Bulkh

Bulkh, officially the Representative Republic of Bulkh, is a minor power sovereign country on the northwestern Puhktun Sea coast of Daria, the south eastern island of Audonia. It is neighbored by Umardwal to the west, XXX to the north, and XXX to the south. It came to its modern iteration after the Emirati War, in 1897 both geographically and politically. It is a with  representation, shared between the Arab Muslim population, Bedouin nomads, and the polity of Christians. While suffrage is universal and by secret ballot, it is still common for voters to generally follow their tribal leaders lead on issues. Bulkh is a member of the League of Nations, the ,

Its primary exports are crude oil,, fish, and. It maintains a capitalist economy but with certain controls and subsidies around critical industries like food, water, energy, healthcare, and transportation, which are typically managed as a public-private ventures.

Many scholars have criticized its governance and politics, arguing that it is merely a client of Burgundie.

Golden Age
Main article: Oduniyyad Caliphate

The Bedouin peoples of the Bulkawan Peninsula were resistant to the spread of Islam and conquest by the Oduniyyad Caliphate. While the Caliphs claimed the land as their own, they were never able to formalize the government and taxation system to bring the Bedouin peoples to heel. During the 900s the Caliphate attempted to migrate some Umardis to the area to remove them from southern Audonia and also to make the recalcitrant Bedouins someone else’s problem. The Umardi princes brought their culture to the area, but following the Shia schism they remained Sunni, one of the few ethnically Umardi ruled areas to do so. The Bulkawan Peninsula remained segregated between a Umardi ruling class and a Bedouin population until the fall of the Caliphate. At this point the Umardi princes were expelled back to Umalia and the various Bedouin tribes retired back into their nomadic lifestyles.

Early modern era
Following the collapse of the Caliphate the various Bedouin tribes retired back into their nomadic lifestyles. The area remained untouched until the arrival of the Kiravian and NATION colonial efforts in the 15somethings.

Kandahari-Pukhtun colony
The area being arid was of little use to colonists. They moved on and found other more temperate sites for settlements in the late 1570s. From 1578-1614 there was no recorded colonial activity in the area. However in 1615 a Bourgondii Royal Trading Company surveyor mapped the salt flats of the Chott al-Rezid and the company made a mad dash to secure the area.

Company rule
Main article: Bourgondii Royal Trading Company

Due to their nomadic lifestyle and their disinterest in engaging the occidentals, the Bourgondii Royal Trading Company largely left the Bedouins of the Bulkawan Peninsula alone and built their colonies around them. By the 1630s timber from Majanub was being brought to build a sprawling complex of fortified towns and salt mining operations. Businesses to support the efforts became very lucrative and wainwrights, shipwrights, and engineers flocked to the area. Beyond the Chott al-Rezid the Company build operations at the Chott al-Mouza and the Ben Ghilli Salt Flats. These operations brought millions into the Company’s coffers and is one of the primary financial activities that allowed for unfettered expansion in Audonia and Alshar. The salt mines brought tens of thousands of colonists from Burgundie, the Levantine Protestant communities on Torlen and Medimeria, as well as from other parts of Audonia. The port cities of Avelie and Sant Marten both surpassed 20,000 residents in the 1690s making them bigger than Vilauristre and Port Diteaux. The back-breaking work and the blistering heat made for a seedy type coming to seek work in the colony of Bulkawa. This led to rapid development of the vice sectors like prostitution and drinking halls. It also required the establishment of a vast drinking liquid network. This drove the development of the tea plantations in Vitale, Pukhgundi, and other parts of Alshar. Seeking to exert more control on the political environment that fed into its colonies and to which it exported, the Company formed a government in Avelie and formalized its army, navy, and diplomatic corps reorganizing itself as the Bourgognesc Ularian Trading Empire. This was met by outrage in many nations both in Audonia and the Occidental world, however fear of embargo brought most countries to recognize the sovereignty of the empire in 1757.

In the Presidency Act of 1771, the Presidency of Bulkhawan was announced, covering much of the colony of Kandahari-Pukhtun but ceded some of the desert interior to the nomads as they were pushed out and forced to renounce their nomadic traditions. This led to intense bad blood between the colonial state and the locals. Colonial Battagnuuri knights were brought into to escort the Bedouins from their villages but clashes erupted in a number of areas leading to the massacre of the tribal peoples. In the 840 recorded Bedouin encampments in the area with an estimated population of 969,000 people, only 694 encampments and 539,000 people were successfully relocated. The remainder were assumed killed or dispersed into the vast desert waste. The brutal effectiveness of this dispossession of tribal homelands become a model for colonial powers post-independence powers for centuries afterwards. These “Trails of Trauma” paved the way for a huge boom in colonial growth and land redistribution. Vast areas formally reserved for the Bedouin were settled and huge irrigation projects were started to reclaim parts of the desert that were adjacent to littoral areas. There was even an ambitious plan to dredge a channel to the salt-stripped Chott al-Mouza in 1793 that was never realized.

