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Any discourse on Turkey is usually connected with other events, and not Turkey in itself—domestic issues, however, what they mean to others, near and far, is a different story. This has been most apparent in terms of events in Iraq, Syria, and now with undulating happenings regarding NATO expansion, events in Ukraine, and if Ukraine belongs in NATO or not? It is really a moot issue if you want to believe, or listen to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg when he said in late April that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO” but what he does not say is  when. Even the title of a CNN article explains the rest…

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies, firstly, regarded themselves victorious in the post-World War II conflict, and secondly, set a course for the formation of a unipolar world order under United States hegemony. Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, during the difficult 1990s-2000s of the transition period, was in fact unable to oppose the American course with its own autonomous strategy. The situation was aggravated by the “parade of sovereignty”…

In February, on an unusual visit to Japan, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphasised the need for NATO to have more “friends” in the region. The obvious justification was, as Stoltenberg explained to his audience at Keio University in Tokyo, the fact that Russia and China were “coming closer” and the direct threat this alliance poses to the US-led international order. More obviously, what Stoltenberg said exposed active US attempts to expand the scope of its rivalry with Russia and China beyond Europe to include the Asia-Pacific region. At least this is how Beijing and Russia understood it. Responding to Stoltenberg’s projection…