Innominadan Crisis: Difference between revisions
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| Innominadan Crisis | |||||||
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 Menghean tanks and self-propelled guns entering San Miguel on October 3rd, 2014. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Template:Country data Ummayah |
Pro-regime forces  Maverica | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Hernan Martínez Choe Sŭng-min Kang Yŏng-nam | Pablo Bienvenida | ||||||
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Regime: 800,000 Maverica: 900,000 (est) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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Rebel forces |
Government soldiers | ||||||
| at least 30,000 civilians killed, most during March-August 2014 | |||||||
The Innominadan Crisis was an armed conflict fought in Innominada during the 21st century. It actually encompasses three separate but overlapping conflicts: the Innominadan Civil War, in which a variety of armed groups rose up against the Innominadan government; the Menghean Invasion of Innominada, in which Menghe staged a large-scale intervention in an effort to restore order; and the Isla Diamante Crisis, in which Sylvan and Menghean forces confronted one another over the former country's occupation of Isla Diamante.
The situation never escalated to open hostilities between Menghe, Maverica, or Sylva, but it did bring the three countries to the brink of war, with a number of tense confrontations between the three countries' aircraft, warships, and ground troops. All of the actual fighting pitted the three countries against various factions in Innomnada's internal conflict. As such, it is considered the closest any Hemithean countries have come to major conventional war since the collapse of the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe, and possibly since 1965.
The most prominent outcome of the war was the partitioning of Innominada into the People's Republic of Innominada, which is backed by Maverica, and the Republic of Innominada, backed by Menghe. Isla Diamante also broke away under Sylvan oversight, and in 2018 Argentstan declared independence after a secession referendum. As both Innominadan governments claim authority over the entire country, divided only by a set of provincial boundaries marking the Menghean and Maverican occupation zones, the Innominadan Civil War remains a frozen conflict, with large Menghean and Maverican forces stationed on either side of the border.
Background
Reform and instability
Since independence, Innominada was ruled by the People's Revolutionary Front - Syndicalist (FRG-S), a Marxist political organization which came to power in the 1960s. Molded by the violent struggle against Sylvan colonial rule, it effectively ruled the country as a one-party state, silencing opposition and ruling through its working-class power base.
During the mid-1990s, following recent developments in Menghe and Maverica, the FRG-S initiated a process of gradual liberalization. In the economic sphere, the government allowed some private enterprise, and granted greater autonomy to state-owned enterprises, as long as labor unions retained an active role in their management. These changes brought modest economic growth, though not the same kind of boom seen in Menghe.
Political changes were slower, but went further. As the country opened, the FRG-S loosened restrictions on freedom of speech, and even allowed private mass media companies to form, as long as they remained below a certain size. Beginning in 2006, the regime surpassed domestic and foreign expectations by allowing opposition parties to run in local elections. Voter intimidation, onerous candidate registration policies, and a state monopoly on major media organizations, as well as outright ballot fraud, all ensured that the FRG-S maintained a majority of the vote, but as each election went by, their lead began to slip.
Military tensions
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During the same period, Innominada faced heightened tensions with Menghe. The FRG-S had been especially vocal in its criticism of Menghean socialism, which it denounced as a degenerate turn toward capitalism dominated by big businesses and private enterprise. After Choe Sŭng-min's 1988 speech at the Third Party Congress, where he proclaimed the principle of Class Cooperation, the FRG-S announced that Menghe "has fully abandoned Socialism in favor of something resembling Crony Capitalism or Fascism."
The situation nearly boiled over in 2005, when Menghe and Innominada intervened on opposite sides of the Ummayan Civil War. After Menghean DS-5 fighters shot down a pair of Innominadan bombers en route to Makkah, the two countries came to the brink of war. Ultimately, their governments reached a covert agreement to remain at peace on the Hemithean mainland, but tensions remained dangerously high. Maverica backed Innominada, drawn in by ideological and historical ties, while the Grand Alliance tacitly sided with Menghe, tightening restrictions on arms sales to both Maverica and Innominada.
By 2014, Menghe's 400,000-strong Fourth Army was stationed on the border with Innominada, and the slightly smaller Eighth Tank Army waited behind it. Innominada's total forces were similar in size, including reserves. Without a separate demilitarized zone in between, the risk of even an accidental exchange of fire ran high.
