Drone diplomacy: Here's how Turkey is expanding its influence around the world

2023-09-29 19:55:00, Blog Lorenzo Piccioli

Drone diplomacy: Here's how Turkey is expanding its influence around the

Over the past few years the importance of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has continued to grow steadily. Their massive use on battlefields around the world, whether high or low intensity, shows how they are now essential assets in 21st century warfare.

In such a situation, there is no doubt that powers capable of producing similar equipment themselves will enjoy a relative advantage that is not at all insignificant. This is also because until today, there are not many countries that have a very developed "drone industry".

This includes Turkey, one of the pioneer countries in drone production, which has made the most of this capability by producing drone models that are highly suitable for export. This thing has had phenomenal results not only in the economic plan, but also in the geopolitical one.

News of the latest success came just a few days ago. The Taiwanese company "Geosat Aereospace and Technology" has announced that it has signed a contract with the English company "Flyby Technology" for the purchase, technology transfer and production of about 160 "Jackal" drones.

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But these drones were developed by the company "Turkish Fly Bvlos Technology", which in July of this year transferred the intellectual property rights to the English company "keeping within the agreement some reserves for the export of Jackal", as specified by Murat Islioglu, director of "Fly Bvlos Technology".

He was most likely referring to a possible "veto" right on the export of drones to countries with which Ankara has bad relations. And Taiwan does not fall into this category. In fact, Islioglu is happy that the Jackal drones have been chosen as part of the UAS fleet that the island has decided to build to increase its defense capabilities in the event of a large-scale invasion by the People's Republic of China.

This is based on the lessons learned from the most recent wars around the globe. From Ukraine to Nagorno-Karabakh to Libya, the role of drones as a game changer has increasingly grown. And in each of these wars, Turkish-made drones have been (and partly still are) protagonists.

This presence is symbolized in particular by one of the various devices produced in Turkey: the Tb-2 Bayraktar drone, produced by the company "Baykar Technologies". The civil conflict in Libya in the period after Gaddafi's death was the first occasion when their use was seen. Their use by the forces of the General National Congress (openly supported by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey) was decisive in repelling the offensive of General Khalifa Haftar's troops against the capital Tripoli. In this way, it supported the side in Libya, to the detriment of that of Moscow, which had lined up in support of the opposing side.

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But if Libya was just Bayraktar's debut, it peaked during the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Azerbaijan, Turkey's close ally, bought the drones a few months before military operations began, a move that proved to be very effective.

And their use in combination with other war assets enabled the Azerbaijani army to conduct a real maneuvering war, immediately destroying the resistance capabilities of the Armenian opponents. A few months ago, in 2019, Kiev had ordered several models of this drone for its armed forces.

His intention was to use them in the low-intensity conflict then taking place against separatists in the Donbas, supported by Moscow, but without a direct intervention by the Russian armed forces. Which actually happened and with great results for several months.

Then came February 2022 and the full-scale invasion by Russian troops.

Even in this situation, Bayraktar had the chance to show its worth, contributing to the elimination of many heavy targets during the approach of armored columns to the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

His fame grew so much that he was woven into a war song, which became very popular in the first months of the conflict among Ukrainian soldiers. Even if in the following months of the conflict, the evolution of the dynamics of the war significantly reduced their initial effectiveness, also leading to the almost total destruction of the specimens available to Kiev, their international success has not faded.

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The number of orders received by "Bayraktar" after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine increased exponentially. To date, at least 23 countries have Bayraktar drones, or are waiting to take delivery of drones already purchased. Behind their success lies not only effectiveness on the battlefield, but also economic leverage.

The average cost of a Bayraktar drone in 2021 was only $5 million, half that of the American MQ-10 Reaper counterpart. With the current inflation in Turkey, its relative cost is even lower today.

This enables Ankara to implement a true drone diplomacy, focused on providing support only to friendly states and allies, perhaps guaranteeing them a clear military advantage in particularly fragile contexts, thus structuring a web of interests related to this market. A network which in the coming years, in light of the trend of increasing interest in UAS, may turn out to be even more profitable than the sales revenue recorded so far./ "Formiche" - Adapted from CNA