Turkey And Israel’s Drones Are Selling Like Hot Cakes In Asia
Japan is presently assessing whether to buy military drones from either Turkey or Israel. The fact that Tokyo decided to choose between these two Middle Eastern powers rather than the United States or Europe is hardly surprising. After all, in recent years, several countries across Asia have acquired or shown an interest in acquiring drones developed by these two countries.
Japan recently tested the Heron Mk2 surveillance drone made by Israel Aerospace Industries before going on to test Turkey’s widely-exported Bayraktar TB2 combat drone, a Japanese military spokesperson confirmed to Jane’s on August 21.
The Jerusalem Post noted that Tokyo’s evaluation of the Israeli drone marked “the first documented instance of an Israeli weapon system being tested in Japan,” which had “refrained from purchasing Israeli platforms until now.”
While Turkey’s TB2 primarily serves as an unmanned combat aerial vehicle armed with air-to-ground munitions, the Heron drones primarily serve as surveillance and reconnaissance drones. The Post report also noted that the Heron Japan tested is configured for electronic warfare.
Israel previously sold three Heron drones to South Korea in the 2010s. However, all three have been destroyed in separate accidents, the latest of which occurred on March 17, 2025, when a Heron Mk1 crashed into a helicopter while landing, totaling both aircraft but luckily not causing any casualties.
It’s perhaps noteworthy that Japan is evaluating Turkey’s TB2. After all, back in March 2022, Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of the TB2’s manufacturer Baykar, suggested that the TB3, the navalized version of the TB2 fitted with folding wings, would “be a great fit for Japan’s Izumo-class platforms.”
Turkey developed the TB3 to operate off its amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu, from which it will begin operations this September, only weeks after Japan evaluated the more popular land-based variant.
Even if Israel’s IAI clinches a deal for selling Heron Mk2s to Japan at the expense of Baykar’s TB2, Turkey still has a clear lead when it comes to the number of drones it is exporting to various Asian countries.
Still, Israel has had some success marketing its drones to Asia, particularly its surveillance and reconnaissance models.
For example, Thailand’s navy has acquired Israel’s Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 long-endurance drones in recent years. Manufacturer Elbit Systems stated that its drones “enable the Royal Thai Navy to perform both blue water and littoral missions, dominate vast swathes of sea and long coastlines, communicate with operational vessels and carry out civilian missions.”
Bangkok also bought lightweight Orbiter and large Dominator reconnaissance drones, both built by Aeronautics Defense Systems, in the late 2010s.
The Philippines also received three Hermes 900 and one Hermes 450 for its air force in 2020 and lost one to an accident two years later. Singapore also operates Hermes 450 and Heron drones.
Meanwhile, Turkey has made headway selling drones, along with other weaponry, to Indonesia and Malaysia, neither of which has diplomatic relations with Israel.
Malaysia recently ordered three of Turkey’s large multirole Anka-S drones, built by the state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries, primarily for monitoring its exclusive economic zone, a similar role to those Israeli-made drones operated by the Philippines and Thailand. Kuala Lumpur expects to receive all three between September and November 2025.
Since the start of the 2020s, Turkey has sold at least a dozen Anka and another dozen TB2 drones to Indonesia. But the most significant order as of yet is undoubtedly the joint production agreement signed between Baykar and Indonesia’s Republikorp in February 2025. Under that landmark deal, Indonesia will acquire a whopping 60 TB3s and nine of Baykar’s sophisticated, multirole Akinci high-altitude long-endurance drones.
None of the countries that Israel and Turkey are selling, or competing to sell, drones to, mentioned so far, are at war with each other, nor are any likely to be any time soon. Israeli-made reconnaissance drones have played a role in the recent border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia in the service of the former. Of course, Cambodia doesn’t have any Turkish-made drones.
That stands in contrast with the Russia-Ukraine war, where it quickly became noticeable that rival Middle Eastern powers, Iran and Turkey, were supplying armed drones to the two adversaries in Europe’s largest war since the 1940s.
Turkey’s TB2s became adulated in Ukraine for striking Russian tanks advancing on Kyiv at the start of that war in early 2022. Later that year, Iranian-made one-way Shahed-136 loitering munitions operated by Russia began targeting Ukrainian cities and the electricity grid. Iran has since outsourced the production of its Shahed-type drones to the extent that Russia is now producing tailor-made variants with minimal Iranian input, reportedly much to Tehran’s chagrin.
Notably absent from Middle Eastern powers exporting drones to Asia is Iran. Tehran has exported drones across the Middle East, Africa, and South America, but hasn’t had similar success in much of Asia. Interestingly, North Korea could soon have its own production line for Shahed-style drones, albeit one provided by Moscow rather than Tehran.
Late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other Iranian officials boasted in 2022 that countries worldwide were clamoring for Iranian-made drones. As evident at the time, Iran was unlikely to match Turkey’s success in exporting military drones to a wide range of countries. Iran has also failed to give its arch-foe Israel any significant competition in Asia, but, interestingly, it seemingly has to some mild degree done so in South America.
Less than two years after Raisi’s boast, it was a Turkish Akinci drone that helped find the crashed helicopter that killed him.
While wars involving Israeli and Turkish-made drones used against each other haven’t taken place in the Asian countries mentioned above, that’s not the case regarding India and Pakistan.
Not wholly unlike the case with Russia-Ukraine, the brief but intense four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in early May 2025 saw two heavily armed militaries equipped with Israeli and Turkish-made drones fight each other.
Israel has collaborated militarily with India for decades now and supplied it with significant numbers of drones, including substantial quantities of all the surveillance models—Hermes, Herons, and Searchers—mentioned above, and the one-way Harop loitering munitions. New Delhi used these latter drones against radar units in Pakistan.
Turkey has supplied Pakistan with the Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones. Incidentally, Ankara has also sold TB2 drones to Bangladesh, which reportedly use them to surveil its border with India.
The war has since been described as the “world’s first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbors,” with several of those drones sold by Turkey and Israel.
It therefore shouldn’t surprise anybody if Turkey and Israel continue to play a significant role in the proliferation of drones in Asia.