Brian M Downing
President Erdogan sent troops across the border into the Kurdish region of northeast Syria. He plans to settle a strip of land with Syrian Arab refugees. This, in addition to land in the northwest, would constitute another Turkish statelet in Syrian territory, if he gets away with it. Turkey is facing war with Kurdish and Syrian troops. There will be significant consequences both at home and abroad.
The Kurds
Turkish troops are coming up against Kurdish militias that have been armed and trained by American and other Western special forces. They have developed considerable experience and confidence in five years of fighting ISIL. Small unit cohesion, knowledge of the terrain, support from the local population, and the advantage of defensive positions favor them.
Iranian and Iraqi Kurds have already come in to help against ISIL. More will come to fight the Turks, perhaps especially from Iraq where independence was thwarted by Turkey’s cutoff of oil exports and a ground incursion.
Syria is sending in troops. They too have combat experience but have been worn down by years of fighting and historically have never performed well in battle. Damascus’s success in the civil war was greatly facilitated by Hisbollah, IRGC troops, Iranian units recruited from the Shia of the region, and of course Russian airpower. Moscow has noted how regrettable it would be for its troops to clash with the Turks – as subtle a warning as Russia has ever delivered.
The Turks
The Turkish army has been part of NATO for decades and has met the organization’s training and equipment standards. However, it has a large number of conscripts whose term of service is short – not enough time to develop skill and to gel into a cohesive unit. The force that crossed into Syria was likely drawn from professional units, nonetheless there are thousands of indifferently trained and motivated conscripts somewhere behind them. Conscript or elite, they have no combat experience.
Turkish troops come from more heterogeneous backgrounds than do the relatively homogeneous rural-dwelling Kurds. Some Turks are urban and secular, others are rural and pious. The two groups have little in common and many acute differences. The former supports the Turkey of Ataturk – secular and westernizing. The latter favor an Islamist state and society, less austere than, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia, but quite different from Ataturk’s vision and the way the country has been for the last century. Urban dwellers see Erdogan leading the country into a theocracy and using authoritarian methods to impose it.
Social divisions exist in the officer corps. The army was, until the last few years, a bastion of Ataturk’s secular outlook. It looked askance at religious parties and often intimidated them. In recent years Erdogan has been purging the army – and many other national institutions – of secularists and ensconcing beholden political appointees in their place.
The competence of Erdogan’s protégées cannot be discerned from afar but the old guard almost certainly doubts they have the proper credentials to lead combat units in time of war. Their shortcomings may become clear to all if a protracted conflict takes place. Tactics, logistics, and air-ground coordination might go poorly. Getting arms, POL, and food from distant cities and bases to troops inside Syria might be particularly challenging – an Achilles heel as the Greeks to the west say.
International pressure
The Kurds are much admired around the world. They fought hard against ISIL where Arab armies showed their heels. Particularly notable have been the women fighters who put up fierce resistance, took casualties, and put countless ISIL fighters on the path to their rewards. The prospect of Turks killing Kurdish fighters, men and women, will strengthen determination to punish the invaders.
Not long ago Turkey was close to becoming a member of the EU. Erdogan’s rough hand and rolling Islamization have ended that. His invasion of Syria and threat to pour millions of Syrian refugees into Europe has greatly worsened his and Turkey’s standing. He has managed to cede the moral high ground to the Assad government.
The EU will likely impose harsh sanctions. The US has already begun to do so. Consumers around the world will opt to pass on Turkish textiles, produce, and manufactured goods. The Turkish economy might not be obliterated but it will suffer.
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Deeply divided countries should not begin sizable wars. Fissures worsen, rivals become emboldened, publics vent rage. This might be clear to the Kurds and Syrians, especially as a new spate of popular protests is taking place in many parts of the world.
The conflict inside Syria may be a protracted guerrilla war on Turkish positions and supply lines – an effort paralleled inside Turkey by PKK fighters. Syrian mechanized infantry could launch a counteroffensive and directly engage Turkish troops. Alternately, and more likely, Syrian troops could establish positions in the border strip and face off against the Turks.
This would signal Ankara that things could get out of hand and deepen tensions within its army and in major cities back home. Erdogan’s push for mastery may falter and he may need Russia to help him climb down from the tree he confidently ascended last week.
© 2019 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.