Modern warfare has dramatically changed as we have seen from the Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts involving Gaza, India and Pakistan, and the recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran. At the centre of this shift is a surging global reliance on drone and missile technology as well as advanced air defence systems.<\/p>\n
Turkiye, one of the largest military powers in the Middle East, is increasingly positioning itself as a major supplier in the global defence sector. Central to this effort is Roketsan, a company founded in 1988 to supply the Turkish Armed Forces, which has since evolved into the country\u2019s primary manufacturer of missile and rocket systems.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Currently exporting to approximately 50 countries, the firm is one of the fastest-growing defence companies globally.<\/p>\n So how did Roketsan secure a large share of the global arms trade?<\/p>\n Turkiye\u2019s defence expansion was largely accelerated by restrictions placed upon it. Western embargoes aimed at halting its military advancement meant Ankara could not acquire the necessary technical systems or components.<\/p>\n In 2020, the United States imposed Countering America\u2019s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) restrictions on Turkiye \u2013 a key member of the transatlantic military alliance NATO. These sanctions targeted Turkiye\u2019s military procurement agency, its chief Ismail Demir, and three other senior officials. Washington also ejected Ankara from the F-35 stealth jet programme in July 2019.<\/p>\n The measures came after Ankara purchased Russia\u2019s S-400 missile defence system, which was seen as a potential threat to NATO security. The European Union also prepared limited sanctions and discussed restricting arms exports following energy exploration disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n To circumvent this, the country built an integrated, domestic defence ecosystem. Today, Turkiye relies on a vast supply chain of nearly 4,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scattered across the country. As a result, the Turkish defence industry now operates with a local production rate exceeding 90 percent.<\/p>\n This shift has yielded significant financial returns for Ankara. In 2025, Turkiye\u2019s defence industry reported $10bn in exports. Roketsan\u2019s General Manager Murat Ikinci told Al Jazeera that the company currently ranks 71st among global defence firms, with ambitions to break into the top 50, then the top 20, and ultimately the top 10.<\/p>\n To support this expansion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated several large-scale facilities last week, including:<\/p>\n These projects represent a $1bn investment, with the company planning to inject an additional $2bn to expand mass production capabilities.<\/p>\n Roketsan\u2019s R&D strategy \u2013 which employs 3,200 engineers and makes the company the third-largest R&D institution in Turkiye \u2013 is heavily influenced by data gathered from ongoing global conflicts.<\/p>\n According to Ikinci, the war in Ukraine highlighted the impact of cheap, first-person view (FPV) and kamikaze drones supported by artificial intelligence. In response, Roketsan developed air defence systems like \u201cALKA\u201d and \u201cBURC,\u201d alongside the \u201cCIRIT\u201d laser-guided missile.<\/p>\n The regional landscape was further complicated during the US-Israel war on Iran, as cheap Iranian-designed Shahed drones \u2013 recently upgraded by Russia with \u201cKometa-B\u201d anti-jamming modules \u2013 overwhelmed defences and even struck a British base in Cyprus in March 2026. During the same month, NATO air defences were forced to intercept three Iranian ballistic missiles that entered Turkish airspace.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the recent conflict between Israel and Iran showcased the use of complex attacks combining ballistic missiles with \u201cswarms\u201d of kamikaze drones designed to overwhelm air defences. This environment makes hypersonic technology a critical asset.<\/p>\n This brings the Tayfun (Typhoon) project into focus. Tayfun is a developing family of long-range ballistic missiles. Its most advanced iteration, the Tayfun Block 4, is a hypersonic missile engineered to penetrate advanced air defence systems by travelling at extreme speeds.<\/p>\n When Al Jazeera asked for specific details regarding the Tayfun\u2019s exact operational range, Ikinci was elusive. \u201cWe avoid mentioning its range; we just say its range is sufficient,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n Similarly, historical Western sanctions have pushed Turkiye to form new cooperation initiatives, effectively accelerating an \u201cEastern shift\u201d away from Western defence dependence. Turkish drones are now being used by a growing number of countries, including by Pakistan during its war against India last May.<\/p>\n Based on these threat assessments, Roketsan has prioritised five key areas of production:<\/p>\n Unlike traditional arms procurement, Turkiye is marketing its defence industry to international buyers as a strategic partnership.<\/p>\n \u201cOur offer to our partners\u2026 is as follows: Let\u2019s produce together, let\u2019s develop technology together,\u201d Ikinci stated.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By establishing joint facilities and R&D centres in allied nations across the Middle East, the Far East, and Europe, Turkiye is attempting to secure long-term geopolitical alliances rather than purely transactional sales. Ikinci highlighted Qatar as a prime example of this model, describing it as a benchmark for technological, military, and security cooperation in the region.<\/p>\n This rapid expansion comes at a critical time for the global arms trade. Ongoing wars have severely depleted the stockpiles of advanced weapon systems worldwide.<\/p>\n During the recent US-Israel war on Iran, Washington relied heavily on multimillion-dollar Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to intercept cheap Iranian drones targeting US assets across Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. With growing concerns that US interceptor supplies could run low, Gulf states \u2013 which have collectively detected over 1,000 drones in their airspace \u2013 are actively seeking alternative defence technologies, creating a highly lucrative opening for Turkiye\u2019s missile industry.<\/p>\n Defence analyses indicate that even military superpowers like the US will require significant time to replenish their current air defence inventories due to the complexity and massive infrastructure required to build them.<\/p>\n Turkish defence officials view this shortage as a strategic opening. Having localised its supply chain, Turkiye claims it can manufacture and export these highly sought-after complex systems independently.<\/p>\n As global demand for air defence and ballistic technologies rises, Roketsan is aggressively reinvesting its revenues into production infrastructure to expand its footprint in the international arms market.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Modern warfare has dramatically changed as we have seen from the Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts involving Gaza, India and Pakistan, and the recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran. At the centre of this shift is a surging global reliance on drone and missile technology as well as advanced air defence systems. Turkiye, one of the largest military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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