2014 election controversy
On March 9th, 2014, the FRG-S faced its most competitive presidential election yet. Poor economic performance and rising unemployment had generated widespread dissatisfaction among the younger generation, and the emerging class of semi-private entrepreneurs demanded greater economic reform to protect their firms from sudden closure or extortion by corrupt officials. In an effort to overcome FRG-S dominance at the polls, the various opposition groups united under the banner of the Democratic-Republican Party, nominating a single candidate, Hernan Martínez, for the presidential election. A charismatic but moderate politician, Martínez was able to bridge the gap between opposition factions on a platform that focused on economic reform and political liberalization.
Fearing a defeat, the FRG-S initiated a campaign of voter suppression, by many accounts delivering ballot boxes already half-filled with fake votes to the polls. At the end of the say, the national Election Commission announced a victory for Pablo Bienvenida, the incumbent, but then released ballot counts which showed Martínez in the lead. Apparently, they had either failed to put out enough artificial ballots, or underestimated opposition support. The initial counts were quickly withdrawn in favor of "recounted totals" showing Bienvenida with a comfortable lead, but news of the trickery sent crowds of protesters onto the streets, where they massed outside Election Commission buildings and demanded a fair recount with opposition representatives present.
Martínez himself proclaimed on the following morning that he would not respect the revised ballot numbers, and called on voters to take to the streets in an organized protest movement. Security forces responded by firing into crowds in the capital, killing 32 and leaving over a hundred wounded. The following day, as the protests appeared to be fading, one of Bienvenida's own security guards opened fire on the President and his security detail as they were exiting the House of Representatives. While the assassin was immediately killed in the exchange of fire that followed, he became a rallying cry for a broader resistance movement, especially after it was discovered that he was carrying a note vowing vengeance for his mother, one of the casualties in the previous day's massacre.
Timeline of the crisis
Innominadan Civil War
In the wake of the rioting and assasination, the People's Republic of Innominada rapidly slid into civil war. A Free Republican Army, consisting of armed militia and defecting Army units, rallied around Hernan Martínez, carving out an area of de facto control in the country's center-south. A rival rebel movement, the People's Republican Army, formed to the north, around one of Martínez's former allies. The various rebel factions were strongest in the center of the country, where economic stagnation was most deeply felt.
Government control, by contrast, remained strongest along the borders and the coast, where the Innominadan Army had deployed most of its soldiers. Yet without Bienvenido's personalistic leadership to hold the country's various elites together, the FRG-S was fragmented and poorly coordinated, with some factions defecting to various rebel movements. In order to fight rebel forces on the home front while maintaining an adequate concentration of forces along the Menghean border, the regime organized its own paramilitary militia units, including Los Cruzados, a Christian-nationalist organization based in the center-east.
While the rebels made impressive gains at the outset, they were unable to reach the capital, and without access to ports or supportive borders they had no way to consistently bring in supplies. Regime forces, meanwhile, steadily degraded in capability, and organized governance effectively ceased outside of the major cities. By early summer, the war had reached a stalemate, and was beginning to degenerate into an irregular conflict with no clear front lines or zones of control.
The Isla Diamante Crisis
One of the civil war's consequences was a sharp rise in organized piracy. In order to finance their war effort, many factions began hijacking container ships and fishing vessels, selling the cargo and holding the crews for ransom. Around the busy Strait of Porticullia, these activities posed a major threat to global trade. The Innominadan government's surviving naval forces officially claimed sole policing authority over the country's exclusive economic zone, but they seldom left port, and rumors abounded that the FRG-S took a share in all ransom income from its aligned paramilitary groups.
Concerned over the risk to trade, the Menghean Navy and Maritime Patrol Forces unilaterally organized independent patrols and escort missions off the Innominadan coast. As early as June, Menghe had opened talks with the Grand Alliance and Septentrion League over how to organize a joint counter-piracy mission. Yet Menghean coastal patrol activities were constrained by the presence of the Innominadan Navy, which objected to the presence of Menghean warships in its excluive economic zone and periodically sent corvettes to drive away foreign vessels. For this reason, piracy remained a problem well into September 2014.
Sylvan landing
On August 17th, 2014, the Sylvan Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a brief public statement to the effect that the Innominadan government had lost the ability to police its coastal waters and, as such, Sylva was entitled to secure its coastal islands as bases for counter-piracy operations. Few countries took the announcement seriously until August 20th, when a Sylvan amphibious task force landed on Isla Diamante, a large island off the country's west coast.
