By Mehmet Enes Beşer In the face of increasing geopolitical unpredictability and competition between world superpowers, regional stewardship that maintains mutual trust, shared history, and realist diplomacy has perhaps never been so pressing. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in Southeast Asia, an insidiously located region between competing interests—from China’s rising maritime power to the rebalanced Indo-Pacific approach of the ...

By Yıldıran Acar, Political Scientist The Beginning of the Summit and Pre-Meeting Signals The announcement of the Alaska Summit effectively froze the global political stage. Who would participate, what the agenda would include, and whether the focus would remain on the war in Ukraine or expand to other issues quickly became matters of speculation. The confirmation that the meeting would ...

Following Syrian Foreign Minister Esad Shaybani’s visit to Moscow on July 31–August 1, speculation has grown that Russian military patrols may soon return to Syria’s southern regions. Russia’s influential daily Kommersant ran the headline “Syria Misses Russian Soldiers,” reporting that Damascus has asked Moscow to redeploy troops to help guard its borders. According to the paper, the Syrian government requested ...

By Adem Kılıç, Political scientist The Trump–Putin Summit in Alaska highlighted many of the impasses surrounding the future of the Russia–Ukraine War, which has been ongoing for three years and has fundamentally changed numerous approaches, from NATO’s structure to perceptions of global security. While headlines about the historic nature of the meeting dominated international media, it was expected that the ...

By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein  In 1905, Japan invaded Korea and in 1910 annexed its territories by force, ending the Yi Dynasty. Japan used Korea as a supplier of food and a source of cheap labor. The annexation “treaty,” actually a humiliating imposition, stated in Article 1: “His Majesty the Emperor of Korea hereby completely and definitively grants all his sovereignty ...

By Dr. Halim Gençoğlu Those following the Palestine agenda may have seen that Egyptian and Tunisian families have been attempting to send bottles filled with rice and grains into the sea, hoping they reach Gaza. This initiative, launched by Egyptian citizens, is called “A Bottle of Hope for Gaza, From Sea to Sea.” Some of these bottles reportedly did reach ...

By Hüseyin Işıksal A recent article written by Shay Gal in the Israel Hayom newspaper, entitled “Northern Cyprus is also an Israeli problem,” caused a significant reaction from both the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Türkiye. Gal, who previously served as vice president of external relations at Israel Aerospace Industries and held senior advisory roles for Israeli government ...

The Center for National Strategy (USMER) has organized an international conference on the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea on July 18 and 19 in Istanbul, Türkiye. Today, we present the speech of Prof. Dr. Fahri Erenel- Istinye University Faculty Member. I express my deep respect for those who were mercilessly killed, who were made to suffer hunger under the ...

By Mehmet Enes Beşer As New Zealand Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters concluded his inaugural official visit to China since assuming office in 2023, the world saw more than diplomatic courtesy at play. His visit—against the backdrop of recent Wellington angst about China’s local behavior and the new Pacific security reality—represents a watershed in China-New Zealand relations, ...

The Center for National Strategy (USMER) has organized an international conference on the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea on July 18 and 19 in Istanbul, Türkiye. Today, we present the speech of Tao Zan. Tao is the Vice-president of the Faculty for Regional Studies in the Beijing University, China. By Tao Zan, Vice-president of the Faculty for Regional Studies ...