By Mehmet Enes Beşer The reason why South Koreans think of the United States as an ally is because of history, deterrence, and geography. However, it should be recalled that an alliance is more than just flags and treaties. They’re judged by predictability. And on that score, frictions can resurface at any point: a U.S. election swing, a sudden “burden-sharing” ...
By Francesco Cosimato The international conference entitled “The Alliance to Prevent a Great War,” organized by the World Civilizations Initiative Research Center, was held at the Meyra Palace Hotel in Ankara on 18–19 July 2026. UWI will present the speeches held on the conference during the coming days. The conference, which featured presentations by speakers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, France, Germany, ...
By Azar Mahdavan, from Tehran / Iran Following the two recent wars imposed on Iran and Washington’s latest breach of commitment by withdrawing from the “Islamabad Understanding,” Iranian public opinion on negotiations has become more closely tied than ever to questions of trust, security and national interests. In an interview with Mohammad Sarfi, editor-in-chief of the Tehran Times, we examined ...
By Scott Ritter The international conference entitled “The Alliance to Prevent a Great War,” organized by the World Civilizations Initiative Research Center, was held at the Meyra Palace Hotel in Ankara on 18–19 July 2026. UWI will present the speeches held on the conference during the coming days. The conference, which featured presentations by speakers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, France, Germany, ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer ASEAN has spent much of its life doing a particular kind of political magic: holding a diverse region together by refusing to pretend its members are the same. Different systems, different threat perceptions, different economic models—yet a shared habit of consultation. For decades, the “ASEAN way” wasn’t a punchline. It was a practical technology for preventing ...
The international conference entitled “The Alliance to Prevent a Great War,” organized by the World Civilizations Initiative Research Center, was held at the Meyra Palace Hotel in Ankara on 18–19 July 2026. The conference, which featured presentations by speakers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Japan, Russia, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the Turkish ...
Over the past three years, the war that erupted between Israel and the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023, has transformed into a raging regional war across multiple fronts. No sooner do these fronts calm down and subside than they flare up again, entangling various international and regional parties in different ways. During these years, Israel—backed by the United States—has ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer Ferdinand Marcos Jr. entered 2025 with something that Philippine presidents don’t usually have time to enjoy: the sense that the ground beneath them was holding steady. The economy was neither booming nor crashing. The Marcos-Duterte coalition had already frayed, but it was fraying in a way that seemed containable, more soap opera than paradigm shift. And ...
While understandable, the eagerness of Trump and his cronies to resurrect something he himself declared dead—communism—is nonetheless surprising. In recent days, and on more than one occasion, the President of the United States and various spokespeople for the American political system have mentioned the topic. In past writings, I have noted that in each of his speeches at the United ...
No permanent agreement can be reached between West and East… War continues in Eurasia. The conflict between Russia and the West in Ukraine is intensifying. The purported understanding reached between Trump and Putin at their August 2025 meeting in Alaska turned out to be nothing but a scrap of paper. There is talk of the possibility of Russia’s military operation ...