Following the start of the Great Slavers Bay Rebellion a similar call to arms led the Bedouins to unite under Ali Malik, becoming known as Malikites, a proto-communist who wanted to rid the Bulkawan Peninsula of colonial influence and establish a collective paradise. Malik gathered a force of 20,000 Bedouin cavalry and rode west to forcibly gather support for his attempts. The following year, 1824, he returned with an army of 250,000. It is unclear if these reports are just of combat troops or included his train but regardless it was a sight to behold. The colonial troops balked and retreated with each engagement and the few occidental soldiers and officers did their best to forestall the inevitable. Fearing the loss of their imperial capital and the salt mines, the Bourgognesc Ularian Trading Empire hastily made treaties across Audonia and Alshar and redirected its troops to Presidency of Bulkhawan. A force of 45,000 colonial and imperial troops was formed and force-marched through the desert to meet the Malikites head-on. Arriving at the western edge of the Great Kazir desert in March of 1825, the Imperial army set about building a camp and reinforcing its supply lines. The massive, cumbersome western-styled army immediately fell prey to the sprightly and spirited, lightning-fast raids of the Malikite army. Their supply lines disrupted and their supply of food and water dwindling, they made a forced march to the northern coast. 540 men died of starvation and thirst along the way, but the remainder were met by the navy and brought back to Sant Marten. As equatorial winter set in all they decided to wait. Garrisons were established at the salt mines and some recently created farming communities were forcibly abandoned and the men impressed into a militia. January of 1826 saw the first attempts by the Malikites to probe the defenses of the colonial forces. The Ben Ghilli Salt Flats came under attack January 12th. A small detachment of Malikite cavalry attacked the forward watch posts and were met with cannon fire from the fortified town. A squadron of Battganuuri knights and Umardi Sipahis were dispatched to try to find the main Malitike force.

Contemporary era
The 20th century in Bulkh saw the rapid adoption of Occidental memes such as industrialism, capitalism, urbanization, but development has been uneven, mostly occurring in its coastal regions. Following the First Great War, and especially after the Second Great War, Bulkh was rapidly increased its adoption of secularism, and democracy and its cultural and economic ties with Burgundie. The nation signed a constitution in 1906 and became a secular republic. This government set about a series of invasive modernization policies that were not popular, but any resistance was quashed by a corrupt but loyal police force and army. During the Second Great War Burgundie and Bulkh were allied against the anti-colonial powers of Audonia and Alshar and this arrangement made the government and elite incredibly rich. This income disparity as well as the Occidentalization caused a rift in the nation that ultimately led to a communist insurgency in the western part of the country during the 1960s-80s. During this period the government further embraced Burgundie and became a rising star in the globalizing world. It has become a stable global trading partner for nations and has developed a strong manufacturing sector that rivals any in the Middle seas region. Today, Bulkh is a key second tier manufacturing hub for industrializing nations and nations with moderate and lower incomes. It is also serves as a point of power projection for Burgundie in the Audonia/Alshari interface zone, through which it also conducts its own modest power projection.

Bulkh People's Republic
In 1964, communist insurgents from Umardwal spilled into the eastern provinces of Bulkh and established a People's Republic. Federal forces attempted to route the insurgents but the vast desert and lack of development in the region led to a long and tedious campaign of attrition. A formal People's Republic of Bulkh was accepted by a referendum of the people of the western provinces in 1968. At this time the Burgundie extended Operation Kipling to include the Bulkh People's Republic.

From 1968-1982 the Bulkh People's Republic (BPR) was a break away region of Bulkh that hosted its own government and society. It rose in opposition to the increasingly urbanist, industrialist, and capitalist society that was forming in the aftermath of the Second Great War. Its center of power was in the market settlement of Tall Diwabjah. Despite its aims, the BPR was never successful in its attempts to fully realize its socialist ideals as it occupied mostly inarable, inhospitable desert and was, from 1974 until its defeat in 1982, constantly at war with government forces.

