When Turkey gifts you a warship, you don’t look at the missile tubes — you ask, “Why me?”
That question, however, seems alien to Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, who has decided his tiny island nation urgently needs a missile boat—perhaps to defend against rogue dolphins, imaginary Indian aggression, or the real threat of international irrelevance.
Enter TCG Volkan (P-343), a refurbished Dogan-class fast-attack missile craft, courtesy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It’s sleek, it’s over-the-horizon capable, and it’s about as useful to the Maldives as a snowplough. But who needs logic when you have grand geopolitical fantasies?
According to a Turkish Defence Ministry statement, the TCG Volkan is currently undergoing a complete maintenance and refurbishment process at the Istanbul Naval Shipyard Command. Upon completion, the vessel will be delivered to the Maldives aboard a Turkish dock landing ship. The formal handover is scheduled for June 2025, with the ship expected to be commissioned into the MNDF Coast Guard by July.
Originally, the vessel was equipped with two RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a 76 mm OTO Melara naval gun, and a twin 35 mm Oerlikon GDM-A anti-aircraft turret. While the Harpoon missiles may be removed before the transfer, the ship’s existing weapons systems provide formidable capabilities for intercepting and deterring illicit maritime activity, the release adds.
Turkey, of course, isn’t in this for the postcards. A shiny warship here, some drones there—Erdoğan’s government is quietly writing its name into the Indian Ocean guestbook. After all, China has Hambantota, the US has Diego Garcia, India has Minicoy. Why should Turkey be left out of the IOR influencer contest?
The Maldivian justification? “Strategic autonomy”, said with the straight face of a man who once tried to replace Indian rice with Turkish staples, only to find the Red Sea blocked and the shipping bill bloated. The whole affair might have passed for slapstick diplomacy if it didn’t involve actual weapons.
Let’s pause to appreciate the absurdity. A missile boat for a country whose real crisis is drinking water. Naval hardware for a military that can’t staff a fully functional coast guard. Turkey’s gift is a hammer—Muizzu’s job now is to go find some nails, even if he has to invent them.
The whole enterprise reeks of an Erdogan-style playbook: find a soft state with political confusion, offer shiny toys and training programmes, and insert yourself into the region’s military architecture. The fact that the MNDF is now being trained in Turkey, and the vessel could be armed “eventually,” is no small detail. Today a gift, tomorrow a foothold.
For Muizzu, it’s the perfect pivot from the now-stale “India Out” campaign—rebranded as “Everyone Else In”, so long as it’s not India. Except, of course, for Indian rice, Indian pilots flying Dornier aircraft gifted by India, and Indian civilian medevac operators, whom he quietly welcomed back while waving Turkish flags in public.
It’s a foreign policy of maximal noise and minimal clarity, orchestrated for optics and social media engagement, not actual governance.
And who exactly is the enemy this warship is meant to deter? Drug smugglers? Somali pirates? Migratory tuna? If the Maldives needed naval muscle to defend its EEZ, it should probably start by not alienating the one country with an actual navy in the neighbourhood.
India, meanwhile, watches from Minicoy Island, where its own naval base– INS Jatayu– is taking shape. China watches too, perhaps bemused that Erdoğan beat them to the first port of call. The US, ever the lurking presence via Diego Garcia, probably already has a file labelled “Maldivian Mischief.”
There’s also the small matter of regional coherence. The Maldives is part of the Colombo Security Conclave, a regional group focused on non-traditional security threats: disaster relief, counter-narcotics, human trafficking. Not missile boat diplomacy. Not gifts from distant powers looking for new launchpads.
But why stop at boats? If Muizzu is serious about defending Maldivian sovereignty from… well, whoever he imagines is attacking, why not invite North Korea for radar systems? Or Venezuela for naval camouflage design? The possibilities are endless when you abandon reason.
For now, Malé has a ship, some drones, and a confused population asking how any of this helps with inflation, housing, or jobs. Maybe it’s all performance art—a floating metaphor for a government adrift, chasing power in places it has no business sailing.
One thing’s clear: missile boats do not bring strategic clarity. They bring photo ops, training videos, and uneasy neighbours. The Indian Ocean doesn’t need another power trying to redraw influence maps. It needs stability, transparency, and leaders who know the difference between military might and maritime cosplay.
Unfortunately, it looks like President Muizzu is still playing Battleship— only this time, with real boats and borrowed ambition. Or perhaps he’s just trying to live out his childhood fantasy of becoming an Admiral.
