For coup-prone Thailand, Turkey's failed putsch has generated huge but ephemeral interest. When elements of the Turkish military rolled out the tanks and tried to seize power in Ankara and Istanbul, spectators in Bangkok naturally coalesced into two broad camps along the Thai divide, either for or against the putsch.
It was as if the Turkish coup was going to render a verdict on Thailand's own twin coups over the past decade. If the Turkish putsch had succeeded, then Thailand's two most recent coups would have been more justifiable. On the other hand, the Turkish coup-makers' failure would have been tantamount to a rejection of military rule and the imperative of democratic government.
Yet in the aftermath of Turkey's failed coup and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's political survival, Turkish coup talk in Thailand has gone relatively quiet. Thailand's pro-coup coalition does not want to dwell on how the forces of democratic rule instrumentally helped quell Turkey's putsch. Yet Thailand's anti-coup columns also do not want to discuss Turkey's post-coup reality of a descending dictatorship, as many thousands in myriad professions have been rounded up by the incumbent regime in an expanding purge. Having imposed a three-month state of emergency, Mr Erdogan is using the failed coup as a pretext not just for a broad crackdown but for an entire remaking of Turkish society and for a further consolidation of his political power.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
To be sure, Thailand's and Turkey's recent coups are comparable up to a point. In fact, in academic studies of civil-military relations and democratisation on one hand and authoritarianism on the other, these two countries have often been paired as case studies because their militaries see themselves as the guardians of the state. But fundamentally, Thailand and Turkey are poles apart.
First and foremost, religion and politics enmesh differently in both countries. No matter how politicised Buddhism can be in Thai politics, it cannot match the totality and intensity of Islam in Turkey's affairs of state. Islam can be omnipotent, and it is the only major religion that offers institutions and mechanisms for governance and a functional and legitimate basis for government. Iran, as an Islamic republic, is only one salient example, as many radicalised Islamist movements have aimed to erect their own Islamic state. President Erdogan's conservative "Islamicisation" tendencies over Turkey's congenitally secular state that was set up nearly a century ago is known to be a major motive for the coup.
Second, Turkey's history as a former empire in the Middle East under the Ottomans brings with it a baggage that Thailand is not burdened with. Turkey's problematic role in Syria's civil war and its consequent influx of millions of refugees, along with the resurgence of Kurdish separatism and the spread of Islamic State-inspired terrorism on Turkish soil, all combined to underpin the coup by disgruntled military officers who saw Turkey losing its way in the region.
Third, Turkey's geography puts it in a perennial bind between Europe and the Middle East, pressed by the major powers like Russia and regional rivals, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some of these countries were once lands under Ottoman rule but now Turkey has to contend with them as competitors and even security threats. Eastern European countries, where Ottoman rule encompassed in the past, are now firmly within the European Union, whereas Turkey's future in Europe remains uncertain.
Supporters stand in front of a screen displaying a portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a rally at Kizilay Square in Ankara on Wednesday. A failed coup in Turkey has prompted some people to compare the country with Thailand which has experienced two successful coups in less than a decade, but they are poles apart.
In wider geopolitical terms, Turkey also has to deal with the United States as fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). Ankara has accused a dissident cleric who is resident in the US, Fethullah Gulen, as the mastermind of the coup attempt. The US is unlikely to extradite Mr Gulen, who leads a popular anti-Erdogan movement. Turkey's role in Nato and its bilateral ties with the US, which uses a crucial airbase in southern Turkey, will now become more complicated.
These basic differences between the two countries aside, Turkey's unsuccessful coup begs a comparison with Thailand's. A critical outcome in Turkey's case was civilian unity. When it was time for a showdown between anti-regime factions of the Turkish military, the civilian opposition sided with the Erdogan government. This was not the case in Thailand, where the main opposition party connived with and capitalised on anti-government dissatisfaction within the military. Hence, Thailand's last two coups were successful because civilian leaders were fractious and polarised, with one side allying itself with the military.
After Turkey, coup-making will never be the same. It is no longer sufficient to seize communications installations. Coup-making columns in Turkey tried to seize the main TV stations but it was a moot point. All Mr Erdogan needed was one mobile device to mobilise his supporters, many of whom did not like his regime but detested the military's coup attempt even more. Thailand's coup-makers were able to physically detain regime leaders and major civilian politicians. Their Turkish counterparts were not able. Coup-makers of the future will know that media and communications cannot be fully controlled, that seizing power will have to be "in-person" by detaining incumbent opponents.
Unlike Thailand's, Turkey's military was not united in its deed. Factions within the military second-guessed and turned on one another. As more details emerge, it will not be surprising if some of the key units and commanders got cold feet and simply did not show up where they were supposed to be. This was the case with Thailand's coup attempts in 1977 and 1985. In 1981, Thailand's coup-makers were united but still failed, an exception among putsches. In 1991, 2006 and 2014, the high command was unified and took power by force in unison. In these three cases, Thailand's elected civilian leaders did not rally their supporters and yielded fairly quickly. This saved lives but encouraged more coup-making at the same time.
Similar in both countries is the role of big cities. Coup-making has to be done in the capital to take control of the organs of government. It will bear watching down the road what the Turks in more provincial cities apart from Ankara and Istanbul have to say about the coup attempt and Mr Erdogan's brutal response.
Overall, no side in Thailand's divide can really claim a moral victory from Turkey's failed coup. The anti-coup noises are now aghast at the sight of Mr Erdogan's iron grip and ongoing violations of basic civil liberties. News and images from post-coup Turkey are reminiscent of what we learned about the darkest periods under Stalin and Mao, among other brutish authoritarian rulers. Having seen a convulsive civilian-led opposition to coup-making several time zones away, local coup sympathisers have no choice but to carry on with their default insistence that Thailand is different.
Above all, the lesson worth taking away from Ankara and Istanbul is that coup-making is untenable and increasingly obsolete. At the same time, electoral rule such as that of President Erdogan, whose AK Party won less than 52% of the vote in the 2014 elections, must be more inclusive and responsive to all sides of the electorate. The problem for Turkey and the bigger problem for democracy worldwide is that simple-majority electoral winners govern as winners-take-all. As coups are not a viable option in the long run, the strengthening of democratic institutions to ensure minority rights under majority rule, with institutional checks and basic freedoms, is the only way forward. Saved by democracy, Mr Erdogan is now poised to make a bad name for it. Let us not follow his path around here.