via Military.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin showed off his country's advanced Su-57 stealth fighter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday, just a month after Turkey was blocked from F-35 sales due to its purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-air missile system.Story here.
Putin led Erdogan across the tarmac to check out the single-seat Su-57 at the annual MAKS-2019 air show at Zhukovsky International Airport outside Moscow, Russian and Turkish news outlets reported.
Erdogan looked into the cockpit of the Su-57 on display and asked whether it was available for sale. Putin smiled and said, "Yes, you can buy it," according to the Associated Press.
Pardon me while I have a "chicken little" moment (if you're too young to understand that reference then Google it).
Imagine the possibilities here.
Western tech with this Russian design could make this thing hyper lethal (Halo reference).
Turks have had access to top flight tech from the West. According to some of my Turk readers they have formidable manufacturing capabilities in many of the bellwether industries that build stealth fighters.
They slap a state of the art AESA onto this puppy, other Western avionics, add in copious amounts of carbon fiber where possible and this alliance with Russia becomes more than a curiosity.
NATO (and the EU) will finally have to come to grips with a Turkey that has felt betrayed and vice versa.
Will NATO survive?
How will the US respond if this hypothetical becomes reality?
I'm not sure but it will be interesting to watch. I actually didn't see this coming. I assumed that Turkey would simply pivot to one of the EU countries to buy Eurofighters, would bide its time and climb back into the F-35 program or leverage the tech transfer that its already received from the West to build its own 5th gen fighter.
I never actually thought they would go SU-57.
We live in interesting times boy. Buckle up. The rough ride ain't over yet!
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