Can Turkey give US defense secrets to Iran? Who knows and who cares?
I've asked the same question that Michael Rubin is asking, and I've urged that Israel not sell more Heron drones to Turkey for the same reason. The truth is we don’t know. We’re on the verge of selling Turkey our most advanced fighter, and there has been little attention given to what the shift in Turkey’s foreign-policy orientation means when it comes to technology-sharing. From some congressional testimony I gave today at a hearing about Turkey:What could go wrong?Precisely because the F-35 will be the fighter the U.S. Air Force will most depend on to maintain air superiority in the decades ahead, the decision to sell F-35s to Turkey, whose future foreign policy orientation is in question, should be reviewed by appropriate Defense Department elements to assess possible loss of critical technology to states of concern. Congress should mandate that review, specify that it be completed within the year, and then make it available to the appropriate committees of Congress.Would it really hurt for Secretary Gates to explain what steps the Pentagon has taken to ensure that the secrets of the aircraft we are going to rely on for decades to come are safe? Sure, Turkey is a NATO partner, but would our secrets be safe from potential rogue operators in the government or military? Does the Pentagon know? Does President Obama care?
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:34 AM
2 Comments:
I always thought the Israelis did their own electronics? I am not an expert - :) - but I always thought they "personalised" the aircraft to Israeli specifications??
They may have been doing it anyway. I remember in summer '06 reading that the IDF was running into guys in southern Leb with night vision. And it turned out that they had gotten it from Iran, who had gotten it from the U.K. for use in a drug interdiction program. The current U.S. people, who seem to be following along behind the U.K./Tony Blair types, don't care about this type of thing and, as a matter of fact, seem to think it is more "fair" if the western countries don't have anything more advanced than the people attacking them.
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