There was virtually no government military presence on the island, which had become a base for militant groups engaged in piracy. Sylvan marines skirmished with insurgents aligned with Los Cruzados, a Christian fundamentalist group, but the latter quickly collapsed in the face of coordinated air and naval support. By August 24th, Sylvan forces controlled all of Isla Diamante's coastal settlements, though insurgent activity continued in the interior.
In a longer public statement, the Sylvan Ministry of Foreign Affairs proclaimed that Sylva would directly administer the island for an indefinite period and construct a series of air and naval bases on its territory. Ostensibly, the end goal was to conduct more effective counter-piracy operations, but the initial announcement also referred to a long-term project to base aircraft on the island and thus relieve naval patrol missions for members of the AVA.
Menghean response
The international outcry against the annexation of Isla Diamante was strongest in Menghe, where political leaders objected on two grounds. Symbolically, the operation represented an effort by a Casaterran power to reassert colonial control over another country's sovereign territory, an effort which both the regime and the general population viewed as unabashed imperialism. Strategically, it also posed a significant military threat to Menghe: Sylvan bombers stationed on the island could easily strike Menghe's southwestern provinces, and the island would be an important staging ground for any Sylvan operation to defend or retake Altagracia.
The day after Sylvan troops landed, Hong Tae-jun, the Menghean Minister of Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs, issued a firm ultimatum demanding that Sylva return the island to Innominadan sovereign control. The three-point ultimatum did not directly touch on Menghean strategic interests, instead stating that the annexation of colonial land was in flagrant violation of international law, that the forces involved in the operation were "in no way proportional" to the threat of piracy, and that Sylvan forces had made no effort to work through established legal channels to support the Menghean and SL counter-piracy operation. Menghean diplomats in the Septentrion League also attempted to organize a joint peacekeeping mission which could oversee Isla Diamante after Sylva returned it.
Sources still disagree on whether the Sylvan military intended the operation as a direct threat to Menghe, or simply as a limited policing mission. A similar disagreeement exists over whether the Sylvan government actually planned to annex the islands, or simply return them to indirect oversight; the wording of the August 20th military announcement was vague, and a later statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contradicted it. Ultimately, however, Sylva rejected the Menghean demands, asserting that as Innominada was a former Sylvan colony, the two states possessed a "special relationship" which permitted Sylvan intervention.
Armed confrontation
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This response only worsened relations with Menghe, which threatened to resort to "extreme measures" unless Sylvan forces withdrew. The Menghean Navy deployed both of its large aircraft carriers, the Sibiwŏl Hyŏgmyŏng and Joguk-ŭl Gaebalse, to patrol the Innominadan coast, and dispatched multiple nuclear submarines to shadow the Sylvan fleet. Menghean fighter jets harassed Sylvan fighters and supply planes, tailing them at close distances and attempting to escort them back over international waters. The Sylvan military responded with its own show of force, flying patrol aircraft and strike fighters close to Menghean territorial waters.
Adding to the tension, some Sylvan military officials and politicians began making statements to the effect that they would expand their operations to mainland Innominada in an effort to end the civil war and set up a friendly regime. These statements were apparently offhand remarks, and Sylvan domestic media soon decried them as irresponsible, but it appears that Menghe's External Intelligence Agency took them seriously. On September 13th, Choe Sŭng-min ordered the Menghean Army to call up its mobilization reserves and deploy the 4th Army from its bases into the field. The Menghean military establishment had concluded, in the midst of a tense situation, that the only way to pre-empt Sylvan intervention in the mainland was to intervene first.
Menghean intervention
The Menghean invasion of Innominada began at 10:30 Innominadan time on September 21st, 2014, as Menghean troops crossed the river Salado at the border city of Las Palmas. Allegedly, the operation began in response to Innominadan mortar fire across the border, though most foreign governments and media agencies consider the incident to have been staged. The scale of the operation and the speed of the response suggest an operation which had been carefully planned out beforehand, in accordance with the Menghean Army's long-term preparations for potential hostilities with Innominada.
