The US has reportedly halted all shipments to Turkey, related to the procurement of F-35s as Ankara continues to refuse to ditch the S-400 deal with Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently indicated that it happened because the US failed to make a better offer than Russia on air defence systems.
The US online media outlet Air Force Times has published a complete breakdown of Washington's fears of supplying F-35 jets to Turkey as the latter plans to acquire Russian S-400 systems.
According to military acquisition researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, Rick Berger, the key problem with S-400 is that it must be connected to a tactical data link, called Link 16, and Identification Friend or Foe systems that would allow it to correctly identify friendly F-35s in the air. If Turkey manages to successfully patch up Russian S-400s to NATO systems, it would mean that the air defence system will get access to encrypted Link 16 codes, F-35 transponder data and emission signatures, allowing it to correctly detect and identify the stealth fighter in the air.
According to Berger, this means that if any of the S-400s, which are interconnected via a military network, manages to leak this data to Moscow because of malware or Russian maintenance specialists then it will render most of the F-35's advantages useless. The same applies to other, less advanced planes, operated by Turkey, he added.
“With the F-35 flying in close proximity…
