The current state of the world is more like the movies that we, the inhabitants of the world today, have seen than our direct experience: movies and stories about the unbelievable beginning of World War II and the German invasion of Poland and other lands. It is these similarities that bring the question closer to mind every day: are we on the verge of another all-out, international war? Something that if we didn’t think would never happen, at least we believed it wouldn’t be in the form of classic military wars with the intention of occupying neighboring lands. But how can we really analyze this war? To what extent can the superstructure of this military tension, namely NATO expansion, be considered its real context? What does Putin want from this war?
The reality is that the groundwork for such a war began the day after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War between this country and the West, led by the United States: an era that began in the 1990s with the hegemonic ambition of the United States and the illusion of a new international order becoming unipolar, as George Bush (senior) stated in his speech at the United Nations, continued with the Europeans following suit, especially during the Clinton administration, and with the events of September 11, 2001, it also revealed the face of America's military hegemony: now it was the United States, its followers and supporters who saw the world as having an established, unipolar order that had replaced the long bipolar era of the Cold War.
The 1990s were truly a golden decade for the United States: China had not yet risen, Russia, defeated and humiliated under Boris Yeltsin, was on its knees, its eyes and ears turned to Washington, and Europe, which, thanks to the defeat of the Soviet Union, had just been freed from the threat of its eastern neighbor, which had occupied and dominated half of the continent, was happy but wounded and distrustful. At the same time, the unification of Germany with the removal of the Berlin Wall and the increase in its economic power by focusing and spending on the economy and industry led to the constant strengthening of Europe, the European Union, and later the idea of a single European currency.
Of course, looking back, it can be said that the Americans were hasty in considering the post-Cold War order unipolar in the international system. China, in particular, with its own persistence and perseverance, was able to draw closer to the United States in terms of trade and now technology, and at the same time, Europe, although it never left the American flag - and perhaps did not want to leave - still has the first say in international norm-setting. In addition, these countries have emerged as emerging powers such as India, Brazil, etc. in the current international system, and this meaning, in conjunction with the changes that have emerged due to new technologies and powers, shows the world and the international order to be more fluid and in transition than anything else: in this fluid and transitional order, both the type of power and its elements have become more diverse, and the geography of power is shifting. Of course, in this fluidity, it must be acknowledged that the United States still holds the pre-eminent military and economic power, but this power is certainly not undisputed and the only one on the field. Europe is stronger than anything else in standardization, and China is trying to consolidate its position in trade and high-tech industries. Meanwhile, Russia has relatively powerful levers in the military and energy fields, and therefore strategic bottlenecks and lack of consensus-building and soft power are the dominant feelings of this country in the transition period in international relations. This sense of straitjacket - which, incidentally, reminds the mind of history of the sense of humiliation felt by Hitler and the Germans due to their defeat in the First World War - has led since the beginning of the new century to a silent but active phenomenon called Vladimir Putin, who, although he may face internal opposition, is at the same time a response to the feeling of humiliation and marginalization of the Russian nation.
This same spirit, which is of course not so intense that it can be considered national aspirations in Russia, has led to Putin's efforts to extract himself from the aforementioned straitjacket. Russia's invasion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, the Crimean peninsula and its occupation in 2014, and now Ukraine, are, of course, military and on-the-ground consequences of these extractions and struggles.
On the other hand, there is a tendency in the analysis that it is Russia that has fallen into the trap of the United States by attacking Ukraine and now has no way back or forward. However, there seems to be no necessary contradiction between these two analyses: both the United States is trying to push every tension and conflict on the international stage towards a security and military game in which it has an advantage, and Russia considers itself to have only two levers, military and energy, which it must use to enhance and consolidate its power as a major international and transregional player. Therefore, the United States has refrained from doing everything it could to prevent Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has also found itself in dire need of such an initiative. Each of these two actors, who have chosen a high-risk game, has entered the arena hoping to win: Russia hoping to advance in Eastern Europe, prevent NATO and the United States from extending their arms and legs on its western borders, and demonstrate a power that not everyone dares to do, and the United States seeking consensus-building, international legitimacy, exercising power, rebuilding NATO, and weakening Russia's legal position in the international normative order as well as the United Nations. Both, in general, are seeking to take the initiative in the upcoming international order, which is also witnessing the rise of China. But regardless of the Ukrainian nation and the European nations, who are considered the immediate and definitive victims of this war due to security threats, the imposed economic burden, and forced immigration and immigration, playing in the fluid and transitional conditions of international relations can lead to imposing exorbitant costs on each country. Therefore, countries such as Turkey, India, Iran, and even China have preferred to calm the atmosphere and condemn the war while standing in the middle, taking a fundamental stance on either side, and perhaps trying to postpone making a decision on more forceful reactions.
In a situation where the US and Russia are seeking to consolidate military and security leverage in their foreign relations so that they can prevent and delay the emergence of new elements of power as much as possible, what seems more important than ever is to improve the quality level in three areas: the level of decision-making, which is the work of think tanks and universities; the level of decision-makers, whose wrong decisions at this point can impose unreasonable costs on national interests for decades; and the level of foreign policy implementation, which should be possible by selecting individuals with more resources and sensitivities than in the past. The biggest disaster in such a situation could be to make these currents and diplomacy the subject of domestic politics and current competitions. Because both its quality and synergy are reduced and it also makes others in the world aware of an opportunity for them to either use us as a tool or indirectly prevent us from competing and taking our rightful place in the new international order.
What needs to be thought about is establishing close relations with China, strengthening relations with Europe, especially in the field of energy exports, containing any threat due to geographical proximity to Russia, using political proximity to Russia and not allowing this proximity to become a threat to national interests, changing the issue of America and taking advantage of the bottlenecks that this country may occasionally find itself in, and being flexible and modernizing policy-making and implementation in the field of foreign policy, all of which require new, contemporary, and world-viewed minds that are far removed from the classic formats of friendship and enmity, especially bipolar and Cold War notions: a matter that should be given attention by those at the highest levels of the country's foreign policy.
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