There may be several competing ideas on how best to buy weapons systems, but there must be only a few on how not to buy arms. Surely, one of the most challenging ideas that fall into the how-not-to-buy category must be the launching of a procurement program, only to be still crawling at the 're-launching' phase after a decade.

Burak BEKDİL

  There may be several competing ideas on how best to buy weapons systems, but there must be only a few on how not to buy arms. Surely, one of the most challenging ideas that falls into the how-not-to-buy category must be the launching of a procurement program, only to be still crawling at the “re-launching” phase after a decade. Welcome to Turkey's attack helicopter program!

  Here is the chronological anatomy of an “attempted” defense buy, probably not seen elsewhere in the world:

  1995: Turkey launches a multi-billion-dollar program for the co-production of scores of attack helicopters.

  1997: Murad Bayar, now Turkey's chief defense procurement official and head of the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM), is a young and promising SSM official who heads the team that oversees the program.

  1998: Turkey shortlists the contenders to three.

  2000: Turkey selects Bell Helicopter Textron for the co-production contract. Hasty cheers at Bell's Fort Worth, Texas, (and Ankara) headquarters as contract negotiations begin.

  2001: Turkey insists on installing a “national” mission computer on the platforms as part of the co-production program. (The mission computer is one of the most critical systems that command the helicopter's avionics, electronics and warfare systems.)

  2001: The Department of Defense in Washington, in a letter to Ankara, makes clear that it will not issue an export license for the deal because a Turkish (or any non-U.S.) mission computer cannot be installed on a U.S.-made platform.

  July 2002: Talks with Bell collapse over pricing and technology transfer issues. Talks with rival Kamov-IAI, a Russian-Israeli partnership, begin.

  August 2002: Turkey begins to weigh the option of buying off-the-shelf, instead of co-producing.

  April 2003: The attack helicopter program faces suspension because of a cash squeeze.

  December 2003: SSM Undersecretary Dursun Ali Ercan recommends the Kamov-IAI solution as the best option to meet Turkey's (then) eight-year-old requirement to procure attack helicopters. But few in the Army are impressed with the proposed model that coincidentally carried the name of the Turkish prime minister: Erdogan.

  February 2004: Mr. Bayar takes over as SSM chief.

  May 2004: Turkey cancels the co-production program altogether.

  February 2005: Turkey officially launches international bidding for a mix of off-the-shelf/co-production model that styles itself as off-the-shelf. Actually, the model is a hybrid. The SSM releases a Request for Proposal (RfP) for the competition. Several U.S. and European manufacturers buy the RfP. The bidding deadline is June 4.

  April 2005: Bell says it is withdrawing from competition it once had won, but is now expected to join again.

  May 2005: Turkey revises the RfP, or the contractual clauses, upon loud complaints from mainly U.S. contenders. The new bidding deadline is Sept. 13.

  September 2005: Mr. Bayar says an indigenous mission computer and other critical software have strategic importance for Turkey; hence, they must be nationally developed and manufactured. Potential bidders are reluctant to bid, and the bidding deadline is put off till Nov. 8.

  November 2005: Bell reiterates that it will not participate. Boeing says it will only bid for the off-the-shelf portion (10-30 helicopters) and not for the rest of the program, which entails an eventual 91 helicopters. The European side is not enthusiastic, either. Ankara fears a competition “without the Americans” would be incomplete and may push the Europeans to “inflate their prices.” The new bidding deadline is Dec. 5.

  If there have been four bidding deadlines in a year for a contract that goes up to around $3 billion, is it any surprise that it has taken Ankara a decade only to re-launch it?

  When, hopefully, deliveries begin under the “haunted” attack helicopter program, it will probably be 13-15 years since it first took off. Which military in the world can tolerate 13-15 years before receiving the weapons systems it thinks it needs for operational purposes?

  When the program took off, Mr. Bayar was “just another” (but very talented) SSM officer. He now heads the SSM. Mr. Bayar is the fourth undersecretary to oversee Turkey's defense procurement and the third one who has had to sort out the attack helicopter program. In other words, “the program” has seen all three of the four SSM chiefs over the past two decades!

  Fortunately, Turkey has not been in dire need of the helicopter gunships that it intended to buy 10 years ago. But what if it had been?

  This column invariably argues that it should be the military's job to specify/justify a need for weaponry, the government's to examine the need and give the go-ahead and a civilian procurement office's job to actually decide how and from which source to buy it, sticking to the military's preferred specifications. Stories like the attack helicopter program only weaken this argument. Would anyone have an answer if the men in uniform were to stand up and ask: “Is this the ideal procurement system in democracies? You need a weapons system and you, hopefully, get it in 15 years' time?” Equilibrium doesn't.