Turkish Civil War

Turkish Civil War - 2017 ().

Become A War Blog Patreon
or

This isnt really a civil war, mainly because no one is calling it a civil war. However, I'm certain that when I looked at the Southfront site a few days ago it was titled the Turkish Civil War and it got me thinking. They seem to have it titled Turkish-Kurdish Conflict. Maybe it was my imagination.

However, it fits in with a few other developments, namely protester and police units. Essentially the protester units can capture objectives at half a point a turn, so its still pretty slow. THey have a value of 0-0-1 so they cant fight, but against police units they will have a defence of half. This means that the police need to engage in action against them to move them out. I have not figured all the rules out yet but if they win the action they will mostly be removed from play.

The significance of all of this is that I can start to model with type of action in relation to the genesis of civil war. As such, after a certain amount of protester activity, such as in Libya and Syria, the model will then have insurgent units appear, and then irregulars. The number of protesters will outnumber police making it even harder to win combats, and then essentially war breaks out.

As such, the current situation in Turkey is an ideal model to build.

I really dont want to suggest anything greater than it appears. However, its a very interesting situation. For example, there is a lot of attention on the Turkish military operations in Northern Syria. And mostly that appears focussed on the kinetic war, ie, the physical tanks and artillery and guns being used. Little thought is at that level given to the fact that they just escaped a revolution. Their currency is in a slump and the stock market was temporarily suspended. They have purged a huge amount of thier military and other institutions and they have all these areas of unrest in the East.

In particular, when you consider the military purges, I think its worth reflecting on the result that that had no Iran in the 1980's. THeir army was very ineffective, for example, they had tank crews that couldn't drive tanks, pilots that had no training. In short, Turkey is in a tough place, and in that sort of situation, things happen that are beyond anyones control. For example, military personal just not showing up for duty because their home towns are in unrest or because their families have no work and are hungry etc.

As said, im not trying to scaremonger, but I think its important to consider these things. I read recently that Turkey is an emerging regional power, maybe seeing itself as a power broker in the region like America is globally. They are also in NATO so I cant really see them slipping into full fledged civil war, but can that be proven?

For example, what about the IRA in Northern Ireland in the 1980's? Its a similar situation, so you cant jump to assumptions.

However, you cant rule it out. When civil war broke out in Syria the Syrian Government lost 2/3 of its military equipment. what woul dhappen if that happened in Turkey? What sort of ballistic missile capability do they have? As in Yemen? Can war be described as contageous? What about the militants coming over the Southern borders? All the refugees?

Anyway, hopefully this map will put the actuality of the real current situation into some sort of perspective. the Southfront article states that 2500 people have been killed in these clashes. I assume thats in 2016. Will it get worse? Wil lthe economy collapse?

On another note. Going back to thinking I saw the article initially saying Turkish Civil War. I just want to add that it really is a game of words. I mean why not? Why not call it a civil wat? what would need to happen if for it to be given the true classification of civil war? Also, I thought about the Malayan Emergency and the Aden Emergency. Both od these events were called emergencies so that businesses could claim damages from their insurance policies, but its also a game of words. If this a Turkish Emergency? There are wars classified on Wikipedia with lower death rates over many years than Turkey has in the last 12 months. My point is, its all words. Its all newpaper headlines and essentially controlling persepctions. What if people did go around calling it a civil war? I dont really know much about all this, but im wondering whether there is a greater undertow in all of this.

Actually, I thought i'd do a bit of research and googled 'chance of civil war in turkey' and there are quite a few news articles already discussing the issue.

Not sure when i'll complete the map. Stay tuned.

I have started putting on a few units. It wont be very accurate, but im basing it on the Wikipedia article that shows PKK activity across 2016 below. Im using a timescale of 1 turn = 1 week and starting at January 2016. Not sure how far i'll get.

see Southfront

see Voice Of America

see Wikipedia

Facebook Comments

Discus Comments

Units (Turkey)

Units (Kurds)