ANALYSIS: TRUE. Putin Plays Erdogan Like a Fiddle.

Erdogan’s Moscow visit follows the delivery of Russian S-400 air defense batteries to Turkey. Ankara was repeatedly warned that these batteries would provide the Russians an opportunity to decipher the F-35’s stealth technology, thus jeopardizing the security of the whole F-35 fighter aircraft program. Paradoxically, Turkey was not just a future recipient of 100-plus F-35s, but also a co-producer of the aircraft. Washington, in what was an important gesture, had offered the Turks a role in the manufacturing of many of the F-35’s components, including parts of the fuselage. Ankara would have reaped billions of dollars in export sales and acquired valuable technological know-how in the armaments industry, a long-sought goal.

Not surprisingly, Turkey’s insistence on acquiring the S-400s triggered a crisis in U.S.-Turkish relations. The United States had few options but to expel Turkey from the F-35 program. The cost to Turkey has been enormous: It will not be able to modernize its aging fighter fleet, but perhaps more importantly, it lost out on technology transfer and the opportunity to earn billions of dollars in export opportunities. Instead it is Putin who is pocketing billions of dollars while successfully lobbing a hand grenade into the relationship between two critical and long-standing NATO allies.

Turkey under Erdogan was probably always a lost cause for the West, but blowing the F-35 deal was more stupidly damaging to Turkey’s national interests than is typical even for Erdogan.