The historical partnership between Germany and Turkey withstood many adverse tides, namely the EU membership question, human rights issues, and others. But there was always mutual respect. Berlin shows respect and restraint, as it does toward Russia. Likewise, Ankara doesn’t want to trick the Germans into anything. The “friendly conflict” or “conflictual friendship” of Turkey and Germany is something genuine – a good model for the U.S. government dealing with conservative Russia and its “vertical democracy” in the future.
Turkey sensed the direction of the wind: China is actively incorporating the Middle East and Israel in its sphere of influence. Forced by circumstances Russia is riding the Chinese dragon and has become unassailable. While the West is rapidly declining, the CCP is pressing the fast forward button. If this means less wars and embargoes against innocent populations, then we should certainly welcome it. To live with ideological divergences is possible, to live with endless wars is not. The likely consequence for the Middle East will be a Pax Sinica (Chinese Peace) in the region, arranged and enforced by massive Chinese investments, by the overall higher credibility of the Chinese, and the inclusion of Israeli-Chinese interests on one side, and Iran-China ties on the other. It is possible that Saudi Arabia will play a key role in this new era of peace after the colonial war against the integrity of Syria and the more difficult international position of Israel after the unnecessary Jerusalem provocations. Paradise won’t come, but something approximating normality. There is reason for hope. Now we look at the Republic of Turkey.
A Turkish membership in the EU would have interesting consequences. After a few exits (not directly related to Turkey), the Berlin-Ankara axis may become the backbone of an entirely morphed EU project, with an agenda driven by substantial power politics, which is necessary to counterbalance U.S. global meddling and present-day colonial warfare. Such a possible post-EU with Turkey and its considerable market and population would be an Eurasian project.
Today’s authoritarian Turkish government has a way to go and much to consider if it wants to acquire more prestige and power. The Turkish president acts as a man of the past, it seems. He or his successor will have to take a bold step into the future in order to take advantage of the sea change that is about to come. A new world is dawning. Seas will rise and mountains will topple. Turkey could become one of the most critical and influential nations in the northern hemisphere.
Through Turkey – and without America – Germany would gain privileged access to the five Central Asian Republics. Germany would be most welcome anywhere in Asia, no doubt. A more self-assured Germany at the side of a sovereign Turkey would create exciting opportunities in the fields of economy, research, and military cooperation. On the other side of the globe we have China and its worldwide network of pragmatic partnerships (not directly exporting communism, which is good).
What I write is a provocation to those who still believe that the EU may one day change for the better, become “the light of the world,’’ with a superior culture of many cultures, or whatever, and that Turkey and Russia have to be shamed, sanctioned, isolated and “changed from within” through fluffed color revolutions – the dangerous daydream of a few. The idealism that leads to aggression: political pressure, embargoes, accusations, biased reports, and regime change operations through media muddling and proxy warfare are the worst one can imagine, and an absolute waste of human and natural resources. The whole package is not a strategy at all. It’s blood and propaganda. It’s defeat with an aggressive reaction. A dress rehearsal for hell. Better not talk about it.
At this point it’s important to understand that the enemies of Washington are not the “automatic enemies” of Berlin and Ankara. Official Germany will realize that, perhaps not today, but probably in the not-too-distant future. Germans are capable people, persons with principles and character. It’s not possible to recognize that when observing their elected officials, but many nations in Europe are not adequately represented by their political establishment, so Germany is not alone. Certainly not.
The usual politicians’ carousel makes a big nation look like a small village (see the corrupt Biden family and that strange village called Washington). This problem could be fixed with appropriate laws, starting with an electability age window (say, age 29 to 69 in the year of an election). Germany as it is acting now would be a liability – smiling before cameras and working with / for the U.S. establishment behind our backs (or for China). It would play Washington’s dirty little games against Moscow, and Ankara would do whatever crosses President Erdoğan’s fickle mind. That’s what can be expected at this point in time. Not much, really.
