CompanyGraph
Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S.
ASELS · Turkey
Builds certified weapon stations, radars, and protection systems that only Turkish-approved suppliers can legally sell to the Turkish military.
Aselsan takes Western semiconductors and builds them into certified military electronics — SARP remote weapon stations, KALKAN radars, and AKKOR active protection systems — that the Turkish Armed Forces are required by law to source domestically. Because those systems are already woven into Turkish military command networks and carry NATO interoperability certifications, any replacement supplier would have to complete a multi-year requalification process before shipping a single unit, which keeps Aselsan as the only qualified source for the life of each platform. The same Turkish military certification authority that bars foreign competitors also controls how fast Aselsan itself can grow — every new facility and every new worker handling classified hardware must be cleared through a slow, deliberate approval process, so production volume cannot simply scale up to meet a surge in orders. The sharpest risk sits outside Turkey entirely: if Washington restricts access to the advanced Western chips that Aselsan builds its radar and electronic warfare systems around, the company loses the components it needs to meet the technical specifications its certification was built on.
How does this company make money?
The company first earns money through fixed-price development contracts, where the Turkish military pays for the engineering work to design and certify a new system. Once a system is certified, it earns per-unit production contracts each time the military orders more of that system. It also sells systems to foreign governments through government-to-government defense agreements. And it collects technology licensing fees from joint ventures with other Turkish defense contractors who use its designs or integration methods in their own products.
What makes this company hard to replace?
The Turkish Armed Forces would need to put any new supplier through a multi-year requalification process before that supplier could deliver a single certified unit — there is no shortcut. SARP and AKKOR systems are already integrated into Turkish military command networks, so pulling them out and replacing them is not just a procurement decision but a technical overhaul across the whole network. And NATO interoperability certifications, which confirm that systems can talk to allied equipment, take years to transfer from one supplier to another, adding another layer of delay on top of the requalification requirement.
What limits this company?
The hard ceiling on growth is not money or factory floor space — it is Turkish military security clearance approvals. New facilities and new staff cannot be added quickly because each one must be cleared by the Turkish military certification authority, and that process cannot be rushed. So when a new platform award arrives or the military needs a surge in production, the company cannot simply hire and build its way to a faster output.
What does this company depend on?
The company cannot operate without Western semiconductor suppliers that provide the chips used in radar and electronic warfare components. It also depends entirely on the Turkish military certification authority to issue and maintain the security clearances that make it the legal supplier of these systems. NATO-standard communication protocol licensing sets the technical bar every system must clear. Specialized military-grade electronic components must be sourced and kept available. And Turkish government R&D funding allocations shape which new platforms the company can afford to develop.
Who depends on this company?
The Turkish Armed Forces would lose their domestic source for air defense radars, active protection systems, and other critical defense electronics — forcing them to either go without or rely on foreign suppliers they are currently barred from using. Turkish defense manufacturers Otokar and BMC, which build armored vehicles, would lose access to the locally-integrated electronic warfare and fire control systems they fit to their platforms, because no other certified domestic supplier exists to fill that gap.
How does this company scale?
The systems integration knowledge and software that the engineering teams build for one platform can be carried across other defense platforms without starting over — that part gets cheaper with each new program. What does not scale easily is the manufacturing side: every new facility and every new worker handling classified hardware must be cleared by the Turkish military certification authority, and that process is slow by design, so production volume grows much more slowly than demand could theoretically support.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
U.S. semiconductor export controls are the sharpest external threat — if Washington restricts the advanced chips used in radar and electronic warfare systems, the company loses the components it needs to build products that meet current technical specifications. NATO interoperability requirements set the technical standards every system must hit, so any shift in those standards forces costly redesigns. Turkish lira volatility creates a direct financial squeeze: imported components are priced in foreign currency, but military contracts are often fixed-price in lira, so a weaker lira eats into margins on every delivery.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
Two things could shatter the lock. First, if the Turkish military certification authority changed its domestic-content rules to allow foreign-made or jointly-produced electronics, the requalification barrier would disappear and foreign competitors could bid on every contract. Second, if U.S. semiconductor export controls cut off access to the Western chips used in the KALKAN radar and other systems, the company could not meet its own technical specifications — and fixed-price production contracts would turn into losses with no legal way to pass the cost increase on.
Supply Chain
Aerospace Supply Chain
The aerospace supply chain is governed by three root constraints that interact to produce extreme concentration, decades-long supplier lock-in, and a system where every component must be traceable from raw material to flight: certification requirements make every part a regulated article, product lifecycles measured in decades force suppliers to support platforms long after production ends, and integration complexity across millions of parts from thousands of suppliers creates coordination demands that few organizations can manage.
Defense Supply Chain
The defense supply chain is governed by three root constraints that interact to produce extreme supplier concentration, glacial production timelines, and a system where political decisions — not market demand — determine what gets built and how much: monopsony buyer structure means the government is typically the only customer, security classification requirements restrict who can manufacture, supply, and even know what is being produced, and production rate inflexibility means defense manufacturing runs at low volumes with specialized tooling where surge capacity barely exists because maintaining idle lines for contingencies has no commercial justification.