Turkish Defense Industry, Embargoes, Nationalization Studies and Aselsan

Abstract

Türkiye encountered the first embargo targeting the defense industry during the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation. The applied arms embargo has revealed the importance of independence and national production in the supply of defense technologies and the satisfaction of military communication needs in Türkiye more than ever before. As a result of the lessons learned and negative experiences received after the operation, ASELSAN was established to meet the needs of military communications and electronics without depending on any country under the leadership of the Ground Forces Strengthening Foundation to support the domestic and national defense industry. ASELSAN has reached a global size with its original designs developed, more than nine thousand employees as of 2021, companies in which it has shares at home and abroad, thousands of square meters of campuses and exports to 78 countries within 46 years. The sanctions of the countries against Türkiye have continued in the recent past. It is aimed that the sanctions imposed will have an impact on the Turkish defense industry on the basis of systems, subsystems, components, especially in critical technologies. As a result of the sanctions, many countries and companies around the world have acted contrary to contracts in their relations with Turkish defense industry institutions and companies. ASELSAN represents Türkiye in the world with independent defense technologies on many platforms and systems today with its nationalization activities in order to reduce external dependence and supply risks in the defense industry, and it can offer many products that cannot be obtained from outside due to embargoes to its users. ASELSAN carries out nationalization activities in order to increase the proportion of domestic materials in its systems in order to reduce external dependence and supply risks in the defense industry. ASELSAN has reached the level that developed countries in the defense industry, where technology is kept under strict control between countries, have reached with intensive work within a century, within a few decades.