The choreography in Ankara last week was impressive, even by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's standards. Cannons fired, mounted honor guards paraded, and jets flew overhead trailing red, white, and blue smoke as Donald Trump arrived for the NATO summit. By the time the two leaders sat down together, the American President was already telling reporters that Turkey has been "much more loyal" than other allies, and that reinstating Ankara into the F-35 program is "certainly something we will consider." He went further, promising to lift the sanctions imposed under CAATSA after Turkey's 2019 purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.
Washington should slow down and reconsider any such move. The temptation to reward Erdogan for a good show of pageantry and for playing a useful back channel to Tehran is understandable. But the case for readmitting Turkey to America's most sensitive fighter jet program does not hold up, and the reasons go well beyond the S-400 that got Ankara expelled in the first place.
Let’s start with Turkey’s original sin. Turkey was removed from the F-35 program precisely because the S-400 system stationed on Turkish soil poses a collection risk to the F-35's stealth signature and sensor data. Nothing about that system has left the country. Trump's own suggestion that he has "no concerns at all" about Turkey operating Russian and American systems side by side ignores the technical judgment his own administration reached in 2019: an S-400 battery within range of an F-35 is an intelligence-gathering platform aimed at the jet's most guarded secrets.
Turkey now appears it wants to atone for its sins: In the days that followed the NATO summit, well-placed sources in Ankara announced Turkey’s intention to sell or transfer its S-400s to another country, possibly Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. Doing so may satisfy the letter of the law, section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which bars F-35 transfers to Turkey unless Washington certifies Ankara no longer "possesses" the S-400.
Then come regional concerns. Israel has lobbied hard against the F-35 sale, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Turkish F-35s would erode the air superiority that guarantees Israeli and American posture across the Middle East. Athens and Nicosia have made similar appeals, citing Turkey's continued military pressure in the Aegean and its decades-long occupation of northern Cyprus. These are warnings from allies and partners who would sit on the receiving end of Turkish airpower upgraded with fifth-generation stealth.
But there is a fourth danger that has drawn far less attention in Washington, and it may matter more than any of the others: Turkey's telecommunications backbone is no longer fully Turkish. The country's leading systems integrator, Netaş, is roughly 48 percent owned by ZTE, and Huawei is deeply embedded in the networks operated by Turkcell, Türk Telekom, and Vodafone Turkey. Under China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, that ownership is not a passive investment. Beijing can compel any Chinese firm, anywhere it operates, to hand over data on demand, and corporate assurances of independence carry no legal weight against that obligation.
Washington has already treated this exact problem as disqualifying. In 2021, a $23 billion F-35 and drone package for the United Arab Emirates collapsed, in part because Huawei was building Abu Dhabi's 5G network and American intelligence had identified a suspected Chinese military-linked facility at Khalifa Port.
Turkey’s embrace of Chinese telecoms also cuts against the Alliance’s moves towards securing the critical infrastructure underpinning its military mobility — the bridges, rail links, and digital networks that allow allies to uphold deterrence. Across the continent, these networks have become a critical target over the course of the war in Ukraine, as adversarial actors linked to Russia use grey zone tactics to undermine collective resilience and damage alliance cohesion.
Washington increasingly views countering this threat as a top priority. In May, the Trump administration urged NATO members to spend a portion of the 1.5 percent of GDP allocated to defense-related spending on removing Huawei components from their domestic networks, highlighting the vulnerabilities posed by Chinese equipment and hacking campaigns such as Salt Typhoon. While that call is already being heeded by several NATO allies — Sweden and the UK have been particularly proactive in securing their systems — Ankara remains a laggard, undermining its contribution to alliance interoperability.
The risks are not simply tied to the F-35 itself, but to its entire operating environment. If sold, the fighter will be operating within an ecosystem saturated by Chinese-produced telecom equipment, reliant on a deployment infrastructure whose roots directly tie back to Beijing, operated by a capital pulling in the opposite direction of a key Alliance priority. While the U.S. has heavily invested in protecting the F-35, no system is ever fully secure, and any sale would force the jet to operate in a vulnerable environment for decades to come.
