When it comes to Syria, Pompeo appears to see it as an arena to confront Iran’s influence, yet similarly shows his concerns regarding the Russian support for the Assad regime either.
The most prominent challenge is the shift in the international security paradigm – especially the discussions surrounding NATO’s waning functionality, Europe’s attempt to establish its own army and the formation of trade-off alliances, such as the one between Turkey, Iran and Russia, which has resulted in new dynamics in world politics.
Considering the US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq along with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and half of Georgia, it is possible to foresee that the era of division is over and that actors will move towards expansion.
Lebanon's President, Michel Aoun, is expected to call on the international community, the Arab League, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Russia to help uncover the reason behind Hariri's unexpected resignation.
It did not reflect an alliance by conviction, but it was due to their military, economic and political weakness at the time that neither Russia nor China raised objections in the Council.
The fact that Russian UAVs have completed over 14,000 sorties since the beginning of Russia’s operation in Syria is illustrative of the prominence of these vehicles.
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Erdogan has on numerous occasions said “the world is bigger than five”, a reference to the five permanent Security Council members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Likewise, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has also emphasized Russia’s stance on the issue by expressing Moscow's support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq.
In this respect, Turkey should improve relations with global powers like Russia and China, while emphasizing cooperation and tensions with regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Since many global powers are endeavoring to strike a balance in Syria, reminiscent of the power balances in the 19th century, and the Western allies are overtly attempting to undermine the national security of Turkey in the region; Turkey is spurred to seek new formulas that would balance its conventional Western engagement occasionally with Russia or other emerging powers.
Beijing inaugurated the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) together with more than 45 countries in 2016 and the Silk Road Fund with Russia in 2015, allocating a huge amount of money to finance and materialize all these ambitious mega projects in the near future.
Due to China’s increasing presence in global economy and politics since 2000s, Turkey had to establish a new form of relations with China, a first after the US, EU and Russia.
That is to say, Syria’s, Iran’s and Russia’s missiles, which may launch either from their borders or indeed from deeper into their territories, would be capable of reaching the most strategic points of Turkey.
Turkey is an important actor playing a critical role in securing and supplying energy because of its geographical position and has the advantage of being a rare country that can sit on the bargaining table with almost all the big energy producing countries such as Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan and Qatar.
As far as we know, today the politicians in China, Russia, Europe or the US don’t refer to history that much? What would you say about this?
They only employ symbols from time to time and that’s it.