The BPR was most of a political movement than a defacto state and the population it oversaw were largely Bedouin nomads and transient herders who owed no particular allegiance to the BPR's government. It did some international recognition from other communist and socialist states but it was never seriously considered by most nations and had no trade arrangements with any other states. In its own internal census of 1980 it reported to have a population of 325,493 people, but the government of Bulkh has never reported more than 25,390 people in the areas under BPR control in the 1965 or 1985 censuses of the regions.

The BPR did enact a number of land-use policies that took away what nascent private property laws had been enacted in the early 20th century, but their was very little privately held property in the regions they controlled so these reforms were largely symbolic. The government created a Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Army which boasted, on average, 5,000 troops and a further 15,000 guerillas. While not significant in number these troops were enough to engage, confound, and occasionally defeat the Army of Bulkh throughout the 70s.

Geography


Bulkh forms the eastern most expanse of the Great Kavir desert and the northwestern Puhktun Sea coast of Daria, the south eastern island of Audonia. It is bound in interior in the northwest by the foothills of the Mahagheh Mountains in the west by the Great Kavir desert, and the Baqunah Mountain Range in the southwest.

Climate and environment
Because it is a coastal state that is on the edge of the The Great Kavir desert Bulkh has three primary climate zones. Arid in the interior and tropical on the coast with a semi-arid interface zone between them. The Baqunah Mountain Range forms a small, high-elevation humid continental zone. Climate varies greatly within Bulkh. In the highlands, temperatures range between 10 and 20 °C (50 and 68 °F) during cold and hot seasons respectively. The rest of the country has temperatures rarely falling lower than 20 °C (68 °F). The hottest period extends between November and February (25–31 °C or 77.0–87.8 °F) while the coldest period occurs between May and August (15–20 °C or 59–68 °F). Annual temperature is 20 °C (68.0 °F). The climate is cool in high mountainous regions. Coastal Bulkh has two major rainfall periods: one is uni-modal (October–April) and the other is bi-modal (October–December and March–May). The former is experienced in southern and central parts of the country, and the latter is found along the northern coast. The bi-modal rainfall is caused by the seasonal migration of the.

Government and Politics
Bulkh is a secular democratically elected oligarchic state with power being shared by the elites of the majority Muslim Arab community (68% of the population) and the minority Christian (20% of the population) and Bedouin (12% of the population) communities. Representatives to the Constituent Council are directly elected by their constituency and serve for a term of 3 years. There is a 4 term limit to service on the Constituent Council.

From within the elected members of the legislative body a Most Elected Minister is elected for a 6 year period to serve as the head of the executive branch. There are no term limits to the Executive branch.

Federal subdivisions
Buhlk is divided into 5 provinces and a Federal District.
 * The Federal District
 * Southern coastal region to be named
 * Central coastal region to be named
 * Northern coastal region to be named
 * Northern half of the interior
 * Southern half of the interior

Politics
''What political factions exist? Who has ruled predominantly?''

Law
What kind of laws and legal system does your country employ?

Demographics
What kind of people live in your country?

Ethnicity
What ethnic groups make up your country?

Language
''What language or languages do your country's people use? Are there any previously used languages no longer common? Are these languages native to your country or shared with another?''

Religion
The population in Bulkh are majority Muslim with 68% population professing that faith. Of those 59% are of the Sunni branch of Islam and 9% are of the Shia branch. There is a long history of sectarian violence between the two factions, which was exploited by the during the Bourgondii Royal Trading Company during the Kandahari-Pukhtun colony and the Bulkhawan Presidency. The majority of Shia Muslims were pushed into newighboring Umardwal which is a majority Shia nation. In modern Bulkh, especially since secularization in the latter half of the 20th century, sectarian violence has almost entirely disappeared, but it does rear its ugly head when there are times of uncertainty and upheaval.

Also as a result of colonization there is a sizable Christian minority in Bulkh, around 20% of the total population. The Calvinist faiths, predominately Merchantile Reform Protestantism, because Bulkh was colonized as a Pharisedom, are chief among them, 15% of the total population. However, there is a Catholic populace in the country as well. The Archbishop of Bulkh is Farajallah bin Tawil. He oversees three Dioceses, the Diocese of al-Qadria which covers the southern half of the coastal region, led by Bishop Ikram bin Idris; the Dioceses of Port Abultah which covers the northern half of the coast, led by Bishop Naadir el-Arafat; and the Diocese of Tel Kernah, the interior diocese, led by Bishop Thaamir bin Tamer. During the colonial period the Christian population was a much larger portion of the total population but after the departure fo the Bergendii in the 1830s the faith dwindled significantly both through reprisal killings and also mass conversions. The percentage of Bulkhan's self-reporting as Christian has increased significantly since Operation Kipling in the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s. Interaction with large numbers of Bergendii and Urcean soldiers, diplomats, and business persons made it en vogue and modern to convert to a form of Christianity, especially in the more affluent and intellectual circles.

