January 2026
Conscious Uncoupling - How Europeans can achieve a more balanced transatlantic relationship, by Jeremy Shapiro
In September 2025, Russian forces wandered or probed multiple times into NATO airspace. On the night of 9 September, nearly two dozen Russian military drones crossed into Polish airspace. Polish and allied aircraft scrambled; some drones were shot down; and Warsaw asked for consultations within NATO's North Atlantic Council in a show of alarm. A few days later, Romanian jets scrambled to respond to another Russian drone breach. Just days after that, three Russian MIG-31 fighter jets violated Estonian airspace, flying with their transponders off and in radio silence, lingering for twelve minutes before being intercepted by NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission. The reasons for these Russian incursions remain a subject of much dispute among Western experts.
It is easier, however, to agree on what did not happen. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, offered no reassurance to his rattled allies. There were no tweets, no press conferences, no declarations that America would defend every inch of NATO territory. For several days, the President would only speculate that "it could have been a mistake" while a perfunctory Pentagon statement said it would "track the situation closely".
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November 2025
Fighting Spirit - China, Europe, and the Embrace of Full-Scale Competition, by Janka Oertel
When it comes to Europe’s competitiveness, Mario Draghi has the answers. The former European Central Bank president wrote them down in a lengthy report over a year ago. In a speech in August 2025, he reinforced his message with a strong warning to Europeans: "Economic power is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for having geopolitical power. If Europe wants to stay relevant in a world that cares less about free markets and more about national power, Europeans had better get ready to fight for it."
Draghi’s remarks were a call to arms, a call for confidence and urgency. His comments also revealed a deep sense of frustration that too little is happening too late to prepare Europe for an era of full-scale competition over who will set the rules, who will provide prosperity and security, and, maybe most importantly, who has a compelling vision for a desirable future.
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October 2025
Turkey and Europe in a Changing Global Order, by Galip Dalay
We are living in an era of reordering. The global order is being challenged not only by Russia and China but also by the United States (US). Normative and geopolitical revisionism has become commonplace. The old European security order was conceived within a US-centric framework and designed in cooperation with Russia. After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, that order became directed against Moscow, yet still underwritten by Washington. Under President Donald Trump, however, Europeans are pursuing security against Russia but potentially without the US. At the global level, Europe finds it challenging to navigate power politics, in contrast to other actors, such as the US, Russia, China, or India.
Reordering is affecting Turkey’s relationships with Europe and the rest of the CITRUS group, which comprises China, India, Turkey, Russia, and the US. Geopolitically, Turkey is moving closer to Europe—as opposed to the European Union (EU)—and to the US. It is also gradually and subtly distancing itself from Russia and rethinking the strategic rationale that lay behind its rapprochement with Moscow between 2016 and 2023. This realignment towards Europe echoes shifts in Turkey’s foreign policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historically, global watershed moments like systemic wars or regional conflicts have redefined Turkey’s relations with Europe and the West. The current transformative period for the global and European orders is having a similar impact.