What’s Up with Turkey’s S400?

Aaron Stein 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast about arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation. I am Aaron Stein, the Director of the Middle East Program and the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Scott LaFoy 0:19

And I am Scott LaFoy, Super Producer on the Arms Control Wonk Podcast and Consultant.

Aaron 0:24

And today we have on the podcast, not Jeffrey Lewis, the Podfather, or Anne Pellegrino, both of whom are still in lockdown, California. We have a good buddy of mine, Robert, Rob Lee, who is a PhD student at King's College, where I did my PhD, and I think has the best Twitter feed in the business about Russian weapons, and you're doing your thesis on Russian defense exports, what drives them from the political, military, and economic.

How's it going, Rob? Doing well, thanks. We were discussing potential podcast topics, as we always do, and you proposed something that I spend my entire life focusing on.

Scott 1:01

Yeah, which everyone should be able to guess. That is something Turkish. We focus a lot on strategic nuclear weapons and sort of a high level view of arms control and strategic balance. And I thought it would be fun to take a slightly different view of strategic balance and talk about the S-400 today. So for listeners, the S-400 is a long range air and sometimes missile defense system that the Russians produce that Turkey has recently acquired after a very contentious negotiation and protest from the United States.

And the S-400, is it a regiment or a battery? What's the unit we're looking at? Unit size we're looking at?

Rob Lee 1:43

The one that's in Turkey now? Yes. It's a regiment.

Scott 1:47

It's a regiment. So they've, they've acquired a regiment of the S 400 and they were, they said that it was going to be operational as of the end of April, 2020. It is may 2020 and it is not operational. So.

Aaron 2:04

Yeah. I mean, the Turks have been very consistent. I mean, throughout the purchase. I mean, so they, they purchased, you know, one regiment with the option for two. And I think Rob, Robert, I can get into that later. And they were delivered, and they've been very clear that all components of the S-400 has been delivered. They didn't make any secret about it when they showed up.

They invited the TV cameras, and we literally got to count what was coming off these large airplanes that were delivering them. Concurrent to that, during the delivery, is that the Turks were getting trained in Russia on how to operate the S-400, and they had maintained that they would begin to use them, or at least, you know, I just simplified and called it the switch-on day, but they would deploy or make operational operations.

The S-400 regiment by April. I've been asking Dave Schmerler, geolocation Jesus and arms control long favorite, to just keep a tab on the air base with which that they were sent. And as best as we can tell, now we can never be 100% certain, but as best as we can tell, the S-400s were put in storage around November of And they haven't been taken out of storage, and so they haven't been made operational yet.

And concurrent to this is that they confirmed this. But what they've said is, from their foreign minister on down, is that the deployment was delayed because of the coronavirus. You know, the bad thing, as we call it on the podcast. But they do intend to eventually switch them on.

Rob 3:34

Yeah, and I think the thing we were talking about before is that it should be ready. Technically, everything is ready. It could be turned on if they wanted to. It's clear that there's something else going on as to why they're not turning it on. And some coronaviruses, I think an explanation that they're trying to use, but isn't likely the accurate one.

But from a technical standpoint and from training standpoint, everything should be ready to go if they want to turn it on and start using it.

Scott 4:05

And so that's something I want to start with a little is just what does it mean to actually be trained on it and sort of what parts are present? Like, why does it look like it is ready? What parts are there? What parts would be missing? So it's a complete regiment like it's launchers, missiles, radars, and they've had folks training on this for months.

Rob 4:27

Yeah, do you want me to go through the system components, so the S-400?

Aaron 4:31

Yeah, this is a wonky podcast.

Rob 4:33

Okay, good. All right, so, yeah, so a lot of times when we talk about the S-400, it's kind of – people use kind of like a bit kind of vague terminology. They say an S-400 system or unit or – without being kind of specific, and the specifics matter in this case. So – Turkey received so far one regiment with two battalions.

And sometimes a term, when it's translated in English from Russian, battery battalion are sometimes kind of used differently. But for the Russian air defense systems, the ground force air defense systems also use the term battery battalion. So like the S300V4 uses the term battery, whereas the S400, they don't use that term. They use a different term, which I normally translate to battalion.

So that's why I say battalion, but you might hear battery instead. And a lot of times, it's essentially the same thing. Basically, the S-400, for an independent system, you have to have a regimental command post, which is a 306KE battle management system. That involves a 55K6 command post, and it involves a 91N6 Big Bird acquisition battle management radar system.

