According to Turkish news the coup was plotted by those at AFB Akinc. Most of which are fighter jocks, who are now languishing behind bars. As it is somewhat difficult to get an employment bureau to immediately supply some replacements, the Turkish Air Force must have more than a few machines with empty cockpits. I suppose the Russians are now safe to take a short cut and drop their whizz bangs with impunity.

Conflicting reports from various sources ,so far about as many reports saying they offered Incirlik base to the Russians as reports denying they made that offer.
Someone is trying to run with the Fox and the Hounds, and that usually ends badly. Confused by the conflicting reports is not that hard,but can you imagine how difficult it could be to sort out what happens if a bunker busting weapons cooks off and a bunker starts popping off a few big H's ?
This will make the Turkish missile crisis of 1962 look like a church picnic if someone manages to get the party started.


Keep your iodide pills handy.

Turkish missile crisis of 1963???

Are you referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, or something else?

Chronus wrote,

Not a chance in hell that Russia will start violating NATO airspace in this fashion. Why on earth would they even consider such a move? They have everything to lose with the Turks mucking around with the Russian Navy Syrian Express. The Russians desperately need the Syrian Express to continue to flow unhampered.

https://turkishnavy.net/2016/04/30/s...russian-ships/

Whether you call it the Turkish or Cuban missile crisis in 1962 depends on whether you prefer Chess or Checkers.
The first move in the missile crisis of 1962 was made by someone who was on long term heavy doses of painkillers placing missile's in Turkey. Then someone else sailed some missiles right down the middle of the Atlantic in full view. The Crisis ended when the missiles were removed from Turkey. Then the missiles were removed from Cuba.
That is the simple chronology of events ,the rhetoric is much different depending on whether you prefer Pepsi ,Coke ,or Earl Grey Tea while playing checkers or chess.

I've refrained from commenting up until now, but so much detritus has been written about the coup.

There are no halcyon days of secularist military rule in Turkey. The last 'proper' military intervention (previously permitted by the Constitution, written by the Army after the 1960 coup) saw upwards of 500,000 people being detained, thousands tortured and hundreds dying in detention.

Over the last 10 years (partly driven by EU accession criteria) Erdoğan (pronounced Erdo-whan and please, please not erdo - gan) has removed some of the constitutional privileges of the Turkish General Staff. They are still not fully under democratic control (ie they answer, or at least did answer to the President and not the Minister of Defence). Over the last month or two, Erdoğan had set the conditions for a mutiny and the plans were rumbled by the MiT late last week, causing the plotters to bring their half-hearted plans forward.

The TGS is a sclerotic organisation; there is non concept of jointery or Mission Command. The forces are purely configured for territorial defence, although both the Navy and the Army have ambitious - overly ambitious - power projection programmes. There's no effective NCO cadre in the Army, which is comprised of 75% conscript Anatolian peasants (anyone with a bit of money or University education can get out of conscription with ease).

The coup attempt was illegal and a bloody challenge to a democratically elected government (Erdoğan received 49.5% of the vote in a reasonably free and fair election late last year). His voter base have done very well under him; personal incomes have trebled in the last 15 years. We in the West may not like him (and probably favour a secular military-style government) but he is popular and delivers the goods for business and the people.

Incirlik's Turkish Base Cdr was detained last week and has been replaced by an Army Brigadier (and Deputy Hd of Intelligence in the TGS). Operations are continuing but I understand that real life support is limited at the moment. As for the SSA, let's not discuss that. It will never (repeat) never fall out of US control.

The West will need to suck up to Erdoğan - as we need him as a bulwark against irregular migration, ISIS terrorism, you name it. Historically, these events are part of a regular pattern in Turkey over the last 200 years as it struggles between being Occidental or Oriental.

The Western 'white' Turks naturally aspire to a European lifestyle. They are educated, urbane and well-travelled. The Eastern Anatolians (locally referred to as 'Black Turks') have never been served well by the elite of the last 200 years. Erdoğan has given them hope (and cynically invested in them - the dustiest town now has a gleaming hastane (hospital), several new mosques and a new school). There's been extensive infrastructure investment; a month ago during a trip back to Turkey I travelled on the new HST from Istanbul to Ankara. Absolutely brilliant and constructed in record time. The metro in Istanbul is also amazing - modern, clean, efficient and cheap!

As for Erdoğan amd his love-up to Putin - this is out of mutual economic necessity. Turkey and Russia have been to war at least 10 times and it has always ended bad for Turkey (it's all been about control of the Turkish Straits); I just hope that the anti-Academic Erdoğan remembers lessons from history...

Whenurhappy

Nice review and it agrees with my knowledge of the country. And I guess you would agree with me that a lot of people resisted the coup to prevent a and they ended up with a theocratic dictatorship.

And please answer my question on the previous page: the armed forces are humiliated, lost a lot of stuff in important jobs etc. How do you think they are going to react to regain status and self-respect?

I would just like to add a point about how Erdogan is responding to the Gulenist organisation. As told to me this is a very religious society that helps poor kids to get a good education (helps them to cheat in exams too so I am told) and when they get a good job or a position in government or the police or the army then their debt is "called in" and they have to do as they are told and contribute.

They have tried for a long time to get into the army, I am told, and despite its efforts to protect itself they have managed it. I'm not sure if I have this exactly right but I think Erdogan was one of them and used them but now he's frightened of them.

The suggestion here is that the coup wasn't really secular but was organised by Gulenists. I don't quite know what to think but at least some of the people I know think this is believable. So the situation as it is seen by my...er... sources.... is that Erdogan is in the odd position of being a religious man who is forced to remove a highly religious group from the army, judiciary, civil service etc.

