Political Reactivation

In April again the G-20 summit will be held. This time London will host the meeting in which new economic and financial structures will be discussed. The new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will go to Brussels for the NATO foreign ministers meeting.

The entire world is suffering from the continuing global crisis and the difficulties felt by the real sector. The entire world including the U.S tries to find solutions to the problems, stock markets are crashing, companies are going bankrupt. The world is entering an era where real leadership is needed. If these serious problems cannot be solved they will be followed by serious social unrests and political tensions.

NATO is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. For years NATO’s role was being discussed as controversial around the world but admittedly it has played its part quite adequately. Now with the changing world all international organizations have started to question their positions. With this new world order top of the international agenda is to structure new economic and foreign policies.

On the other hand a wind blowing from Europe toward Turkey tried to have us accept that the EU’s problem was its capacity of digestion and enlargement weary, as if such problems don’t exist for NATO and its new members. NATO continues its enlargement and is happy and comfortable with it. What’s more, Croatia, Lithuania and other new European states have focused on NATO and the EU as their strategic targets.

When the Transatlantic alliance and the EU will enlarge toward the Caucasus the questions will be, how will this affect relations between Russia and NATO, Russia and Europe and of course Turkey? Although in a limited capacity France returned to the NATO fold in 1996 and is continuously negotiating. France’s recent decision was to join again NATO’s military wing but continue its nuclear program outside the Transatlantic alliance. Rumors say that France is negotiating with the United States for a NATO command. Portuguese

NATO today has other issues on its agenda, including combating terror, cyber wars, energy security and pirates. One of NATO’s major problems is Afghanistan. The U.S and NATO say a new structure is needed in the region, leaving aside the idea of classic military force. This may mean sending a gendarmerie-like force of 17,000 troops to the region, which will include military units from Turkey, Italy, France, Spain and Canada. But to do this all NATO members, including Turkey, have to be satisfied.

Everybody knows that the U.S will withdraw 100,000 troops from Iraq in 18 months replacing them with well-trained forces. The major problem is that these 100,000 forces will not be able to be deployed in Afghanistan as U.S. legislation is banning such a move. NATO foreign ministers engaged in their meeting have skipped an important development that occurred near them. Almost all European leaders are admitting that the economic and financial situation is glum.

2009 will be a difficult year for the entire world. If Turkey will not be able to go through this year without any major hitches the situation will not be bright for the country. Europe is entering a period of economic stagnation while Turkey doesn’t take any measures. All over the world there is a major political reactivation going on. On the part of Turkey, meanwhile, everything has been focused on the upcoming municipal elections. I sincerely hope that after the elections everything will not be too late for Turkey.