And so those two are the kind of key elements of that kind of regimental command post system that you need to operate the system independently anywhere. And then beneath that, you can have a number of different battalions. And so it's supposed to be by... When Russian defense officials talk about the kind of maximum capabilities of the system, they're talking about the maximum number of battalions and transport electoral launchers in each battalion.

And that's how you give these kind of really ambitious kind of somewhat exaggerated capabilities of the system. Usually, obviously, they don't have that many battalions per regiment. And so the actual capabilities are somewhat reduced. But so you have that the the battle management system. And from there, it can control up to six battalions for the S-400. And each battalion can control up to 12 transport erector launcher vehicles.

And every battalion is based around an engagement radar, a 92N6 engagement radar, and often will have an additional radar attached to it as well to improve its function. And then every transport director or launcher typically has four missiles per tell. And so that's kind of how you get to how many missiles they have and how many targets they can engage at a time.

And so in Turkey's case, it's one regimental system. And you also have right now two battalions. And it appears that there are a total of 16 TELs in total. So that would be eight TELs per battalion, which is a standard for the Russian military. What's unique about what Turkey receives, and they have a bunch of additional kind of systems as well, including there's a mast that they can use for the radars to improve their coverage of low-flying targets.

But the significant thing about it is that there are three type of TELs. So TELs are what carry missiles for the S-400 and for most of the systems. So the three type of TELs that can be used in the S-400. In Russia, there's two that are the kind of standard ones. There's the 5P85SM2 system and there's the 5P85TM system.

And the export variant is a different term for it. Those are two standard ones. And there's the 5P85SM2. There is the 5.1P6 TEL. And so what's unique about that is that the S-400 has three different families of missiles, and they all have different capabilities, and they're all somewhat different. And basically, the other two TELs, according to Almaz-Sante, the producer of the system, Can only carry the main missile of the S-400, the 48N6 missile.

There's E2, E3, different, more modern variants. But that missile, the 48N6E3, that missile has a max range of 250 kilometers. The 400-kilometer range is a different missile called the 40N6. And there's a bit of a question about whether or not that is actually operational yet. The Russians say it is. They said it became operational back in, I think, October 2018.

But we haven't seen any evidence that it's actually being used. We haven't seen it tested, haven't seen it delivered to units, haven't seen any of those kind of announcements. So it's still somewhat of a question of if it's actually in operation right now. I think it may or may not be, but it supposedly is a part of the deliveries to Turkey.

The third series of missiles are the 9M96E and E-2 missiles, which are shorter range, and they're kind of more capable at short-range targets and maneuverable targets. So in the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces, The 48N6 missile is the main missile. That is the missile that the S-400 uses. And when you see it tell with those four missiles on the back, those are the 48N6 variants.

Scott 10:08

So the 48N6 is the main sort of like workhorse air defense missile for the S-400?

Rob 10:14

That's right. And all the previous variants of the S-300P series, which the S-400 is based off of, they use similar missiles and they upgrade over time. And so as an example, so the S-400 can also use the missile design for the S-300PMU2 as well as the 48N6E3. So anyway, that's the main missile. We talk about the S-400.

We talk a lot about, you know, some of the other missiles and what they can do. But in reality, in the Russian air defense forces, that's the missile that they use and is equipped all the time. And so it's really, we should be talking about its capabilities more than the other ones. But in the case of Turkey, they received satellite photos.

They have at least eight of the 5.1 P-6 TELs. And those TELs, according to Almazante, are able to be equipped with both the long-range 40N6 missile and the shorter-range 9M96 missiles. And so, you know, from looking at what Turkey has... They have 16 TELs. At least eight of those are the 5.1P61s. The other ones are the 5.85TE2 or TE3s.

And so what that means is that Turkey likely will have the capability of using both the long-range and the short-range missiles if they bought them. I don't think we've seen from any available data, or at least publicly, that we know what missiles they've received specifically, but we know they've received the 48N61s. The other two I'm not sure about.

But at least from satellite photos, we know that Turkey has received the TELs to use those missiles. And China, which is the first foreign country to purchase S-400, we never saw those TELs there, at least not from anything I've seen. We saw the 5P85 TE-2s and TE-3s instead. So, yeah. Anyway, so it's a bit of a long rundown.

So what that means, though, is that Turkey will likely have the ability to have the long-range missile that has a 400-kilometer max range or 380 kilometers, and then also the shorter-range ones as well, which add in some kind of additional capability than just the 48N6, which is what almost every Russian S-400 battalion and regiment is based around.