Education
How many people in your country are educated?

Culture and Society
What do your people do, and what are they like?

Education
''What is your country's education system like? How do the schools work? What do people think about education?''

Attitudes and worldview
How do your country's people view life?

Kinship and family
How are families or kinship groups structured in your country?

Cuisine
What do your people eat?

Religion
''What do your people believe? Rather than demographics, as above, think about how important religion is to your people and their view about their own and other religions. What is the relationship between the prevailing view and minority religious groups? Is it an official religion, and do any laws exist about free worship?''

Arts and Literature
''What type of art do your people make? Do they have a tradition of painted art, well-crafted television shows, or great music?''

Sports
''Does your country have any major sports leagues? What types of sports are played, both professionally and for fun by your country's people?"

Symbols
Are there any prominent symbols which are well known to represent your country?

Economy and Infrastructure
How does your country's economy work?

Industries and Sectors
Bulkh is an industrialized nation with a strong manufacturing sector. It's close ties with Burgundie have led to a number of agreements with has allowed Burgoignesc companies to establish manufactories in Bulkh while paying local salaries, however all manufactories must comply to Burgoignesc health and safety standards.

Manufacturing
Ship building has risen to the forefront of Bulkh's manufacturing sector. It serves as an excellent foil to Burgundie's more expensive ship building industry.

Agriculture
Although Bulkh is mostly arid, the nation is a major agricultural producer and exporter, with over 325,300 employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Because of the climate the largest agricultural subsector is grazing (sheep, goats, and Zebu cattle) in the large semiarid zones. Across the country there is a mix of irrigation and dry-land farming. Plantation farming for crops like tea, rice, sugar, and rubber exist in the heavy rainfall coastal zones but the heavy winds from the interior desert keep much of the moisture restricted to the coast. Pisciculture is also a formidable subsector with sizable domestic and deep-water fleets, farms, and sustenance communities.

The success of Bulkh to become a major agricultural power despite the odds is facilitated by its policies of long-term visions and promotion of agricultural reforms that greatly increased the country's agricultural industry.

Currency
What exchange systems are used within your country's economy?

Healthcare
''How do people in your country procure medical care? How is it paid for?''

Labor
''How is labor organized within your country? Are there any social institutions or unions which deal with labor concerns?''

Air
Bulkh has one international airport the Malik International Airport.

Energy
''What type of energy keeps your nation going? Are you renewable or use fossil fuels, and if you are renewable, how recently did your country transition?''

Technology
''How advanced is your country? Is it an innovator, or does it largely import new developments?''

Military
The military of Bulkh is small but highly professional. It is compromised of three branches the Army (land), the Maritime Defense Force (navy and coast guard), and the Republican Escadrille (air force and ostensibly space force).

The Army had 5 brigades (3 infantry, 1 armored, and 1 air assault). It was reformed entirely during Operation Kipling eschewing many archaic and tribalistic traditions. It is viewed as the safeguard of secular republicanism and it's traditions and virtues follow those concepts. The army's strategic objectives are all defensive in nature but it's air assault brigade has some minor expeditionary capacities, within a limited scope. It is postulated that Bulkh could launch successful expeditionary operations against Umardwal, Salarive, Pukhgundi, and Peshawarbi, although sustainment would become an issue after two weeks of sustained fighting.

The Maritime Defense Force (MDF) is formed around 4 destroyer squadrons, with a total of 8 destroyers, 18 frigates, 29 frigates and avisos, 63 littoral patrol craft, 5 ocean going tugs, 2 hydrological survey ships, and 2 dredgers. It also has an amphibious assault craft and 3 replenishment oilers that it purchased from Burgundie in the late 1990s through the mid 2020s which constitutes it's only expeditionary capability. The MDF also has a modest air wing with 13 fighter/torpedo bombers, 19 fighter/interceptors, 17 maritime patrol/meteorological survey aircraft, and 2 AWACS.

The Republican Escadrille is a force of 7 air wings, 4 fighter/interceptors wings, two fighter/bomber wings, and one AWACS/Electronic Warfare wing. The Escadrille also oversees the countries Strategic Forces and it's arsenal of ICBMs, the true number is unknown but it is estimated that it is around 47.