Turian Hiearchy

The Turian government, known as the Turian Hierarchy, is a hierarchical meritocracy. While it has great potential for misuse, this is tempered by the civic duty and personal responsibility turians learn during their childhood.
Turians have 27 citizenship tiers, beginning with civilians (client races and children). The initial period of military service is the second tier. Formal citizenship is conferred at the third tier, after boot camp. For client races, citizenship is granted after the individual musters out. Higher-ranked citizens are expected to lead and protect subordinates. Lower-ranking citizens are expected to obey and support superiors. Promotion to another tier of citizenship is based on the personal assessment of one's superiors and co-rankers. At the top are the Primarchs, who each rule a colonization cluster. The Primarchs vote on matters of national importance. They otherwise maintain a "hands-off" policy, trusting the citizens on each level below them to do their jobs competently.
Throughout their lives, turians ascend to the higher tiers and are occasionally "demoted" to lower ones. The stigma associated with demotion lies not on the individual, but on those who promoted them when they weren't ready for additional responsibility. This curbs the tendency to promote individuals into positions beyond their capabilities. Settling into a role and rank is not considered stagnation. Turians value knowing one's own limitations more than being ambitious.
Turians enjoy broad freedoms. So long as one completes their duties, and does not prevent others from completing theirs, nothing is forbidden. For example, there are no laws against recreational drug use, but if someone is unable to complete their duties due to drug use, their superiors step in. Judicial proceedings are 'interventions.' Peers express their concern, and try to convince the offender to change. If rehabilitation fails, turians have no qualms about sentencing dangerous individuals to life at hard labor for the state.

Military

Although they lack the brutality of the krogan, the refined biotic skill of the asari, and the adaptability of the humans, the turian military has formidable discipline. Officers and NCOs are "lifers" with years of field experience. Enlisted personnel are thoroughly trained and stay calm under fire. Turian units don't break. Even if their entire line collapses, they fall back in order, setting ambushes as they go. A popular saying holds: "You will only see a turian's back once he's dead."
Boot camp begins on the 15th birthday. Soldiers receive a year of training before being assigned to a field unit; officers train for even longer. Most serve until the age of 30, at which they become part of the Reserves. Even if they suffer injuries preventing front-line service, most do support work behind the lines.
Biotics are uncommon. While admired for their exacting skills, biotics' motives are not always fully trusted by the common soldier. The turians prefer to assign their biotics to specialist teams called Cabals.
Command and control is decentralized and flexible. Individual squads can call for artillery and air support. They make extensive use of combat drones for light duties and VI-controlled fighters, and practice combined arms: infantry operates with armor, supported by overhead gunships. Strategically, they are methodical and patient, and dislike risky operations.
Tradition is important. Each legion has a full-time staff of historians who chronicle its battle honors in detail. The oldest have records dating back to the turian Iron Age. If a legion is destroyed in battle, it is reconstituted rather than being replaced.
The turians recruit auxiliary units from conquered or absorbed minor races, like the volus. Auxiliaries are generally light infantry or armored cavalry units that screen and support the main battle formations. At the conclusion of their service in the Auxiliaries, recruits are granted turian citizenship.
Turian wars are often marked by citizen resistance. Most turian families keep small arms in their homes and take basic training courses that include instruction on how to create simple anti-vehicle explosive devices. To suppress citizen militias, the Turian Hierarchy makes use of "execution squads" known as hastatim. First, "safe camps" are established in cities to incentivize surrender. Next, hastatim soldiers are deployed door-to-door; anyone who refuses to be transported to a safe camp or demonstrates hostile intent will be shot. Hastatim burial units then retrieve and cremate the bodies. This approach is necessary because without the safe camps, no turian would ever surrender, and without the hastatim, it would take years for a population to be pacified.
The mainstay of the turian infantry is the Phaeston assault rifle, a light, accurate, and versatile weapon that nonetheless packs more punch than other rifles of its size. Other turian weapons include the Krysae anti-materiel sniper rifle, and the ML-77 Missile Launcher, manufactured by Armax Arsenal, one of the turian military's main suppliers. Vehicles the turians employ include the A-61 Mantis Gunship, a versatile multi-role aircraft, the C77 Tyrus, a durable 13-ton infantry fighting vehicle, an APC variant of the M-080, the Jiris Infantry Fighting Vehicle, a hovercraft capable of traversing most terrains and engaging enemies at 20 kilometers with its missiles.
The turian navy is divided into at least 32 fleets, and is allotted more dreadnoughts by the Treaty of Farixen than any other race; the turians possessed 37 dreadnoughts in 2183 CE and 39 as of 2185 CE, and in 2186 CE the Turian Hierarchy and the Vol Protectorate were jointly gifted the dreadnought Kwunu by the Elkoss Combine. The turians are also known to possess at least two fighter carriers. The navy serves as a galactic peacekeeping force, and is also the primary military arm of the Council, contributing the single largest portion of the Citadel Fleet.