Scott 12:34

So basically they have not only the main state interceptor, the 48M6 like main air defense missile, but they, it appears that they have the 40M6 like advanced long range system, which is the one that Russia says that they have delivered, but we haven't seen it. And they probably have access, you said, to the 9M96, which is the shorter range, like high performance maneuverable one.

Is that right? Yeah.

Rob 12:57

Yeah, that's right. And so for Russia, when they developed the S-400, the 40N6 was kind of an additional capability, right? So it was really, in terms of how the S-400 is better than the previous S-200 variants. As new radars, more capable radars, they can track more targets, and you had an upgraded 48N6E3 missile, which the maximum range of the previous variant was 200 kilometers.

This one is a max range of 250 kilometers. So that was the main kind of thing when they commissioned the first S-100 regiment in 2007. That's what the capability was. It was this new 48N6 E3 missile with the new radars. The 48N6 was not ready at the time, and it's kind of an ongoing story, but consistently they said, right, it's going to be next year.

They were saying that back in, like, 2012, 2013. And, you know, here we are, 2020, and they're still, you know, there hasn't been any news since they said it was commissions. So, you know, who knows? But basically, that missile, you know, we often think about it as part of the S-400. But in reality, it's more kind of developed for the S-500, which is the next air defense system that Russia is developing, which… You know, it's supposed to be – well, the first delivery will happen next year with mass production.

They're saying by 2025. But the 406 is supposed to be the main missile of that system. They're also going to develop two other missiles that have even longer ranges, like up to 600 kilometers. But the 406, at least the way I kind of view it, I view it more as kind of a missile that can be used by the S-400, but in reality is kind of designed more for the S-500.

Okay. And in terms of Russia's – their S-400 regiments and battalions, the 48N6 is the missile they use, the main missile they use. And so we've seen, like at some of the defense expos, they'll set up a TEL with the shorter-range missiles, the 9M, 9.6E, and E-2. And those – because they're shorter missiles – sorry, small missiles, you can equip more of them on a TEL than the 48N6, right?

So you can put up to 16 if you want, or you can kind of mix and match if you want to have both 48N6 missiles and 9M96 missiles. You can have, you know, three 48N6 and four 9M96 on the same tail if you want to do that. But, you know, we've seen that at defense expos, but I've almost never seen those in actual operational units.

And the reason for that is that Russia has also started commissioning a new air defense system called the S-350, the Vityaz, which is based around that missile. So the shorter-range, medium-range missile, the 9M96E2. And basically they're kind of selling that as this more effective system for defeating PGMs and cruise missiles. And so now it seems what they're going to do is they're going to start deploying those systems – Near where some of the S-400 systems are to kind of add additional kind of layer to the integrated air defense system.

So you have not only the S-400 is a long-range system, you have shorter-range systems of the Pantsir-S1, and then you have this medium-range system that's going to handle that missile. And so we talk about that missile. You can use it on the S-400, but the Russians don't really use it. And instead, they're looking at, you know, two different systems that are going to use, A, the long-range 40N6 and that medium-range 9M96 instead.

Scott 16:24

So out of those, though, only these three missiles we think have been delivered to Turkey. And that's the mainstay workhorse, the sort of advanced mainstay workhorse, and then the short-range maneuverable one. So at least from a technical side, they not only have the TELs and the support equipment, they have their physical interceptors delivered as far as we can tell.

Rob 16:44

So they delivered, I think there was a task report maybe a month ago that said that they delivered about 120 missiles. They didn't specify what kind. When the initial deliveries happened, they delivered some missiles with those tells and other things. Most of the missiles I think were supposed to be delivered by sea, but I'm not sure how that actually worked.

But they carried off some of the missile canisters, which appeared to be 5A and 6 missiles. I'm not sure about the short-range or long-range ones. And I don't think – I can't remember. I think they said they were going to get the 40 and 6, although there's been so much kind of – I wouldn't say disinformation, but things that weren't accurate about the whole deal.

And so a lot of data points are kind of hard to say this is absolutely true or this is absolutely not true unless we can see it for ourselves. And so I don't think we've seen publicly any of the long-range or short-range missiles being delivered publicly. But because they have those specific TELs that can carry them, I think it's likely that they have received them because otherwise you can receive the 85 T-series TELs are cheaper.

And so, you know, like unless you are going to receive those additional missiles, you just get the earlier TEL instead.

Scott 18:08

So there'd be no reason to get these advanced TELs unless you were expecting a delivery eventually of these advanced missiles.

Rob 18:14

Yeah, I don't think so. And especially in this case, because the price point was a big issue for Turkey. You know, I think they would have gone with a cheaper option instead, because unless they were getting those additional missiles.

