Second Icarian Civil War
The second Icarian civil war is a conflict in Icaria that has been ongoing since 2010 to the present day. The second Icarian civil war is one of the largest conflicts in the 21st century, causing trillions in economic damages, millions killed or displaced, and causing one of the largest refugee crises in recent history. The war has had far reaching effects across the world with the emergence of the short lived Icarian pirates, the gassing of Ithaka, and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops from all across the globe.
Early War (2010-2016)
The second Icarian civil war began with an attempted coup by the head of the Federal Intelligence Agency(FIA) Herman Keitel who was supported by the FIA and a limited number of high ranking members of the Army and Air Force. After failing to secure the presidency of Icaria, Keitel went into hiding in the Aegina Province in northern Icaria while several FIA backed militia groups, chief among them being the Icarian National Liberation Front(INLF), began attacks on government property and military bases. As a result of these attacks, the government began instituting harsh crackdowns on the population in an attempt to end the attacks. The crackdowns did not work however and within a few months several unrelated groups had risen up in rebellion against the government and the FIA backed militia groups, gaining widespread support among the lower class population for promising to protect them from the violence. The largest of these new groups was the Icarian Peoples Front(IPF) which was most prominent in the southern regions of Icaria bordering Klathu, and was led by many former members of the communist guerrillas of the first Icarian civil war along with members of the Icarian Communist Party.
Due to the open rebellion by the FIA and the compromised nature of a number of the high command of the Army and Air Force, the Icarian Naval Intelligence Office(INIO) ended up taking over the role of the FIA as the main intelligence agency of Icaria, and by 5th of June 2011 they had located Keitel in the outskirts of Nienhagen. The next day the Icarian Marines would launch a disastrous raid in the city resulting in two helicopters lost to MANPADs, and over twenty marine casualties. During the chaos Keitel managed to escape along with other high ranking members of the FIA to an unknown location in Aegina. This raid would mark the escalation of the war from low level conflict to a full blown civil war as in the aftermath Keitel would form a German fascist ethnostate in Aegina called the Military Dictatorship of Ostreich. Using resources he had gathered over the years he armed the Ostreich army with captured and hidden tanks, aircraft, and weapons leading to the most destructive battles of the war up to that point.
In response to the Icarian failure to control the spread of fascism in Aegina, many antifascist militia groups allied together to stop them, gathering support from the local populace and in secret, support from the INIO and some local army and air force units. This alliance became known as the Aegina Alliance and would be one of the largest stumbling blocks for Keitels expansion in Northern Icaria. The militia groups that made up the Aegina alliance varied widely in ideology with their main similarities being a hatred of fascism and a desire to stop the expansion of Ostreich.
The formation of Ostreich with its rapid gains in northern Icaria, and the resultant loss of what little faith was left in the Republic of Icaria's(ROI) government, the Icarian Peoples Front would form the Democratic Republic of Icaria(DRI) in southern Icaria on the 14th of August 2011. At the time of its formation the DRI did not have much in the way of heavy weapons, vehicles or aircraft which caused the ROI to underestimate them and focus most of its attention in the north against Ostreich and its affiliated militia groups. This allowed the DRI to make several early victories against under equipped Icarian Army units who lacked tanks and significant air support, which further delegitimatised the ROI government and allowed the DRI to more easily paint them as a weak and dying force of the old capitalist order.
The DRI would eventually gain the support of portions of the military who had become disillusioned by the failures of the ROI to contain the rebellion and the further degradation of social liberties in favour of increased control and surveillance to combat the communist and fascist threats. The height of these measures would see the ROI establish reeducation camps to house the growing numbers of rebels from all sides. While the ROI would deny any and all allegations that inmates were tortured in these camps, in 2015 the INLF raided one of these camps and after freeing the inmates, released a video from a security camera which showed several guards beating a prisoner.
In late 2016 the war had reached a boiling point. The DRI, which was now armed with captured tanks and even some jet fighters which had defected to them, along with Ostreich, which had rolled out newly manufactured tanks from captured tank factories in Vrakades, each launched offensives against the ROI, which had lost much of its navy and marine support which had largely defected to the Aegina Alliance, which had been secretly supported by the navy since the early days of the war. These offensives would lead to the heaviest fighting of the war and the final destruction of the Republic of Icaria in November of that year.
