, Arda, et al. &#8220;Adapting security: The intersection of Turkiye\u2019s foreign policy and defence industrialisation.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Center for foreign policy and peace research and international institute for strategic studies<\/em>\u00a0(2024).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> This overview draws from Mevl\u00fcto\u011flu, Arda, et al. &#8220;Adapting security: The intersection of Turkiye\u2019s foreign policy and defence industrialisation.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Center for foreign policy and peace research and international institute for strategic studies<\/em>\u00a0(2024).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a>Domestic repression and external aggression, singly or jointly, engendered official and unofficial weapons embargoes by Switzerland, Norway, Germany and the US, see, Egeli, S\u0131tk\u0131, et al. &#8220;From client to competitor: The rise of Turkiye\u2019s defence industry.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research and International Institute for Strategic Studies<\/em>\u00a0(2024). US diplomatic sources have confirmed that the Imia islets were Greek and should have not been contested by Turkey notwithstanding the fact that the US State Department did not communicate this conviction in public so as to not alienate Turkey, see Kostoulas, Vassilis, Fascinating revelations about the 1996 Imia crisis, Kathimerini, English edition, 14 February 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> See, for a discussion Kamaras, Antonis. &#8220;Greece\u2019s call for an embargo on weapons sales to Turkey.&#8221;\u00a0<em>ELIAMEP,<\/em>\u00a0(2020).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> See, T. Karako, Coup proofing? Making sense of Turkey\u2019s S-400 Decision, Centre for International and Strategic Studies, 28.4.22<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> Mevl\u00fcto\u011flu, Arda, et al. &#8220;Adapting security: The intersection of Turkiye\u2019s foreign policy and defence industrialisation.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Center for foreign policy and peace research and international institute for strategic studies<\/em>\u00a0(2024).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[12]<\/a> Waldwyn, Tom. &#8220;Turkiye\u2019s Defence-industrial Relationships with Other European States.&#8221; <em>Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research and International Institute for Strategic Studies<\/em>\u00a0 (2024).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref13\" name=\"_ftn13\">[13]<\/a>\u00a0 For an analysis of these forces in play shaping Turkey\u2019s naval strategy see, R. Gingeras, The Turkish Navy in an era of great power competition, <em>War on the Rocks<\/em>, 30.4. 2019<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref14\" name=\"_ftn14\">[14]<\/a> See, Soyaltin-Colella, Digdem, and Tolga Demiryol. &#8220;Unusual middle power activism and regime survival: Turkey\u2019s drone warfare and its regime-boosting effects.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Third World Quarterly<\/em>\u00a044.4 (2023): 724-743.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref15\" name=\"_ftn15\">[15]<\/a> See J. Mankof, The war in Ukraine and Eurasia\u2019s new imperial moment, <em>The Washington Quarterly<\/em>, 2022<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref16\" name=\"_ftn16\">[16]<\/a> Ministry of Defence, Defence Indiustrial Strategy 2025: Making Defence an Engine for Growth, UK, 8 September 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref17\" name=\"_ftn17\">[17]<\/a>See, typically, Rachman, Gideon.\u00a0<em>The age of the strongman: How the cult of the leader threatens democracy around the world<\/em>. Other Press, LLC, 2022.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref18\" name=\"_ftn18\">[18]<\/a> See, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/chart\/17557\/details-about--the-turkish-companies-supporting-f-35-development\/\">https:\/\/www.statista.com\/chart\/17557\/details-about&#8211;the-turkish-companies-supporting-f-35-development\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref19\" name=\"_ftn19\">[19]<\/a> For a discussion of South Korea\u2019s DTIB see, Nemeth, Bence. &#8220;South Korean Military Power: Lessons Europe Can Learn from Seoul on Spending Defence Budgets Efficiently.&#8221;\u00a0<em>The RUSI Journal<\/em>\u00a0169.1-2 (2024): 92-101.