Scott 18:29

So to sort of cap off the technical sort of section, though, there's not an apparent technical reason that that Turkey could not be deploying or operationalizing the S-400 right now. They've got all the components. They've got all the interceptors. They may have advanced interceptors coming down the line, and we're not sure of that. But at least what we're sure of is they have the tech in place to operationalize and deploy an S-400 should they choose to.

Rob 18:55

Right. And I think in terms of deliveries, the deliveries obviously started on, I think, July 15th. And they had two rounds where they airlifted all the systems there. Of course, I was... They could have shipped it by sea. It's not far from Novorossiysk to Istanbul. But, of course, they wanted to have pop-in circumstance behind this, and they wanted to get there as fast as possible, so they airlifted it.

But they had two kind of rounds when they delivered the two batches, and that ended, I think, in September. And then, obviously, not all the missiles were delivered there. Some of them were delivered later. But almost all the components, it appears, were delivered by the end of September. And so, you know, obviously it takes time to, to test them.

And we, there's, there's photos and videos of them testing the S-400 radars against Turkish S-16s and other aircrafts were flying around and letting them test it at the same time. There were Turkish crews who went to Russia to train in Russia, and that was all supposed to be completed by 2020. So basically by the beginning of the year, all the training was supposed to be completed, all the technical stuff was supposed to be completed, with April as the date they kept using for maybe a year, maybe less.

All right, this is when we're going to actually turn it on and have this capability. And so, again, because nothing else has come up since then, the only kind of likely reason why there's a problem here is that Turkey's chosen not to turn it on as opposed to they don't have the training or they don't have the technical readiness to do so.

Scott 20:30

From a technical and military standpoint, they're set to go. So it has to come down to some sort of either political or other decision there.

Aaron 20:39

Yeah, I mean, it's just something I want to piggyback on what Rob said. And, you know, as listeners could probably understand, when I have questions about the S400, I ask Rob, you know, is... The best that – Rob and I have been following this for a very long time. We just communicate via direct message on Twitter. We're basing a lot of our statements on what the Turks and the Russians have told us.

So we play a tag team. Rob follows the Russian media much more closely than I do and I follow the Turkish media much more closely than he does. Although I think we're both kind of like flopping over into each other's worlds a little bit. Yeah. With the stuff in Libya and the stuff in Syria. But on this particular issue, I mean, the Turks have maintained that they have the 400-kilometer missile, or at least that it was part of the order package when they negotiated with the Russians.

And so when we saw the tells, I think we saw the tells show up either when they made the pomp and circumstances, when the big July 15th just happens to be the anniversary of the coup attempt in Turkey. So when they had the July 15th or around their delivery date, We saw those tells and we had communicated about that, and there's been some recent satellite imagery that's come out that has more or less confirmed it.

Again, can never be 100 percent certain. What makes the S-400 so interesting with Turkey is that – and it's something that Rob and I have talked about a lot – is that Turkey's defense procurement policy is based around a heavy insistence on offsets and co-production. So they have long and iterative discussions with the United States, both the government and private industry, for Patriot.

They've had similar discussions with EuroSAM MBDA for the S-400. And those discussions are premised ultimately on if there is a package signed, that there would be a follow-on agreement and there would be certain subsidiary arrangements that would have significant production inside of Turkey. And so there's a lot of hang-up over that in those initial rounds of negotiations between the Turks and let's just say Washington or Lockheed or for Lockheed for the Patriot, just to be abstract.

What made the S-400 different, you know, is that this first regiment, you know, was off the shelf. And that would have been the same if Turkey had bought Patriot, right? So I want to be very, very clear. Like the American offers to Turkey included for rapid delivery in line with what Turkey was asking for, the first couple of batteries or units would be off the shelf.

But there would be second subsidiary arrangements for co-production and – And offsets i.e part of the patriot is made in turkey where rob and i have had a lot of discussion back and forth i'd be interested to hear if there's anything new on this is that that second regiment you know that is supposed to come to turkey so it was like a one plus one it was a one off the shelf with the potential for the plus one being the second regiment appears to have just gone away or has hit a snag and there was considerable Let's say back and forth in the Russian media versus the Turkish media over the terms of the potential offsets or co-production of what Russia would allow to be, I guess, produced in Turkey.

Am I remembering this history correctly, Rob?

