AHC: War between Iran & Turkmenistan

[British Biscuit]

One country is a Shia theocracy and "rogue state"(TM)
The other has a reputation as "Central Asia's North Korea", complete with a dictator's personality cult.

OTL... the two have no major friction and friendly relations. Surprisingly I've never seen any AH or technothriller works exploring a hypothetical conflict between these two nations.

So let's discuss what a war (sometime between the dissolution of USSR in 1991 and the present) between Iran & Turkmenistan could look like.

What could the conflict be fought over?
Whom would have the military advantage?
How would the hypothetical war impact the global gas & oil market?
Which side would the various global players like USA & Russia support?
What about the regional players like Saddam's Iraq, Kazakhstan, Israel, India or Afghanistan?
What would be the impact of an Iranian occupation of Turkmenistan?
What if Iran decides to outright annex Turkmenistan?

 

[British Biscuit]

Bump?

 

[Jonah Carter]

It's really hard to see what they would even fight over. The war would certainly have to be initiated by Iran, it would be suicidal for Turkmenistan to provoke it, but there aren't any disagreements over the border, and with a post-1991 POD I don't see how you could get Iran to want to overthrow the Turkmen government. I do have a scenario where an Iranian-Turkmen war would be possible, but it's a stretch for a lot of reasons, so bear with me. So Turkmenistan has been historically close to the Taliban, handing Afghan soldiers over to them and supporting them in Afghanistan early on. Iran was certainly very much against the Taliban until they thought it would be a good proxy to screw with the United States. So I could imagine a scenario where the Taliban is "defeated" in Afghanistan but some of its members flee to Turkmenistan. They set up a local branch and start attacking Iran, maybe they bomb a holy site, Iran demands that Turkmenistan extradite citizens who participated, and you've got a potential war on your hands. It isn't a particularly likely scenario, but it's the best I can come up with from reading a few Wikipedia pages.

As for the war itself, Iran has a population and economy that are well over an order of magnitude larger than Turkmenistan, plus support from just about everyone in the international community. It'll be fairly easy. It would probably be a matter of Iran stomping the Turkmen military, capturing the people in question, maybe installing new leadership, and leaving. After the war, Turkmenistan is even more of a backwater than before. Islamic fundamentalism is probably more of an issue in Central Asia in general, because if we've learned anything from the last few decades it's that invading a country to defeat religious extremists doesn't tend to actually weaken the sentiment. More extremism in Central Asia could also spill over into Russia and especially China. As for Iran, probably not much difference. Theoretically, it could increase their credibility with the US government, but I'm very skeptical that the US would ever view them as worthy of any partnership in the Middle East.

 

[CalBear]

Bump?

DO NOT do this, in any thread, again.

 

[Pauh the federalist]

(scenario 1)
Have one of Turkmenistan's bizarre governments decide to crack down on its ethnic and religious minority populations to a dystopian extent (possibly make the post-communist dictatorship descend into something like a Pan Turkish Khmer Rouge.) Despite Shia populations being relatively small in the country, the strong Iranian adherence to religious theocracy may give you the war you want in what would have a middle eastern equivalent to Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia to stop the Cambodians from cracking down on the Vietnamese otl. (Because Turkmenistan are potentially pan Turkic in this scenario, as long as they don't go quite as nuts as Cambodia you might be able to get turkey to give material support, material but stop short of war themselves)
(scenario 2)
Have Turkmenistan declare war on Iran opertunisticly during an American war on Iran sometime post 9-11-2001, to nominaly support the us war on Iran and to try and annex the turkmin arias of north east iran (and possibly to link up with the azibishani turks by dividing the southern caspian with them if they are still pan turkish nationalist (theough not scinario 1 nuts) and azibershian gets involved as well in the amarican/nato coilition which if its the latter turky might also be a part of this nato coilition)

 

[YYJ]

DO NOT do this, in any thread, again.

Please clarify. I understand that it would be fine to make a substantive comment on your own thread That would have the effect of making it jump to the top of the list, yes? Just not an empty “bump.”