Simultaneously with the land offensive, the Menghean Navy launched a coordinated series of strikes codenamed Operation Mist Lake to knock the Innominadan Navy's remaining ships out of action in the first day of the war. Two Type 1062 missile boats were lost over the course of the operation, and a number of frigates and destroyers were subjected to AShM attacks, but the operation soon proved a success. For the remainder of the conflict, the Menghean Navy had naval supremacy along the Innominadan coast, threatened only by land-based AShM-launching vehicles.
In order to preserve secrecy, the Menghean Navy only alerted Sylvan diplomats to its intentions hours before the first missiles were fired, initially leading Sylvan commanders to conclude that the sudden buildup of naval forces was directed at them. One Sylvan frigate is known to have activated electronic countermeasures against a Menghean cruise missile passing nearby, believing that it was under attack, and the carrier at the core of the task force scrambled fighters and ASW patrol aircraft. Menghean naval commanders eventually improvised, communicating on Sylvan radio channels that they were engaging Innominadan forces only and had not initiated hostilities against Sylva. The situation remained tense, however, and the two countries very nearly came to blows on several occasions.
Once the Innominadan Navy was out of commission, the Menghean Marine Infantry carried out a series of amphibious landings along the southern coast, with the largest deployments near Puerto Alegre and Las Playas. Once the ports were captured, the Army then began the process of shipping in mechanized divisions and pushing inland. As per a hastily negotiated agreement, Menghean warships did not pass within 10 nautical miles of Isla Diamante, but they did stage major landings on the Innominadan coast nearby as a show of force.
Menghean Army planners had drawn up their battle plans from 2005 to 2014, when the Innominadan armed forces were at peak strength, and the forces confronting them in the initial offensive were demoralized and divided by six months of civil war. After some initial resistance, the Innominadan defense soon collapsed, with entire regiments surrendering en masse after being surrounded by the rapid Menghean advance. The Innominadan People's Air Force was effectively knocked out of action in the first two days, though it managed to send up occasional sorties later in the campaign.
At the outset, Menghean forces directly occupied Innominadan territory, and Menghean commanders and politicians issued ambiguous signals about whether they were aligned with any given side in the civil war. On September 23rd, however, the Ministry of Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs released an official statement affirming that the Menghean Army was acting in support of the Free Republican Army, also known as the Southern Republic, and the Argentstani Defense Front. Prior to the Menghean invasion, the External Intelligence Agency had been in contact with both of these groups, but until the 23rd there was no news of active military collaboration between them.
Maverican response
The abrupt Menghean invasion set off a similar panic in Maverica, which had been a close ally of Innominada before its civil war. Fearful that a Menghe-aligned government could come to power in Innominada, placing the southern border under threat, the Maverican government hastily mobilized the reserve forces which it had stationed along the border after the civil war broke out. These forces crossed into Innominada on September 27th, in an effort to prop up the Innominadan government.
Menghean and Maverican forces came within 12 kilometers of each other in Northeast Innominada on the night of the 28th; had the Menghean advance continued, it's likely that the two sides would have traded fire, escalating to a full-scale war on the Hemithean continent. Instead, diplomats from Menghe and Maverica organized an emergency late-night telephone call, and after much negotiation they came to a tacit agreement dividing Innominada along its provincial boundaries into Menghean and Maverican zones. The two governments also set up a dedicated telephone channel which their military officers could use when conducting operations within 20 kilometers of the inter-zone border, a further move aimed at reducing the likelihood of accidental escalation.
Sylvan-Menghean negotiations
The Menghean invasion of Innominada, coupled with the naval and aerial operations carried out in support of ground forces, had brought Sylva and Menghe to the brink of war. Menghe mobilized the 2nd "Reunification" Kimsŏng Mechanized Division and its supporting units north of Altagracia, threatening to directly attack the Sylvan-controlled peninsular city if the two sides came to blows. On the 25th, Menghean coastal artillery units staged a military exercise in which they fired volleys of shells into the ocean on the Altagracian side of the maritime delimitation line; though no shells fell on land and nobody was injured, the incident briefly led the Sylvan garrison to believe that they were under attack.
Menghean military aircraft also continued to harass their Sylvan counterparts around Isla Diamante, raising the specter of open war - especially after a Menghean SL-8 fighter collided with a Sylvan maritime patrol aircraft during a close intercept, killing all crew members on board both planes.