Central Asia needs a geopolitical perspective and a stark choice: a pro-Russia versus anti-Russia option. Such an alternative is in itself unhealthy and barely intelligent, but that’s the stage of political consciousness we have attained today: Cold War II against Russia. A botched attempt at symbolic warfare because not in the strategic interest of the People’s Republic of China.
A counterbalance to Western interventionism is an ongoing task: containing the U.S. behemoth and limiting the scope of its Neomarxist propaganda in traditional societies (conducive to chaos: general discontent, cultural suicide, street justice, welfare entitlement, irrational fear of the future, far-reaching surveillance, regime change hallucinations, etc.). China will probably lead the way on the strategic side of it. (Human rights and communism are separate topics.) Here is a description of the geopolitical situation post-20th century that requires clear-sightedness and professionalism from the combined leadership of Berlin and Ankara, sooner rather than later:
“The United States has always opposed the creation and revival of any form of integration in the post-Soviet space, but it is not averse to creating its own ‘union’ here, with its own system of governance. (…) Washington’s main task still remains to exclude Moscow’s participation in the political and economic projects of the Central Asian countries, and to draw Kazakhstan and other republics of the region into its zone of influence.” (1)
U.S. containment. That’s the challenge. The road to take. The reason why we need a functioning Berlin-Ankara axis. Central Asia simply can’t afford permanent conflict with Russia and Turkey, and Germany could finally make a real and lasting impact in the world, regardless of what the socialist political class in America says or does, or the globalists and crypto-socialists in Berlin today (theoretically supposed to work in the interest of the German people, but only theoretically). All of them have to be cut off from Muslim world regions altogether – not culture and business, but in everything else. There will never be peace and progress with Americans, the British, and the funny French sending soldiers, mercenaries, funding terrorists, promulgating fake news, and doing what they do when the day is long. False friends are the worst enemies. Never forget that.
Willingly or unwillingly Germany will be pushed into a decisive position on the world stage. Germany will co-determine to a large degree the outcome of Cold War II, at the exact time when their own citizens stand up and force their national government to defend German interests and sovereignty in education, business and politics. Germans are reasonable people, like the Japanese. They don’t want virtual or actual war with any country. There is no hate between Germans and Russians. The memory of WW II unites them. Germans want normal relations with Turkey, too. Normally they are not against Islam. They are not against capitalism. They are not against Swiss democracy. They are normal folks with good education.
Turkey is the stepping stone to the Middle East, and Russia is the bridge to the Far East, we could say. Central Asia is the world region where Turkish and Russian interests overlap, and the interests of the nations of the region. Official Russia’s vision of a multipolar world will work, and Russia will be one of the the central pivots in it. The West has no power over the East. Germans understand that, some certainly do. Many false narratives and ramped-up conflicts are due to the aforementioned problem in many Western countries: a lack of adequate representation through the two or three ruling political parties in democratic institutions. A random selection of average people with their average prejudices and a good measure of incompetence is not the best a country can muster to solve problems in a pragmatic and gentle way. Only competent individuals can learn from experience, that is, from past errors. To be competent is to be able to learn. This is also true for Turkey, of course.
Let me reiterate the topic of power politics and Machiavellism important in my way of thinking. Turkey was a former empire, as were Russia and Iran (Persia). This historical fact must inspire future generations. Diplomatic experience, high aspirations and the prestige of the military are not to be discarded for a subordinate role in world affairs. Turkey should be strong, as Russia is with the newly gained independence from the West (not the choice of Moscow, true). I am aware that the Turkish elite is still pro-Europe and pro-America, which means anti-Turkish in many cases. But that’s an outdated orientation, a view without perspective, a fly on the wall instead of an eagle in the air. Europe and the NATO are a losing ticket, and the U.S. may well fall behind Russia after 2050 if law and order and election integrity cannot be restored in the interest of the American people (yes, the people again).
