Not the biggest problem...
Turkey has hinted it may try to leave NATO – which could cause difficulties for the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme because the country has signed up to buy 100 of the advanced jet fighters.
I would venture to suggest that the fate of the F-35 is a bit of a side issue. Any hint that Turkey's commitment to NATO / the West is anything less than rock solid will give NATO and the West a far bigger headache than any worries about the cost of an aircraft programme.
Turkey finds itself almost centre stage in the mess that is Syria and perhaps the wider Middle East and the West's (embodied in this case by the EU) understandable reluctance to accept any and all those who turn up on its shores has provided Turkey with a major problem which it itself cannot resolve. In turn Turkey has tried arm - twisting the West / the EU for money and preferment for EU membership and this has probably not gone down well in western / EU government circles; Turkey's actions barely fall short of blackmail.
Then of course the coup came along and failed, and rightly or wrongly (I really don't know which) Turkey has used this in an attempt to get its own way on the international stage.
Russia's Putin must love all this; friction between NATO partners / Western Allies which he probably did nothing to trigger, and yet he is well placed to make what capital he can in Russia's favour.
Any hint that Turkey might leave NATO would inevitably give the rest of NATO and the US in particular reason to worry about the wisdom of providing F-35s to Turkey in the first place. What would happen if Turkey turned its back on NATO after taking delivery? The risk of a technology transfer would become much greater; it's probably something of a risk now anyway, but allowing that risk to become greater would seem foolhardy.
Perhaps the F-35 is equipped to be remotely hackable (let's face it; practically everything else these days is) but that would not alter the fact that the aircarft were on "foreign" soil with little or no chance of recovery.
So as far as I am concerned the fact that an order for 100 aircraft might be frustrated is the least of the potential worries. Not that my world view is likely to give anyone either sleepless nights or a solution to their problems...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
