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.