Few phobias run deeper in Europe than the fear and hatred of Turks. For at least six hundred years, Europe was locked in innumerable wars with first Seljuk, then Ottoman Turks. My big St Bernard is a descendant of dogs bred to attack Arab and Turkish raiders coming over Switzerland’s St Bernard Pass. Today, by…
History may have registered stranger geoeconomic bedfellows. But in the current OPEC-plus world, the rules of the game are now de facto controlled by OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia in concert with non-OPEC Russia. Russia may even join OPEC as an associate member. There’s a key clause in the bilateral Riyadh-Moscow agreement stipulating that joint interventions…
Two headlines form the U.S. have me puzzled over where relations with Turkey are going in the near future. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell is calling for sanctions over Turkey’s deal with Russia to buy S-400 missile defense systems. This sale is a clear rebuke of both U.S. policy…
The Syrian war is ongoing. The weakness of Damascus, the tenacity of its opponents and the caution based on the experience gained in Afghanistan and Chechnya make Russia wary of being drawn into a large-scale guerrilla conflict. At the same time, the Syrian authorities, with the support of the Russia Aerospace Forces take control of…
There are two countries that more than others show how the Western world order is undergoing a profound change. Japan and Turkey occupy two distinct and diverse geographical areas, yet they share many of the same strategic choices about their future. Their geopolitical trajectory is increasingly drifting away from Washington and moving closer to China,…
To the utter despair of stoic defenders of “Western values,” Europe is now condemned to suffer two populist autocracies on its eastern borders: Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey. For the EU’s political leaders, the only accepted narrative is blanket, hysterical condemnation of “illiberal democracies” distorted by personal rule, xenophobia and suppression of free speech. And…