Rob 23:56

Yeah, so basically the information we got from Russia, and as a qualifier, anytime you talk about Russian arms exports, there's sometimes different information sources, including from official senior officials who sometimes say different things, and it gets confusing and frustrating. So when the deal was struck, Sergey Chemezov, the head of Rostec, which is also in charge of Rosobornexport, the The Russian arms export intermediary, he said the deal was for four battalions and for $2.5 billion.

And it was supposed to be, I think, over half of it was to be covered by Russian loans. And so that was the initially signed deal. One thing to keep in mind with, with, with Russian arms deals, a lot of times they will sign contracts and like Saudi Arabia, they always talk about signing some new arms contract in Saudi Arabia.

It happens every once in a while and it never goes through. And so there's always this kind of understanding that when they sign contracts They basically wait until they actually get payment to say, okay, this deal is actually happening. So a lot of times they'll sign a deal and the customer just for whatever reason won't go through with it and they'll never actually execute the deal.

And so in this case, you know, Chimizov definitely said it was for four battalions and for that price point. In terms of, you know, did a year later, was Turkey kind of saying, well, we paid for the first regiment, but we're going to wait to pay for the second one? Or was there, you know, it wasn't supposed, the way it was explained initially was that it was a deal for all four battalions and it wasn't an add-on deal.

So usually they'll say, right, we're going to have a deal for selling this many systems, and there's an additional option where they can purchase more at the same rate and, you know, what have you. It doesn't seem like that was the case in this case, but, you know… It's always hard to tell because you're going to see mixed kind of information.

So I'm not exactly sure. I mean, I assume the plan was for two regiments because one regiment is, is somewhat it's somewhat small and it's not really enough for a lot of the kind of missions you might want to achieve. So I think that part is somewhat surprising. But again, because over half the deal was supposedly covered by Russian financing, well, that financing was enough to cover one regiment, right?

And so that might have been the other part where – and I think they're supposed to pay off the loan in four or five years. I'll have to look at it. And so again, that might be why the first regiment was able to be sent quickly enough because that was using Russian financing, which already – the Russian bank already could send that money to Almaz-Ante and pay for it to be delivered.

And the second regiment hasn't been paid for yet, and it appears that – even though, as Aaron was saying – Even the Turkish officials kept saying there's going to be a local production aspect, there's going to be offsets, we're going to be producing here. The Russian sources were all pretty clear, basically saying there's not, like, they would say there's an option for possible local production later on, but at all times all the key officials would specify saying basically it's going to be something very small that won't have much of technological risk to Russia.

And so it's not going to be, you know, one of the complex radars or something else that's That's very sensitive, it would be, I don't know, maybe producing tells there or, or, or something, you know, kind of less strategically important.

Aaron 27:27

Yeah. And, you know, I, I want to just jump in before you get to, because there's something that we all talk about a lot of the time is that the price point, Turkey paid 2.5 billion us dollars, right. For, you know, the one plus one. And, you know, as you say, Robin, again, this is what your dissertation is on.

So I'm not going to step on it, but you know, Russian defense exports are a bit opaque, let's put it that way. But we can't price compare, right, the per regiment cost, you know, between, I believe it's India, Turkey, and the Chinese. And the Turks, if, you know, the Turks are paying the most. And I think they're paying the most, we've discussed this before, because there's a risk premium, because what if Ankara cancels the deal?

And two... Maybe they could just – because of the rapid delivery timetable, I think we've talked about how one of the things that hastened this deal along was that Russia was at the end of its own procurement cycle. So they had slack capacity to export quickly even if it took away from the deployment to some of their own units.

And three is that the negotiations over the offsets – Turkey, despite entering into this long-term arms arrangement with the Russians, is still a member of NATO and building or at least allowing the production of some components of your most advanced air defense system on a NATO member probably isn't a good operational thing to do if you're trying to keep the system secret.

Rob 29:04

Yeah. And, yeah, the price point – I was going through to see what China and India paid for it. That was – Turkey is paying more per battalion, it appears, than India too. So China – Was the first, they purchased four battalions for $1.9 billion, or at least that's what the public sources were saying. And in India, they purchased five regiments, so 10 battalions, for I think it was $5.43 billion.

So that hasn't been executed yet, but that is the plan for them. In both cases, Turkey was paying more per battalion. And one of the things the Russian sources were saying was that basically some of that reflected a kind of political risk premium. Where, as Aaron was saying, a lot of times we talk about the S-400 going to Turkey, we kind of see it as a Russian coup.

It's this very deft decision by Putin to tear away this NATO ally from the U.S., But, you know, when you turn the map around, there are big risks for Russia doing it as well. The S-400 obviously is a key system in Russia. It's, you know, they have, I think, about 61 battalions now in the Russian air defense forces.