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref20\" name=\"_ftn20\">[20]<\/a> See, typically of solidifying international consensus on Erdogan\u2019s power grab, Tol, Gonul, Turkey is now a full-blown autocracy. Foreign Affairs, March 21 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref21\" name=\"_ftn21\">[21]<\/a> See, indicatively Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Turkyie, European Parliament, 15 4 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref22\" name=\"_ftn22\">[22]<\/a> See, indicatively, the analysis of Erdogan\u2019s attempt to reinstate at CHP\u2019s helm the ineffective Kimal Kilicdaroglou, through a court case that would put of action more capable CHP figures, GZERO Daily Newsletter, Is democracy doomed in Turkey?, 16 September 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref23\" name=\"_ftn23\">[23]<\/a> See, H. Zengin, Instrumentalising the army before elections in Turkey, <em>Third World Quarterly<\/em>, 2023 and S. Adar, Understanding Turkey\u2019s Increasingly Militaristic Foreign Policy, APSA MENA Politics Newsletter, Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2020.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref24\" name=\"_ftn24\">[24]<\/a> See indicatively Nedos, Vasillis, Turkish corvette off Crete signals Turkish intent, Kathimerini, English edition, 4,2.2025 and newsroom, SAFE could be a \u2018backdoor\u2019 for Turkish aspirations, warns Greek defence minister, Kathimerini, English edition, 29.05.2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref25\" name=\"_ftn25\">[25]<\/a> The discussion on Europe\u2019s strategic enablers, and the modaliti4es of their acquisition, is based on Wolff, Guntram, Steinbach, Armin and Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, The governance and funding of European Rearmament, Policy Brief 15\/25, Bruegel, April 2025 and International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).\u00a0<em>Building Defence Capacity in Europe: An Assessment<\/em>. Routledge, 2024.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref26\" name=\"_ftn26\">[26]<\/a> The debate on the EU\u2019s defence vocation having as its starting point the first Trump Presidency and accelerating with the ongoing war in Ukraine, see indicatively President of the EU Commission acceptance speech reference to a Geopolitical Commission,\u00a0 European Commission, Speech by President-elect von der Leyen in the European Parliament Plenary on the occasion of the presentation of her College of Commissioners and their programme, 27 November 2019 and the discussion, post Brexit, of the UK being an integral part of Europe\u2019s defence community, Leonard, Mark, Britain and Europe are Changing together, European Council of Foreign Relations,\u00a0 July 15 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref27\" name=\"_ftn27\">[27]<\/a> Draghi, Mario. &#8220;The Future of European Competitiveness Part A: A competitiveness strategy for Europe.&#8221; (2024).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref28\" name=\"_ftn28\">[28]<\/a> See the op-ed article of the Prime Minister of Sweden arguing, as an alternative to joint issuance of debt, the restructuring of the EU Budget, Kristerson, Ulf, The next EU budget cannot be business as usual, Politico, July 14 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref29\" name=\"_ftn29\">[29]<\/a> Nicholas Oakes, Baltic allies brace as US prepares to slash security assistance, Modern Diplomacy, 6 September 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref30\" name=\"_ftn30\">[30]<\/a> The author makes that point in European Defence covers Greece, Ta Nea, 12 4 2025 (\u0397 \u0395\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03b1\u03ca\u03ba\u03ae \u03ac\u03bc\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1, \u03a4\u03b1 \u039d\u03ad\u03b1).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref31\" name=\"_ftn31\">[31]<\/a> Power, Jack, A frugal no more: Russian threat shifts Denmark\u2019s thinking on defence spending,\u00a0 July 7 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref32\" name=\"_ftn32\">[32]<\/a> Cafiero, George, NATO member Turkey takes role of \u2018active neutrality\u2019 in Red Sea crisis\u2019 Responsible Statecraft, March 24 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref33\" name=\"_ftn33\">[33]<\/a> Greek lobby succeeds in US efforts, Ekathimerini, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/news\/1189218\/greek-lobby-succeeds-in-us-efforts\/\">https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/news\/1189218\/greek-lobby-succeeds-in-us-efforts\/<\/a>, 18 July 2022; Greek and Jewish Diaspora team up for Cyprus security, Knews, <a href=\"https:\/\/knews.kathimerini.com.cy\/en\/news\/greek-and-jewish-diaspora-team-up-for-cyprus\">https:\/\/knews.kathimerini.com.cy\/en\/news\/greek-and-jewish-diaspora-team-up-for-cyprus<\/a>, 7 May 2018.