Hence at least some of the "urbane, educated, travelled Western" Turks that I know are not all that sorry about the situation. Specifically some have known people who were in the Gulen organisation so it's not theoretical for them - not a pure conspiracy theory.

If they do I hope they cope with the countless barriers we had to cope with our hosts at incirlik. I spent over a year of my life there, comes to something when we (allegedly) had to smuggle ac parts in just to keep jets flying.

Not yet, and not really.

The armed forces have been shaken to the core - the CHoD had a gun held to his head by his own COS; CAS was siezed by his own outer-office staff and guards, at a wedding. The President has announced a sweeping review of the forces (who will probably move under the MOD) and new leadership. Meanwhile the Army and Air Force are engaged in a brutal COIN campaign/civil war in teh SE and troops will feel that they've been let down by their own leaders. I agree, difficult time.

Respectfully disagree, though most of your post strikes a chord with my experience in dealing with the Turkish military.


All the West has to do is put up with him. He's as much a feeder of ISIS as an opponent, see the last few years of petrol movement into Turkey from the ISIS areas. That doesn't happen by accident. In the past ten years they've had their issues with the Syrians, but the Turks have sufficient throw weight that they'll be able to handle Syria for the near future. Turkey's being in the middle between east and west is, as you say, part of being Turkey. IMO, the EU doesn't need Turkey in. Turkey as Turkey suffices. (As I am not in the EU, my opinion makes no difference).

Does NATO need Turkey? No. Absolutely not. The Cold War is over.


There was one time the US really needed Turkey (or a compliant Turkey) which was in the spring 2003 when Rummy's cunning plan to hit Saddam from both ends came a cropper when the Turks simply chose not to support it. While I was disappointed I completely understood why they did that:
(1) they have to live in that neighborhood,
(2) the concern they still have with Kurds in the region).


Is it handy to have Incirlik there as a Joint use base? Sure.
Is it essential? No.


NATO doesn't need Turkey. Turkey needs NATO a lot more for funding, security, and access to high level defense tech. Would someone else provide military technology if there was a parting of ways? In time, perhaps, but their habitual relationship and connections with various NATO states is a current advantage.

I'll accept the position that Turkey in NATO prevent much crap between Turkey and Greece. Old joke from a Dutch colleague: NATO's greatest success has been to prevent a war between Turkey and Greece -- the Cold War was a mild annoyance compared to their never ending bickering. :}

Since there is no way under the Washington Treaty to toss someone out of NATO, and since the democratic nations would rather see the military support civilian leadership, and since there is no compelling reason to change the status quo, then the inertia of what is will remain. It's too much trouble to change, and accrues to nobody any particular advantage.

123 out of about 350 generals in the Turkish Armed Forces,are behind bars. Out of 14 four star generals, career Air Force general Akin Ozturk, who with his 5800hrs chalked up on F-16, F-4, F-5, F-104, F-100, EUROFIGHTER, JAS 39, T-38, T-37, KT-1T, T-33, T-34, T-41, SF-260, G550, G-IV, CIT-VII, CN-235, KC-135, A400M, E-7T, UH-1H, AS-532, T-129 is also behind bars.
Here are some before and after pictures of him. Disturbing, yes. Utterly shameful, yes. Disgraceful, yes.

Ak?n Öztürk iki günde bu hale geldi!

Now I think Lonewolf 50 does have a point about who needs who.

I would think if the US and Europe responded chopped funding and turned the spares taps off for his fleets, be they navy, air, or ground, he would soon have to change his tune.

Or, he'd just sack more of his officers.

Or he'd have other vendors knocking on his door. I'm sure Vlad would love to turn a NATO member into a client.

But then he will have less horfficers left to knock the seven bells out of.

When the US turned off the tap to Egypt after their military coup, who was quick to step in? Yes indeed, that friendly Putin chap...

The French


3.2 billion euros of Egypt-French arms deal financed by loan from Paris: Sisi | Reuters

Tasnim News Agency - Turkish Police Block Access to NATO's Incirlik Air Base

All inputs and outputs to the Incirlik Air Base located in Adana have been closed as Turkish Minister of European Affairs cautions that it is just a "safety inspection" while local newspapers speculate that a second coup attempt may be underway.

Some 7,000 armed police with heavy vehicles surrounded and blocked the Incirlik air base in Adana used by NATO forces, already restricted in the aftermath of a failed coup. Unconfirmed reports say troops were sent to deal with a new coup attempt. According to the Turkish Minister for European Affairs, Omer Celik, this is just a routine "safety inspection." Hurriyet, by contrast, said that anti-terror police received reports of a second attempt by Gulenists to overthrow the Erdogan government, Sputnik reported.

Incirlik Air Base, located in the province of Adana, is a critical NATO base in Turkey. The US maintains 50 to 90 tactical nuclear weapons at the base. Local media has focused on the base after the failed coup in Turkey occurred the night of July 15. Although the main scenes of the events were Istanbul and Ankara, Incirlik was shut down by local authorities shortly after the putsch, and several Turkish soldiers from the base were deemed by Turkish officials to be involved in the overthrow attempt.

The lockdown at Incirlik follows a massive wave of protests on Thursday when pro-Erdogan nationalists took to the streets yelling "death to the US" and called for the immediate closure of the Incirlik base. Security personnel dispersed the protesters before they were able to make it to the base. The massive presence of armed police supported by heavy vehicles calls into question the Turkish government's official line that the lock down at the Incirlik base is merely a "safety inspection."

Turkish European Affairs Minister took to Twitter to once again assert that there was a "general security check" at Incirlik Air Base and that "nothing is wrong" there.