The DRI's offensive started first in September 2016, when they pushed north towards Przeclaw and New Konstipol. They quickly encountered heavy resistance from both the ROI and the Icarian Monarchist Army, which had been waging a low level guerilla war against the ROI for a few years by this point. The ROI quickly moved several army and air force units south to combat the DRI and in late September they would launch a counter offensive which despite being quite costly, was successful and they would've pushed the DRI out of the country entirely had Ostreich not taken the opportunity to invade the ROI while they were focused on the south. The Ostreich's offensive would make rapid gains at first, reaching Panagia within a day and the INLF and other affiliated militias would wreak havoc behind ROI lines, destroying and in some cases, capturing thousands of tonnes of equipment and severely disrupting the ROIs ability to wage war. The disruption of the supply lines made it very difficult for the ROI to feed its troops and many began looting from civilians to feed themselves and fuel their vehicles. Despite all of this the ROI had managed to hold the line just north of Heraklion, and had begun pushing the Ostreich forces back.
By mid November the ROI had pushed the Ostreich forces back to Fanari, and was preparing its offensive to push into territory that Ostreich had held since 2011. Shortly after the offensive began in late November 2016, news reached the populace in the capital, Evdilos about a massacre of a village in retaliation for the death of an ROI soldier who was beaten to death in the night and hanged on a lamp post. It was widely theorised that this was done in response to soldiers looting the area. Regardless of the reason for his death the public in Evdilos began the largest riot in Icarias history in response to the massacre and surrounded the capitol building. After a two day long siege the mob broke into the building and began killing every single government official in sight. The President, some of his aides and a few guards hid in his office and barricaded the door and windows which successfully managed to keep the mob out. After a man trying to break into the office was shot by a guard the other members of the mob decided to block the door from the outside and set the building on fire, killing the President and his aides. By the end of the riot almost all high ranking members of the government and military were dead or missing which lead to rapid collapse to of the Republic of Icaria by the end of the month, plunging nearly the entire country into anarchy.
Warlord Period (2017-2018)
The aftermath of the offensive from the former Republic of Icaria left the DRI and Ostreich unable to take advantage of the situation as they needed to rebuild their strength from their losses, leaving many warlords and militia groups to pop up to take advantage of the power vacuum left behind. Some of the remnants of the former Icarian Army formed the United Icarian Army(UIA) which was a far right non ostreich affiliated group with the stated goal of bringing back law and order to the nation and finally drive the rebels out of the country. Meanwhile other groups which previously had little to no power had risen to prominence such as the Icarian Monarchist Army and the New Ikoryogai Kingdom which sought to rebuild the Ikoryogai kingdoms of the middle ages.
In early 2017 an assassin killed the leader of the Aegina Alliance while he was holding a public speech in Argyros. The Assassin shot him two times in the chest with a sniper rifle before running away before his position could be determined. Ostreich would later claim responsibility for the attack and the death of its leader would cause the entire alliance to collapse shortly after due to infighting between the different militias. The collapse of the Alliance left Ostreich with no major Icarian enemies and gave them free reign to eventually capture the rest of Aegina once their strength had been built back up.
The period between late 2016 and mid 2018 would also become the golden age of Icarian piracy as many groups would use the lack of any authorities to construct makeshift submarines to sneak up on unsuspecting ships, to ransom the crews and sell the goods in Icaria. But this period would be short lived as the rest of the world began to intervene in large numbers and bring order back to the country. The earliest of these interventions would be from Serria and the Sovereign Military Order of Serria, who would establish humanitarian aid stations throughout the country, which would be largely left alone by the majority of groups in Icaria, although there would be incidents where a militia would raid one of these stations, only to face retaliatory strikes from both Serria and other militias in the region.
One of the earliest foreign backed groups to form during this time, would be the joint Meridan Treaty(MT) and Council of Democratic Nations(CDN) backed Icarian Democratic Front(IDF). The IDF was formed when the Kolonians negotiated a deal between two warlords in Panagia and Edessa, joining them together and giving them monetary and military aid. Shortly after the IDF was formed it found support from the CDN nations and began conquering nearby regions of the country. The IDF would eventually form the Federal Republic of Icaria(FRI) in 2018, completing its transformation from a small alliance of warlords, into an actual nation state.
While the IDF was being formed, Barkadia and Anderia began increasing their support to the DRI, allowing it to quickly regain its strength and begin retaking the territory it lost in the previous year. During this time the DRI would also hold talks with several other communist militias in the region, gaining their support and eventually incorporating them into the DRI itself. The Icarian Monarchist Army would also see increased international support from Dolfikland, Allowing it to transition from a small militia into the Dominion of Icaria(DOI). Throughout this period the four largest Icarian nations, The DRI, Ostreich, the FRI, and the DOI would rapidly expand their borders with the support of foreign powers, pushing out the warlords and pirates and beginning the next phase of the war.
The Present (2019-Present)
Pre-War Military
Due to high tensions with Kerthenia following the Forgotten War, the Republic of Icaria(ROI) had an extremely high military budget of 7.5% of its GDP($150 billion) and a highly militarised society where the military had a large influence on domestic politics.