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref34\" name=\"_ftn34\">[34]<\/a> See indicatively, John Paul Rathbone and Henry Foy, Military Briefing: How Turkey became vital to European Security, Financial Times, 14.5.2025, Kadri Tastan, et al, EU-Turkiye Defense cooperation: Why now \u2013 and how far?, German Marshall Fund, Ilke Toygur, et al.,\u00a0 Turkey, Europe and the quest for security, CEPS, June 2025, Sinem Adar, et al, Alignment of Necessity, Centre for Applied Turkish Studies, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, August 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref35\" name=\"_ftn35\">[35]<\/a> Progress and Shortfalls in Europe\u2019s Defence \u2013 An Assessment, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, September 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref36\" name=\"_ftn36\">[36]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref37\" name=\"_ftn37\">[37]<\/a> See, Tom Waldwyn, Turkiye\u2019s defence industry charts a growth for European Growth,International Institute for Strategic Studies, 20 January 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref38\" name=\"_ftn38\">[38]<\/a> Progress and Shortfalls in Europe\u2019s Defence \u2013 An Assessment, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, September 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref39\" name=\"_ftn39\">[39]<\/a> Rutte, Mark, Specch by the NATO Secretary General at the IISS Prague Defence Summit, 4 September 2025<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref40\" name=\"_ftn40\">[40]<\/a> See, Lazarou, Eleni and Politis Lamprou, Panagiotis, Conscription as an element in European Union preparedness, European Parliamentary Research Service, March 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref41\" name=\"_ftn41\">[41]<\/a> Wikipedia, Coalition casualties in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref42\" name=\"_ftn42\">[42]<\/a> Wagner, Wolfgang. &#8220;Is there a parliamentary peace? Parliamentary veto power and military interventions from Kosovo to Daesh.&#8221;\u00a0<em>The British Journal of Politics and International Relations<\/em>\u00a020.1 (2018): 121-134.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref43\" name=\"_ftn43\">[43]<\/a>See his statement in the following youtube segment, \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yX06zhJf20o\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yX06zhJf20o<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref44\" name=\"_ftn44\">[44]<\/a> Imamoglu calls on Germany to lift veto on Eurofighter \u2013 \u201cTurkey is not only Erdogan\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref45\" name=\"_ftn45\">[45]<\/a> Gonul Tol, Don\u2019t cut Turkey out of European defence efforts because of Erdogan, Financial Times, 23 June 2024.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref46\" name=\"_ftn46\">[46]<\/a> Hurjan Asli Aksoy and Salim Cevik, Turkey\u2019s authoritarian turn: Imamoglu\u2019s arrest and Europe\u2019s strategic dilemma, Centre for Applied Turkish Studies, 25 March 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref47\" name=\"_ftn47\">[47]<\/a> Ruth Michaelson and Nevin Sungar, Turkish opposition leader criticizes Starmer for ingoring arrest of Istanbul Mayor, Guardian, 11 April 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref48\" name=\"_ftn48\">[48]<\/a> Ekrem Imamoglou, Why Turkey\u2019s democratic future matters for the world, Financial Times, April 16 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref49\" name=\"_ftn49\">[49]<\/a> Sinem Adar, et al, Alignment of Necessity, Centre for Applied Turkish Studies, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, August 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref50\" name=\"_ftn50\">[50]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref51\" name=\"_ftn51\">[51]<\/a> Council Regulation (EU) 2-25\/1106 of 27 May 2025 establishing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) through the Reinforcement of the European Defence Industry Instrument, Official Journal of the European Union, 28.5.2025<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since landing ships, made in Turkish shipyards in order to enable the invasion of Cyprus, reached their designated beachheads on the 20th of July of 1974, the Turkish defence technological industrial base (TDTIB) has been locked in a see saw pattern. From the late 1960\u2019s to today the TDTIB has advanced in order to enable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":52739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[476,492],"tags":[],"program":[20],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52724"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52741,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724\/revisions\/52741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52724"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=52724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}