Turkey’s military-industrial complex is booming, but long road ahead

Barin Kayaoglu

Dec 10, 2023

This photo taken on October 29, 2023 in Istanbul shows a Bayraktar TB-2 drone and helicopters on the Turkish navy's L-400 Anadolu warship, during a naval military parade on the Bosphorus to mark the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. (Photo by Ozan KOSE / AFP) (Photo by OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images) — This photo taken on October 29, 2023 in Istanbul shows a Bayraktar TB-2 drone and helicopters on the Turkish navy's L-400 Anadolu warship, during a naval military parade on the Bosphorus to mark the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. — OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images

At a time when US defense giants such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon experienced a drop in combined revenue, Turkey’s defense firms reported exceptional increases, but analysts say Turkey’s military-industrial complex has a long way to go before it produces true global giants.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) report “Top 100 Arms-producing and Military Services Companies, 2022,” many leading Western arms manufacturers saw their combined revenues shrink. Yet four Turkish companies’ revenues went up by 22%, which made them the main driver of sales growth in the Middle East region and represented the largest annual percentage revenue increase by any region last year.

While this is an impressive feat, the bottlenecks in many of Turkey’s prestige defense projects and discussions with experts show that the Turkish military-industrial ecosystem has a long way to go before it can truly fulfill Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions.

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