In any counterinsurgency strategy, the segregation of “bad guys” from the rest of the population is a significant objective. To achieve this objective, forming, arming and using local militias may be a viable strategy, particularly in rural, remote, mountainous and tribal areas in which security forces face challenges to reach the local population. In recent years, the “Sons of Iraq” or the “Anbar Awakening” campaign in Iraq and the “Tribal Security Forces (Arbakai)” project in Afghanistan were contemporary examples of this strategy. It is yet early to determine whether the strategy of forming local militias yielded successful results in Iraq and Afghanistan. The village guard system in Turkey, however, provides insights about the use of this strategy.

In Turkey, an interesting debate about the fate of the village guard system — a paramilitary armed force comprising 65,456 armed village guards, 46,113 of whom are employed and are paid around $300 monthly by the government, and 19,343 of whom are volunteers — has been going on while the conflict in the Kurdish-populated southeast Turkey was winding down with a fragile peace process underway between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In April 2013, as part of efforts toward the peaceful settlement of the Kurdish issue, the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) proposed the abolition of the village guard system. Although the government has not addressed this issue so far, this system, which was introduced as a counterterror strategy to isolate PKK fighters from the rest of the populace in the late 1980s, still exists in 23 provinces of Turkey.

Some in the anti-village-guard camp suggest that, though by no means officially endorsed by the Turkish government, some village guards are reported to have been involved in "disappearances," extrajudicial executions and torture, even sometimes dressing themselves up as PKK fighters in false flag attacks. Some said that the past of the village guards in Turkey is extremely “dirty” and thus should be subjected to meticulous legal scrutiny. They said village guards found guilty should be punished and the village guard system should be abolished “dishonorably,” a demand which implies the official apology of the Turkish government for the pain and misery caused by the village guard system. Only by doing so, some claim, can the Turkish government reconcile with the Kurds and continue the peace process. They also emphasize that the state set brother against brother. If it hadn't been for the village guards, this conflict would have never reached this intensity. Enmeshed in the Kurds’ tribal networks, it exacerbated the tensions in the region. The arming of the village guards, who lacked even basic military training, increased instability in the entire region.

For the camp favoring the system, on the other hand, the village guard system has been a success story in Turkey’s strategy against PKK-initiated violence to such an extent that it has become one of the main pillars of counterterror strategy. If the village guard system had not been initiated, the state authority in the region would have eventually collapsed. They also emphasize that the number of PKK militants has never exceeded the number of the village guards, even during the early 1990s when the number of the armed terrorists reached its peak of 11,000. For them, this is an indicator showing the low level of popular support for the PKK. Ata Altin, the general coordinator and the spokesman of the nongovernmental Village Guard Association suggests that currently all village guards are uncertain as to what the future holds for them.