Turkey’s pending S-400 sale may remove dangerous hardware, but it does not eliminate the systemic risk associated with the deal.
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Facts Only
* Cannons were fired and honor guards paraded during an event involving Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a NATO summit.
* The American President stated that Turkey has been "much more loyal" than other allies.
* The President promised to consider reinstating Ankara into the F-35 program.
* The President promised to lift sanctions imposed under CAATSA after Turkey's 2019 purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.
* Turkey was removed from the F-35 program because the S-400 system posed a collection risk to the F-35’s stealth signature and sensor data.
* Sources in Ankara announced Turkey's intention to sell or transfer its S-400s, possibly to Qatar or the United Arab Emirates.
* This sale may satisfy Section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which bars F-35 transfers unless Washington certifies Ankara no longer "possesses" the S-400.
* Israel and Athens/Nicosia lobbied against the F-35 sale citing Turkish military pressure in the Aegean and Cyprus.
* Turkey's leading systems integrator, Netaş, is roughly 48 percent owned by ZTE, and Huawei is embedded in Turkcell, Türk Telekom, and Vodafone Turkey networks.
* The Trump administration urged NATO members to remove Huawei components from domestic networks as part of defense spending.
Executive Summary
The context involves a meeting between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a NATO summit, which included displays of military strength. During this interaction, the American President indicated that Turkey was more loyal than other allies and suggested considering reinstating Ankara into the F-35 program. Furthermore, the President promised to lift sanctions imposed under CAATSA following Turkey's 2019 purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.
The article presents arguments against pursuing such a move. The rationale provided is rooted in Turkey’s prior removal from the F-35 program due to the S-400 system posing a collection risk to the F-35's stealth signature. Although Turkey considered selling or transferring its S-400s to other nations as a way to satisfy export restrictions, there are concerns regarding regional stability, as allies like Israel and Greece have expressed opposition based on Turkish military activity in the Aegean and Cyprus.
A significant, less emphasized concern is Turkey's telecommunications infrastructure, which involves significant ownership by Chinese entities like ZTE and Huawei through companies such as Turkcell. This raises a security issue because these networks are viewed as potential vectors for data access, and concerns exist that this interconnectedness undermines the alliance's efforts to secure critical infrastructure against external actors, particularly given Russia's use of grey zone tactics in Ukraine. The author concludes that while the S-400 sale might remove specific hardware risks, it does not eliminate the systemic security risks tied to Turkey’s operational environment.
Full Take
The narrative pivots on the distinction between removing specific hardware risks (the S-400) and managing systemic operational vulnerabilities embedded within a partner state. The pattern observed is an attempt by external political actors to leverage perceived geopolitical alignment for tangible concessions, which then distracts from deeper structural dependencies. The pressure to reinstate Turkey into the F-35 program seems driven by a desire for transactional reward—a demonstration of loyalty in exchange for access to advanced military technology, rather than a genuine assessment of long-term security risk.
The core tension lies between immediate tactical compliance and long-term strategic resilience. The threat posed by the S-400, while significant, is framed as removable through export controls; this creates an incentive structure where removal is prioritized over systemic evaluation. Simultaneously, the underlying issue—the integration of non-allied technology providers into critical national infrastructure (telecommunications) via Chinese entities—is treated as a secondary, peripheral concern. This pattern suggests a deliberate strategic prioritization: addressing the high-profile hardware dispute while overlooking the infrastructural dependency that undermines collective security coherence.
The implication is that when nations negotiate military aid or partnership, the focus shifts to easily quantifiable assets, allowing more insidious vulnerabilities—like dependence on foreign technological supply chains—to persist unnoticed. The failure of Washington to treat the Chinese telecom entanglement with equivalent gravity as the F-35 debate suggests a systemic bias favoring immediate diplomatic closure over comprehensive security architecture review. What is being obscured is that operational security is not solely dependent on hardware provenance but on the integrity of the entire operating ecosystem. What structural assessments are neglected when expediency dictates the outcome?