Turkey’s Post-Coup Purge and Erdogan’s Private Army

A year after the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, Turkey’s military — the once mighty pillar of a secular, Muslim-majority state with the second-largest standing force in NATO — has lost its Kemalist oomph. The generals who survived the massive purges following that fateful night are so terrified of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s avenging wrath that they rolled their troops inside Syria — a prospect they once resisted — without a whimper. The massive purges that began shortly after the failed coup has seen hundreds of thousands of civil servants, judges, security officials, and employees of state-run institutions fired. Their positions are being rapidly filled, often by under- or unqualified replacements Read more....