That would leave the second-largest military in NATO — a bulwark in the United States-led international coalition’s fight against ISIS and the adhesive bond holding together American and Turkish diplomatic relations — as a battered shell of its former self.

“Coup-proofing doesn’t work except that it fractures and divides armed forces,” said Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank. “You’re looking at a military that is at the top level officer corps fundamentally broken.”…

“No matter how justified, every purge inevitably effects, or raises question marks, over the efficacy of the army,” said Bulent Aliriza, the director of the Turkey Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “One hopes the replacements will get up to speed very quickly.”