Turkey’s Missile Ambitions Should Alarm Europe and the United States

Sinan Ciddi | May 16, 2026

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

For years, European officials viewed Turkey’s growing defense industry as an important asset. Turkish drones proved effective in conflicts from Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine. Ankara marketed itself as a NATO ally capable of covering gaps in Europe’s deteriorating defense-industrial base. Now, as the European Union (EU) scrambles to rearm in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war and growing uncertainty about long-term American commitments to Europe, Turkey is once again presenting itself as an irreplaceable security partner.

But Europe and the United States are ignoring a critical question: What exactly are Turkey’s military ambitions?

The answer increasingly points to a country pursuing strategic autonomy through offensive missile capabilities designed not simply for defense but for coercion, regional intimidation, and worldwide leverage. As evidenced by the showcasing of its new Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) – the Yildirimhan, Turkey’s accelerating development of ballistic, cruise, and potentially hypersonic missiles should force Washington and Brussels to reconsider whether Ankara is evolving into a stabilizing NATO partner—or a revisionist power armed with increasingly sophisticated strike capabilities.

A recent report documents the extraordinary pace of Turkey’s missile modernization program. What began in the 1990s as a limited effort to build retaliatory missile capabilities has transformed into one of the most ambitious missile-development programs among NATO members.

Turkey is now developing a layered arsenal that includes the Bora, Tayfun, and Cenk ballistic missile families alongside long-range cruise missile systems such as the Gezgin and SOM. According to the report, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally ordered the acceleration of missiles with ranges exceeding 800 kilometers and directed the development of systems able of ranges beyond 2,000 kilometers.

This is not the posture of a state focused solely on territorial defense.

The strategic geography of these missile systems matters. As reporting demonstrates, a 2,000-kilometer-range Turkish missile places vast portions of Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel, North Africa, and the Gulf within reach. Turkey’s Tayfun system reportedly already exceeds Mach 5, while the Cenk missile appears to be designed with maneuverable reentry-vehicle technology associated with advanced medium-range ballistic missile systems. It is worth noting at this point that the reported capabilities of Turkey’s new ballistic missile technology have not been independently verified.

At the same time, Ankara is attempting to position itself as Europe’s future defense partner. Turkish officials increasingly argue that Europe cannot construct a credible post-American security architecture without Turkey’s defense-industrial capacity. Recent cooperation with Spain on the Hürjet trainer aircraft and Ankara’s broader push for involvement in European defense projects reflect this effort. Ankara is simultaneously pushing narratives of its value to European security to reinvigorate its accession to the EU.

European leaders appear increasingly receptive. The logic is understandable: Turkey possesses manufacturing capacity, an expanding defense sector, and a large standing military. Yet Europe risks making a major strategic error by treating Turkish military growth as politically neutral.

Turkey’s missile development program cannot be separated from Erdogan’s wider ideological and international agenda.

Over the past decade, Ankara has repeatedly threatened fellow NATO member Greece, challenged Cyprus’s sovereignty, militarized disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean, and escalated anti-Israel rhetoric to unprecedented levels. Erdogan himself has repeatedly warned that Turkey could “come suddenly one night” against its adversaries—a phrase now embedded in Turkish strategic signaling. Turkish officials have openly threatened Greece over maritime disputes while simultaneously expanding ballistic missile ranges capable of striking Athens and beyond.

Israel faces an even more alarming trajectory. Since the October 7 attacks, Erdogan’s rhetoric toward Israel has grown steadily more confrontational. Senior Turkish officials routinely compare Israeli leaders to Nazis while Ankara continues hosting Hamas-linked figures and preserving ties with Islamist networks across the region. Turkish missile development must therefore be understood not in isolation, but in the context of a government increasingly comfortable with coercive regional posturing.

This is precisely why Ankara’s growing missile arsenal should concern Europe and the United States. For decades, NATO’s shared defense architecture depended upon interoperability, strategic trust, and political alignment. Turkey’s existing trajectory undermines all three.

The problem is not simply that Turkey is building missiles. Many NATO allies possess sophisticated strike capabilities. The problem is that Ankara increasingly behaves like a power pursuing strategic independence from the West while simultaneously benefiting from NATO’s protections and Europe’s economic integration. It does so simultaneously, while entering in defense procurement agreements with Russia. In 2019, Turkey purchased and still maintains the S-400 missile defense system, resulting in Ankara’s ouster from the F-35 program, in addition to being subjected to limited sanctions by Washington.

Indeed, the IISS report shows that Turkey’s missile-development ecosystem emerged partly because Ankara grew frustrated with dependence on NATO systems and Western export controls. Turkey’s pursuit of indigenous propulsion systems, vertical launch systems, and long-range cruise missiles demonstrates a deliberate strategy to decouple itself from Western constraints.

This has serious consequences for transatlantic security.

First, Turkey’s missile advances risk triggering a regional arms race in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Greece will almost certainly deepen missile-defense cooperation with Israel and France. Israel, already wary of Turkey’s growing hostility, will increasingly treat Ankara as a long-term strategic threat rather than a difficult regional actor. Gulf states may similarly accelerate missile procurement programs.

Second, Turkey’s growing defense-industrial independence weakens Western leverage. The more self-sufficient Ankara becomes in propulsion systems, guidance technologies, and missile production, the less vulnerable it becomes to American or European sanctions pressure. This is particularly important given Turkey’s continued balancing between NATO and revisionist powers such as Russia and China.

Third, there is a growing risk that Europe’s desperation for defense-industrial capacity will lead decision-makers to ignore the political character of Erdogan’s government altogether. Already, some European officials claim that geopolitical realities require “pragmatism” toward Turkey regardless of democratic backsliding or regional aggression. That logic may produce short-term defense cooperation, but it additionally risks empowering a government whose strategic objectives increasingly diverge from those of the transatlantic alliance.

Turkey’s missile program ultimately reveals a deeper ambition: Ankara no longer sees itself merely as NATO’s southeastern flank. It increasingly sees itself as an autonomous Eurasian military power capable of coercing rivals, shaping regional conflicts, and bargaining with both East and West simultaneously.

Europe and the United States must recognize that reality before Turkey’s expanding missile arsenal significantly changes the regional balance of power. The question is no longer whether Turkey can develop advanced missile capabilities. It clearly can. The real question is whether the West fully understands what Erdogan intends to do with them.

Sinan Ciddi is a senior fellow and director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).