So it is now like is the main part of the Russian aerospace defense force, the main system. And it's going to be in service for, you know, for decades. And so there's obviously also the issue that, you know, anything that got to the Turkey, if there's any way in which NATO could, I don't know, reverse engineer or kind of test out some of the components, that they could, you know, learn how to defeat it more effectively.

And obviously, and Aaron, you looked at this, but I know, you know, Greece received S-300 back in the beginning of 2000s, and that often is used for a variety of NATO countries when we want to test our air defenses against NATO. Or use our air forces to test against potential air defense forces in Syria or elsewhere that have S-300s.

Well, we like to test it against Greece's. So there is also that risk from Russia and from Putin to do so with this deal. And I know that there is some – I think some unease within some of the security circles in Russia about doing this. And one of the big points, and this was early on when Aaron and I were talking, Turkey kept saying there will be localized production as part of this.

And on the Russian side, the sources are saying it's going to be very different. And basically they kept saying that You know, basically, a lot of the intelligence officials were very concerned. They're like, OK, it's one thing to deliver a completed system where you can take some safeguards. But if you're allowing localized production, any kind of technology transfer, then the risk of reverse engineering become even greater.

And because, you know, Turkey's in NATO and of course, you know, Aaron gets views better than I can, but obviously Turkey's relationship right now with NATO is, you know, it's, is, is, you know, up and down. And I, after, after the recent fighting, it lived in Libya. It, You know, it certainly seems certain relationship with Russia is not what it was, you know, maybe a year or two ago when the deal happens.

So there's still that kind of question that, OK, did we just export one of our really important one of our main systems was going to be in service with our air defenses for, you know, more a number of decades. And now can NATO, you know, test us and kind of see it's a. Capabilities and limitations. So there's a risk aside to that as well.

And from the beginning, there's always that concern from Russian officials saying, you know, in this case, it was very much an arms export deal where it was Putin-Erdogan-led, where it was specified over and over again. It was very much pushed from the top, bottom. It wasn't bottom-up. And so despite that, even though Putin obviously kind of pushed us through, was able to push through some of the red tape, there was still that sticking point where it was clear that was one thing security officials in Russia were not comfortable having any kind of localized production tech transfer regarding key S-400 components in Turkey.

Aaron 33:11

Yeah, and I'll – I mean I'll just – I mean – and then Scott, maybe we'll turn to the Turkish decision-making. The way the S-300 ended up in Greece or it's on Crete was because the Cypriots bought it and then the Turks threatened to bomb it and so somebody had to go move it someplace. It's called the – what is it called?

The October Missile Crisis. It's the Crete Missile Crisis. I can't remember it. So how that thing ended up – it still works apparently. You can still see the – The site preparations, it's on the top, I believe, of Mount Olympos on Greek Cyprus. You can see the S-300 site with no tells. They're in Crete. But one of the things that really pushed this – what made this deal interesting is that the US had two responses.

Well, it had three, right? It was – The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which is CAATSO, which is totally Turkey separate. Turkey was never intended when CAATSO was drafted, okay? So I'm going to come back to that in a second. The other one is that if Turkey were to go through and actually receive the S-400, they would lose access to the S-35.

U.S. concern being that the radar in particular could be used as a Russian collection platform to learn about F-35s, that the Russians could gain access to that data, allowing them to learn a lot about a frontline stealth jet that NATO intends to rely upon for air power for a long time. And the third was the U.S. Patriot offer.

The U.S. offer to Turkey was for a rapid delivery of Patriots. But while those were spooling up and while they were being produced, there would be an immediate delivery of NASAMs. So you have NASAMs plus Patriot. And then within that Patriot talk, if there was a signed MOU or a signed agreement, there would be then sort of, you know, government handholding with industry to give Turkey as much on the offsets as they could give.

This was concurrent and secondary to Turkey's also talks with MBDA, Eurosam, which have been on and off and on and off since, you know, God, since for God, half a decade, maybe more. For the Samp T. And so you had those two competing offers. And so the U.S. was like, look, don't buy S for $100. Just buy interoperable.

It doesn't have to be Patriot. It could also be the Samp. And then you still get to keep your F-35. Katza was drafted because of congressional concerns by a partisan about Donald Trump and after he was elected, his floating via the media that he would unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia for their interference on his behalf in the November 2016 election.