Behind the scenes, both governments traded a flurry of diplomatic communiques, desperately seeking a resolution. Sylvan leaders, seeing that the international community was united in opposition to their annexation and sensing a lack of support from the other AVA members, scaled back their initial demands, revising Isla Diamante's status from an outright colony to a semi-autonomous protectorate, and later setting up a timetable for its transition to full independence. Menghe, meanwhile, became more and more concerned about the risk of war with Maverica, and its leadership dreaded the possibility of fighting against two parity opponents at once. Both countries' leaders also anticipated that a major conventional war would result in major economic ramifications as investors fled for safer ground, which would far outweigh the benefits of controlling a naval base off the Innominadan coast.
On September 30th, the evening before the latest Menghean ultimatum was set to expire, Menghe and Sylva signed an agreement on the status of Isla Diamante with the following core points:
- Isla Diamante shall exist as a nominally independent entity, not a Sylvan territory, and shall be empowered to set its own laws and elect its own leaders.
- Within five years - i.e., in September 2019 - the island shall revert to Innominadan control, if a stable Innominadan government exists by that time.
- Sylva's military presence on the island shall be restricted to two air bases and one naval base, and Sylvan forces shall not station any more than one hundred combat aircraft on the island at any given time, nor shall they station nuclear weapons of any kind on its territory.
- Both Menghe and the Innominadan government(s) will respect the 22.2-kilometer territorial water boundary around Isla Diamante, and will allow the island an exclusive economic zone extending 370 kilometers to the southwest, with the northern and southern boundaries originating at the northernmost and southernmost extents of the island's territorial waters.
- Sylva, Menghe, Isla Diamante, and the Menghean-backed Innominadan government shall maintain a special channel for dialogue on the status of Isla Diamante, with the aim of preventing misinterpretations of any country's military aims.
Occupation and insurgency
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Having overrun the Innominadan lines in the first days of the war, Menghean forces drove deeper into the country, with the 8th Tank Army staging a breakthrough offensive deep into the country's interior. On October 1st, the Menghean Army's vanguard forces made contact with areas under the control of the Free Republican Army, which was strongest in the southern interior. By the 3rd, Menghean tanks were present at the outskirts of Cartagena and Rosario, the last remaining bastions of regime control.
Large pockets of Innominadan resistance, however, remained widespread across the countryside. Army units in Nueva Meridia, bolstered by volunteers from the local population, managed to hold off until October 15th, when the commander in charge surrendered after a two-week siege. Further south, the 5th and 8th Armies fanned out to mop up the remaining Innominadan Army units, concerned that their long supply lines were exposed to attack.
On November 1st, Marshal Kang Yŏng-nam proclaimed "victory in the conventional war," citing the surrender of the last remaining Innominadan Army units and the flight of government officials to the Maverican zone. Officially, Menghean forces and their allies controlled all territory outside the provinces left to Maverican occupation. Yet insurgent groups, especially those associated with the People's Republican Army, the Reorganzied People's Revolutionary Front, and the New Syndicalist Front for Reunification continued to resist the Menghean occupation, arming themselves with weapons captured from Innominadan militia stockpiles in order to carry on a prolonged insurgency.
In response, Marshal Kang organized a heavy-handed campaign to confiscate private firearms and break up militia-like organizations. Following a series of bombing attacks around highway overpasses, Menghean forces set up checkpoints on major roads and security cordons around key infrastructure sites. Though ill-prepared for sustained counter-insurgency operations, the Menghean Army still had a large force at its disposal, and this, combined with the speed of the initial defeat, was sufficient to eventually suppress the insurgent movement.
Marshal Kang declared "victory in the unconventional war" on June 15th, 2015, two weeks after an organized raid captured the leaders of the Reorganized People's Revolutionary Front. Sporadic attacks would continue throughout the following years, culminating in the Innominadan Uprising of 2018, but the June 15th date is conventionally accepted as the end of the war in Innominada.
Outcome
Partitioning of Innominada
While Menghean and Maverican forces did reach an agreement on the division of "zones of responsibility," they never formally settled the question of how Innominada would be governed after the civil war's end. In July 2015, Maverican diplomats suggested that the country be reunified under the leadership of the Maverican-backed side, but Menghe refused to comply, knowing that this would restore a hostile country on their border.