 

[Arkenfolm]

Turkmenistan is big into Turkmen nationalism obviously but aside from some dealings in Syria IIRC (where there are related Turkmen tribes) but to my knowledge there's no serious animosity between the two countries since Turkmenistan relies on Iran for exports. To spark this conflict you'd need an even more hardline Shia theocracy (perhaps with some Persian nationalism blended in) which makes it a point to suppress Turkmen Sunnis in the border area as a show of force, and perhaps Niyazov responds with his own show of force against Iran. After a few years of tensions, someone on either side messes up and it escalates into fullscale war in the late 90s or early 00s.

Honestly, I'd expect such a war to be short, no more than a few weeks and limited in scope and initial consequence, but it would leave lasting geopolitical effects in the area. Like I'd expect Turkmenistan and much of Central Asia to be much more overtly Sunni and anti-Shia, and Turkmenistan at least would assist militant Sunni Islamist groups in Iran and the Taliban to reduce Iranian influence in Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan is the real loser here, since if 9/11 still occurs then their flirtation with Islamist terrorist groups will mark them a major enemy to the United States. I'd expect they'd gradually back off that policy over the next few years, although still back anti-Iran Sunni militant groups and start allying with the US based on mutual dislike of Iran.

 

[Cryptic]

OTL... the two have no major friction and friendly relations. Surprisingly I've never seen any AH or technothriller works exploring a hypothetical conflict between these two nations.

So let's discuss what a war (sometime between the dissolution of USSR in 1991 and the present) between Iran & Turkmenistan could look like.

Maybe….

The Prelude:

Iranian Major Ghazi was sickened by what he saw- The Border Guard vehicles had been ripped apart. Walking the ambush site, he identified the terrorist's former positions. The ambush had been sophisticated and the terrorists were using the latest in both anti tank and small arms weaponry. A talk with a dazed survivor revealed that the terrorist weapons included an ATGM, new model RPGs and crew served GPMGs.

Endless acronymns aside, this was far different than the customary spray and pray Ak-47 ambushes committed by Turkic narco gangs thinly disguised as ethnic separatists. Intelligence increasingly supported a conclusion that the weapons and training originated in Turkmenistan.


Going from bad to worse:

Iran seemed to be dwindling by the day. Oil prices were collapsing. Iranian oil support a large population- almost all of whom were citizens. No, creative exclusionary citizenship requirements in Iran. Then adding insult to injury, once low level bandit activity had exploded into full insurgencies in Iranian Kurdistan, Baluchi, and Turkmen areas. This, despite the fact that the Iranians had shown restraint regarding casualties for years.

Escalating ambushes gave way to Turkic seperatists taking over entire towns and creating alternative governments- east Ukraine style. Major Ghazi suspected- no knew, that the sophisticated communications gear being used came by way of Ankara to Turkmenistan to the insurgents.

Ghazi, now a Lieutenant Colonel, also knew that the Iranian commander's conference was going south. Too many Revolutionary Guard commanders supplemented by militia leaders of little training were mixing Shia theological references with terms like "disinfecting" and arranging for copious quantities of fire support from "Divarty assets" (Ghazi found it interesting that clinical American military acronyms were ohh so trendy in Iran).

"Hearts and minds" was not mentioned once. Ghazi knew that these were the wrong troops with the wrong mentality- but Iran simply did not have the right troops. Especially not with three insurgencies raging and a collapsed economy.

The War

A "Motley Crue" of Iranian regulars, Revolutionary Guardsmen, sanctioned vigilantes and tolerated criminal gangs moved into all three of Iran's resistive areas. "Disinfection" and "Fire Support" combined together to create destruction and columns of refugees- then, in some areas, ethnic cleansing. The Kurds and Baluchis lacked support from nation states. The Turkmen, however, did not.

Alarmed at reports of ethnic cleansing, Turkemenistan delivers a message to the Tehran: - Withdraw the entire Motely Crue completely from Turkic areas immediately or face war.

Not even the fact that Turkey also quickly affirmed Turkemistan's demands cooled Iranian anger. Though the US could create Kosovo, the collective Turks were not the USA- not even close. Any Iranian withdraw would lead directly to loss of sovergnity.

The Iranians double down....

 

[Insane Ranter]

The relationship is too good for a war to happen. You almost have to have one taken over by a lunatic mad man wanting to rebuild the Persian empire or something. Almost be like Canada and the United States going to war over a maple syrup truck.