Turkey is a unique nation in a unique position. Turkey is not a socialist, globalist, Christian entity, with an Americanized culture, although there is space for all of it in Turkish life. Turkey belongs to the Eurasian power center. The actions of any Turkish government have to be mostly compatible with Chinese and Russian interests in the Mediterranean, in the Black Sea, in Central Asia, and in Africa.
This is the winning ticket, the position of force to negotiate from. There is no alternative. The alternative is insignificance. The new partnership of Central Asia, Turkey, Russia – and hopefully Germany in the future – should not be conceived as a new form of colonialist control (the American / British / French way). Engineering discontent against Turkic and Muslim identities and “active toleration” of terrorist cells are unacceptable.
Power politics is not a synonym of colonialism. Power politics is about national opportunities and regional balance of power. About determination in confronting the forces of chaos. Law and order – for Iraq, for Syria, for Lebanon, for Central Asia, for every nation, including the disjointed territory of Palestine. Democracies have laws, and so do dictatorships. If we want to recognize the real world, we must accept that freedom and prosperity are rare goods – actually they are privileges. (The UN may be corrupt, but as an organization it acts in the real world, not in a surreal socialist Utopia.) The focus must be on healthy cultural and commercial relations while disturbing as little as possible the traditional ways of life of local communities. (2) Central Asia’s leaders will understand that Turkey will not follow the U.S.-led West into a war against Russia (neither will Germany, the peace movement is too strong). The region would find itself on the wrong side of history should such a dire prospect materialize. The future is where the sun rises every morning. Let the past be the past. Germany, do you hear?
There are two tendencies apt to usher in a new Pacific world order. China is de-escalating conflicts with, or in the interest of, its partners, thereby creating pragmatic partnership opportunities without ideological strings attached and the like. The other transformative force is the self-destructive West with an increasingly abstract and ideological North America that attaches conditions and possible methods of punishment to contracts with allies and adversaries. Economic and military coercion: The “philosophy of punishment” is the erroneous approach that bogs down Europe and the U.S. – it’s really the political demise of the West (plus anti-Russia, anti-Islam, anti-Christian, generally anti-culture cramps). In sixty percent adequate terms we may say that Communist China acts in a rational, “patriotic” and responsible way as far as global politics is concerned (my topic here).
The United States on the other hand is an irrational, self-hating, and yet important factor in bringing about a world order organized around the big central island of Eurasia, ironically – or tragically – playing into the hands of Beijing and Moscow. This may sound terribly wrong, but it works fine in today’s multipolar setting, and at an astounding speed, too. Everything makes sense on a global scale. History is not for nothing. Actual peace and economic incentives are the operating tools of modern Maoist China in the center of the rising Eurasian Century, the first of several to follow.
This new epoch – paradoxically announced by the Euro-American colonial wars since 2001 – will presumably set limits to popular democracy, which I personally deplore, but it will give the UN the importance in world affairs it really should have because there is no alternative to it. If the UN could take the place America is occupying since 1945, we would indeed make a great leap forward. Europe has a choice: it can become the gate to the East, or it may sink to a backwater peninsula, consoled by the pity and sympathy of many. Much will depend on Germany: living in the past, or helping to shape the future, proud at the side of Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, and others. Turkey will do the right thing … will Germany?
(1) Grigory Trofimchuk: “C5 + 1: Difficult Mathematics,” 5 March 2021
www.oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=1950
(2) Encyclopedia Britannica (online): article “History of Central Asia”
Written exclusively for NAT By: Matt Roggo
Matt Roggo, Ph.D. is a Swiss intellectual, a new conservative, and an occasional fiction writer. He studied Philosophy and Sociology at Berne, Basel and Geneva universities. He shares his original ideas on the Swiss Portal of Philosophy and is active on Twitter. He considers himself a modern Machiavellist in political philosophy and explains this on Facebook. Critical readers are always welcome to contact the author on Twitter & Facebook: M. C. Roggo @SwissFederalist
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