As a result, Innominada was effectively partitioned into two main halves: the Maverican-backed People's Republic of Innominada, also known as North Innominada, in the northwest, and the Menghean-backed Republic of Innominada, also known as South Innominada, along the south and southeastern coast. Both states officially consider themselves to be the sole legitimate government of Innominada, and neither maintains normal diplomatic relations with the other. The border between the two countries is heavily militarized, with the Arantzean Pact and Namhae Front both operating combined coalition forces in their respective states.
In 2018, following a contentious referendum and uprising, the Menghean-backed state of Argentstan seceded from the Republic of Innominada. Neither Maverica nor the People's Republic of Innominda recognize it as an independent entity, and Argentstan claims three additional provinces on the People's Republic side of the border.
Status of Isla Diamante
Following the Sylvan-Menghean agreement of September 30th, Isla Diamante is a nominally independent entity under close Sylvan oversight. Sylva operates three military bases on the island, and has progressively expanded them since 2015. The Sylvan government also set up a program incentivizing Sylvan nationals to move to Isla Diamante, where they can claim dual citizenship and receive a generous development stipend.
Contrary to its implicit promise in the agreement, Menghe has not yet recognized Isla Diamante as an independent state, but rather - following the Republic of Innominada - regards it as a province which seceded from Innominada with foreign backing. The Menghean Army also maintains a dedicated long-range artillery division on Innominadan (now Argentstani) coastal territory, which could be used to conduct rocket artillery strikes on Isla Diamante's airfields and ports in the event of a Sylvan-Menghean war.
Further ambiguity exists over the future of Isla Diamante once its independence mandate runs out in 2019. As Innominada is divided into two governments each claiming the entirety of the country, it is unclear how reunification with the mainland would be accomplished; the People's Republic of Innominada, which was carried over from the previous regime, has a more legitimate claim to being the pre-Civil War government, while the Republic of Innominada is geographically closer.
Effect on Hemithean geopolitics
Prior to 2015, Menghe had bilateral defense agreements with Ummayah, Polvokia, and Dzhungestan, two of which contributed military units to the intervention. Problems with inter-military coordination, however, led the Menghean government to call for a more organized alliance. Representatives of Menghe, Ummayah, Polvokia, Dzhungestan, and the newly formed Republic of Innominada met in the Menghean city of Sunju on June 18th, 2015, in order to sign an agreement establishing the Namhae Front, a collective security organization with the stated goal of protecting Hemithean and Meridian states from imperialist aggression. Critics derided the Namhae Front as "Menghe's Turov Pact," a reference to the predecessor to the CNCS, which consisted of the Federation of Socialist Republics and its weaker allies.
Southern Innominada's abrupt transition from a Menghean enemy to a Menghean ally also reshaped the geopolitical balance surrounding the Strait of Porticullia. Eager for a new line of defense, the Menghean Navy promptly took control of Innominadan naval and air bases along the south coast, claiming that it could use its Innominadan bases to intercept Sylvan or other hostile fleets before they entered the South Menghe Sea.
International reactions
Dzhungestan - Dzhungestan echoed Menghe's initial condemnation of Sylvan aggression, but it scaled back its rhetoric once Maverica threatened to become involved, and did not deploy any forces to Innominada until after the war's declared end. Currently, the Dzhungestani Army maintains one mechanized battalion in Dzhungestan, as part of the Namhae Front's defensive force.
Polvokia - Citing its bilateral defense treaty with Menghe, Polvokia organized and dispatched an expeditionary force of two divisions shortly after the Menghean invasion began. By the time Polvokian troops arrived in Innominada, the Menghean Army had already completed its breakthrough operation, but the Polvokian units were able to participate in continued mop-up operations around the country.
Qusayn - Qusayn initially followed Menghe in denouncing Sylva's occupation of Isla Diamante, but after the Menghean invasion of Innominada proper, the Qusayni Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a statement on its website criticizing Menghe's "aggressive conduct in its response." The statement was deleted two days later, probably under Menghean pressure.- Template:Country data Ummayah - The Ummayan Ministry of Foreign Relations issued a statement condemning Sylva's annexation of Isla Diamante on August 22nd, following up on Menghe's denunciation the day before. On September 25th, President Sherif Muhammad al-Fattah paid a visit to Donggyŏng, where he met with Menghean leaders and expressed his support for the Menghean war effort. Ummayah contributed a single fighter squadron to the combined air operation, but its main military involvement came through a contingent of observers sent to pass on information about the Menghean Army's conduct during combat operations, in the hopes of improving the Ummayan Armed Forces.