So Congress got a little frightened and they passed Katza, which has mandatory sanctions that has no executive waiver. And the threat of secondary sanctions for those that do a significant transaction with entities linked to the Russian MOD and MOI, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Intelligence, if I'm remembering the MOI. Definitely the MOD. And then the producer of the S-400, Al-Mazei, Rob, you'll have to pronounce that for me.

The S-400 producer is on that list. And so Turkey clearly classified as a significant transaction. Now, they haven't been sanctioned yet. Now, why haven't they been sanctioned? I have a couple of theories. One is that Turkey has been lobbying at the leader-to-leader level very strongly against this, so Trump the Erdogan. Two, Trump, and not without reason – Has indicated that CAATSA is unconstitutional.

And so he's been hesitant to use it, although he has used it against China. But I think sanctioning China is easier than sanctioning Turkey. And so there's been a hesitance to pull the trigger. But all of a sudden, you know, on July 15th, as we talked about, S-400 shows up. So CAATSA should be triggered, right? Well, Trump has directed Lindsey Graham, of all people, To sort of float a deal, which is if they box it, you know, I'm being very shorthanded here.

Like, obviously it's not in a box, right? But like, if you keep it boxed, if you don't unpack it, if you don't use it we can forestall cats up. And I think what's happened here is that with, with the COVID-19 economic fallout Turkey's feeling significant economic problems because of, because of a number of reasons, one of which is COVID-19.

It makes sense to give the Lindsey Graham, keep it boxed, don't switch it on negotiations a try. I don't think these will work and there's nothing holding back Turkey from using this thing. So I do think we'll end up in a place where they'll switch it on and I'm doing air quotes because I know that's not the proper terminology, but I just do this to be simple.

They'll unbox it. And so – I mean I just think that that's where we're at. And so even if sort of Turkish-Russian ties kind of take a nosedive over differences in the region, whether it be Libya or Syria, they still have this thing. They still spend the money. They still use Russian financing to do it. And so there's little incentive for them not to do it if they can't reach agreement with the US.

Rob 38:54

Yeah, and also what's interesting, too, is that we slapped Shino with catch-related sanctions in, I think, 2018. And that was for their purchase of the S400 from Almazante and for purchase 235 fighters. And so it is the same system that was delivered to Turkey, same company produced it, and that was enough for us to apply a CATSA to China.

And, of course, if we're not applying it to Turkey, it makes it pretty clear that there's something else going on as opposed to just reading the kind of letter of the law as CATSA was designed. One thing I think that's going to be interesting to see is that – Now with COVID-19, I personally think that CAATSA, even though it's been, you know, not applied, you know, across the board evenly, which, you know, would take away some of that kind of deterrent effects from countries that they think, well, okay, if Turkey's not going to get hit with sanctions, maybe I'll go ahead and buy something from Russia.

I think because COVID has hurt the global economy so much and so many countries are in a difficult financial situation, I think it's going to make it – it's going to change the calculus for a lot of countries if they're thinking about getting something from Russia where the threat of sanctions from CAATSA could be much more catastrophic than they were four or five months ago.

And so we know – in Indonesia, they signed a deal with Russia in I think 2018 or 2019. I think it was 2018 for 11-235s. And they signed the deal, but it never went through. And basically they kind of made a couple different excuses why it didn't happen. They said it was because they were trying to figure out the barter arrangement.

But ultimately, it was pretty clear they were scared about getting cats applied. And I think we kind of, you know, made that threat pretty clear to them. At the same time, Egypt was – they signed a contract for 235 as well. I'm not sure what the status of that is. There was a report in the Walsh Journal back in, I think, November that we were kind of leaning heavily – the U.S. was leaning heavily on Egypt to drop them.

And, again, you know, now we're in a situation where, you know, If the global economy is so difficult and they're concerned about domestic issues, is it a smart move to go ahead with buying all these weapons that you might get hit with sanctions off of? And I think for a lot of countries, India knows they can go ahead with the S-100 deal and probably be okay because they're so important to the U.S.

But countries that maybe aren't as strategically important to the United States – It's a question of, you know, do you, do you, do you take that risk or not? I think Turkey is somewhat different in that they already have the system there and they made so much, I mean, it's such a big deal about it. There's some irony.

As Aaron and I were watching what was going on in Idlib in February and March with all the fighting between Russia and Turkey, mostly proxy stuff but not always, a lot of the Turkish social media accounts started mocking some of the Russian air defense systems that Turkey destroyed, the Pansiris-1s. It was this really weird moment where you're seeing these accounts that are clearly connected to The Turkish ministry of defense or other kind of government officials who are kind of making jokes about how overpriced the Pansir S1 is while at the same time, they just purchased S400, which is a much more expensive system that they're not even using.

