By Fatih Emre Güler
Is the YILDIRIMHAN missile we saw just a model? Is the project finished? Or did we only see a mock-up? For a country with Türkiye’s capabilities, is it harder to build an ICBM—or to announce it?
The state does not reveal everything at all times. It waits for the most suitable conditions and timing. We had already mentioned “one of the side benefits :)” of the Somalia Space Base and satellite efforts back then:
A satellite/orbital rocket essentially means ICBM technology. A YILDIRIMHAN ICBM that can “deliver” a 3-ton warhead to 6,000 km also implies a hypersonic ballistic system capable of carrying 5+ tons to 3,000 km—entering the atmosphere with maneuverability, evading air defense systems through complex trajectories, and delivering a 3-ton warhead with a 3-ton rocket system. You can use it however you want; there’s no strict requirement to reach 6,000 km!
For a country that produces a 5th-generation fighter like KAAN, building an ICBM is not that technically difficult. I wasn’t surprised at all—not even slightly shocked. The real difficulty in building an ICBM is political. The main issue is being able to handle the reaction and avoid sanctions. I haven’t been criticizing in vain for the past two months, saying we are failing to take advantage of the opportunities created by the West getting bogged down in Iran and becoming dependent on us. We should be a primary actor, not a proxy!
While we were expecting moves regarding the Blue Homeland and EEZ boundaries, an “ICBM announcement” suddenly appeared. I’m watching to see whether people will jump in saying it’s just a mock-up, a model, or that the missile isn’t finished yet. They’ve already started surfacing. Let me explain:
At this point, whether the project is completed or not doesn’t matter at all! The issue is not producing an ICBM! The first ICBM was built and tested 65 years ago. There are no insurmountable engineering barriers. In fact, our 2,000+ km range, solid-fuel ballistic missiles—with terminal-phase thermal + computer vision + likely AI-guided precision targeting—are even more valuable, and not everyone has them! The real issue is timing the announcement of having an ICBM and making the world accept it at the right moment.
At present, aside from the ineffective complaints of Greece—which no one will take seriously—there is no one who can truly object to us. Both East and West are already dealing with major crises. Whether the U.S. likes us or not, we are valuable to them. We are indispensable for Europe. The East, meanwhile, does not want to push Türkiye further toward the opposing bloc. Opportunities like this do not come often in history.
The real opposition is to ask: “Can we evaluate other opportunities as well, as I have been persistently pointing out for two months?” Constantly nitpicking every project for 15 years is lobbying driven by bias. While announcing that we have built an ICBM and ensuring the global public digests it at the right time, questioning the model, mock-up, or fuel technology only exhausts public discourse with unnecessary debate and hinders meaningful exchange of ideas.
Opposition-minded friends should wake up and free their thinking from these lobby influences. Meanwhile, the government must also put its outdated media and itself in order, as it has failed for years to prevent even its most justified defense industry achievements from being constantly attacked. While we have been criticizing passive foreign policy for two months, we now find ourselves losing patience and stepping in to defend the defense industry.
