WHO IS HE TO KNOW?
Ben Wallace, the Defense Minister of the UK, attended the SAHA EXPO Defense & Aerospace Exhibition in Istanbul. It is the second largest aerospace cluster in Europe, A statement by Wallace: GameChanger Turkish Drones made headlines.
Wallace is a ranking Defense Minister of a major power in the West. He was there with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss when they were prime ministers. He continues to keep his post with Rishi Sunak. However, he was also the potential prime minister that passed the opportunity.
Naturally, his impressions become even more important with his ever enhancing stature. As a result, his frank and open assessment of what he witnessed in the Turkish EXPO also elevated the importance of the subject at hand.
Ben Wallace: GameChanger Turkish Drones
So, what is all the fuss about a simple statement for a minor Turkish military platform?
After all, the UK is also one of a handful dominant nuclear powers in the world.
A drone in the air is nothing more than a flying duck, isn’t it?
Short and long answer combined:
With ignorance and contemptuousness, history of war evolves and leading major powers are replaced.
That also explains why Ben Wallace has been the best non-candidate in the contests Truss and Sunak won.
GameChanger Turkish Drones
In Ukraine, GameChanger Turkish drones made a difference, more so history. Ben Wallace did not refer to them in Istanbul in the October EXPO. He pondered about what else could be in the pipeline in Türkiye that did not make an appearance yet in a war scenario.
The next generation Turkish drones are numerous and they vary in capacity and capability. Some are behemoths like TB-3, TB-4, Akıncı, Kızıl Elma, Aksungur. Some others are smaller in size however they perform like a kamikaze or a variety of roles as part of swarming drones.
Yet, there was one other aspect, regarding these Turkish drones in this EXPO. The navigation system and network, that they use, are one of a kind. They are exclusively and indigenously developed by Türkiye. In other words, Turkish drones do not use GPS, Art, or INS to navigate.
As a result, they have an extra stealth power because adversaries cannot intrude into their operation. This factor alone further explains how it has been difficult to shoot down TB-2s. Russia aside, the French navy, for example, was also helpless against Turkish drones on more than one occasion.
Ben Wallace
Ben Wallace is right with his headline making statement about “GameChanger Turkish Drones”. However, he must not have made that statement purely from a military perspective. After all, his American, Russian, and Israeli counterparts also work closely with Hulusi Akar of Türkiye. Simply because, Türkiye has already become the leading “interlocutor valable” in the world. These GameChanger drones must have mightily contributed for the country to attain the status.
To put it into another perspective, Wallace is surely aware how the UK and then the US established, respectively, their hegemony in the 19th and 20th centuries. Having realized what Turkish drones are so far able to do and what else Turks are to come up with, he might have come to a conclusion. Türkiye may perhaps be geared to achieve it all with an array of military platforms led by drones what the UK and the US did in the past by controlling the seas with their navies.