And of course, this is kind of weird contradiction going on that, you know, they, I guess they didn't, they didn't realize it was going to be kind of strange, but yeah, Anyway, it's a very interesting time. And, you know, as Aaron was saying, obviously, you know, Turkey's financial situation is difficult right now. And so, you know, it's – I think CAATS is partially an issue where both the U.S. wants to apply at times but not apply at other times.

And now because it's law – It becomes kind of difficult because now it becomes a credibility issue for the US if a country buys a weapon that we say they're not allowed to buy and we do nothing. What does that say about our resolve and credibility and global issues?

Aaron 43:05

Yeah, so I mean – look, I think to summarize and wrap up is that we have a pretty good – look, we have a general idea of what Turkey purchased both from the media and then from our passive watching, which is looking at satellite imagery. You know, and, you know, and the saga continues. I mean, I am pretty sure, I mean, you know, I'm working with Dave Schmerler here, that they're in storage somewhere.

We don't know exactly which building it is, but the place where they were, you know, on the airbase where they were deployed, where they are in Turkey, they disappeared in November and we can't find them anymore. Does that mean they moved them someplace else? Maybe it's possible. I don't think so. I just think that they're in a warehouse somewhere on site and so they're sort of Euphemistically or metaphorically boxed, you know, and so negotiations are probably negotiations over S-400 are over. I mean, they were deployed. I mean, they were received. They have not yet been deployed, but I think they've now sort of morphed into more than just a a sophisticated air defense system, and it's much more sort of political bargaining at this point, whereas Turkey is You know, was engaged in negotiations with the United States, continuing negotiations with the United States to get access to U.S. liquidity as its own liquidity in dollar slumps or foreign currency as it's trying to defend its own currency from depreciation against the dollar, keeping them boxed for a little longer to try and entice Donald Trump to give them what they want, which is access to U.S. dollars and

Became a good option. Now, the question is, if those negotiations fail, and I fully expect them to, does the S-400 then get switched on? Does the COVID-19 sort of fig leaf go away? As the country unlocks, Turkey's been instituting its own sort of lockdowns, not nearly as stringent as here in the US, if you can believe it, but they have been doing it.

As they unlock themselves and as the entire world begins to unlock, does the F-400 also get unlocked and then get rolled out onto the runway for deployment? I have no idea, but it's certainly something that I will be watching and Rob and I will be discussing at length in private. And then maybe come back for another podcast.

Rob 45:26

Yeah, and one thing I'd add too is just when Turkey decided to go ahead with the S-400 back in – was it 2016? They negotiated in 2017. It was very much a kind of like – it very much seemed like it was a short-term decision-making, right? That there was concern about the coup attempt and about restoring relations with Russia.

But obviously when you buy a weapons system, right, it entails a really long-term – it's a long-term kind of acquisitions. Especially an expensive and important one because it involves training and spare parts and you have to buy missiles and everything else. And so things change, right? And obviously for Turkey, you know, purchasing is back in 2017. Now the situation, you know, three, four months ago before the recent fighting in Idlib and COVID-19, the situation with Russia is so different now.

I think with Turkey that, you know, it might be having an element of buyer's remorse. But, of course, that's the problem when you buy a system like this. You're making a long-term kind of decision and possibly a long-term kind of change of orientation. And it becomes hard if, you know, a year or two later you might start having second thoughts about that.

And, you know, basically we're now in this kind of impasse, this kind of tough situation where, you know, It was a completely unnecessary thing that happened that made U.S.-Turkey ties more difficult, and here we are kind of debating this thing when there's other things going on.

Scott 46:52

Well, I think that is a good place to wrap up. And we'll put a pin in that for if there's any additional progress made or exciting events that happen in Turkey around the S-400. And I think this is a good opportunity to set up, just punt into the future, a second podcast on this. So with that, I think we'll go ahead and wrap up.

Aaron, thank you so much for joining me. Rob, thank you so much for joining me.

Aaron 47:19

Yep. My pleasure. And before we go, I'm going to plug the Patreon site. Head on over to patreon.com slash acwpodcast, where for as little as $3 a month if you're a student or $5 a month if you are not, you can join our Slack channel. Our Slack channel is the place to be if you are interested in this nerdy type of fecal material.

We have had discussions in the Slack channel that have ended up in the Washington Posts. And we had people from the Slack channel who have ended up as Arms Control Walk guests because they are so thoroughly impressed. So check it out. It's a good place to be.