Tag: Dimitar Bechev

Interview with Professor Hakan Yavuz on The Torn Republic: Turkey’s Search for Civilizational Identity (Oxford University Press, 2026) 

Your book is organized around four major historical moments: the Early Republic, the Cold War, the Özal period, and Erdoğan’s neo-patrimonial era. How should readers understand the scope and ambition of this book? This book should be read as a major interpretive history of modern Turkey. In that sense, it enters into conversation with two classic works: Bernard Lewis’s The Emergence of Modern Turkey and...

After UNIFIL: A New Watch Over Southern Lebanon

  In Lebanon, the question of who possesses weapons is never merely a security issue. It is also a question of who governs, who protects the country, and who has the authority to decide between war and peace. This is why the approaching end of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, commonly known as UNIFIL, is generating an unusually sensitive debate. The issue is...
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What Does Central Europe’s Post-Orban Russia Policy Look Like?

A version of this blog appeared on Carnegie Endowment  On May 9, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to...

What’s Behind the EU-India Lovefest? 

 “The paradox about the European Union’s position in the world is that it is both a giant and a dwarf.” Nearly two decades later,...

 Europe, Turkey and US in 2026

A year ago,  Donald Trump entered office recommitting to “an America First” foreign policy. To many of his supporters that meant disengaging from the...

The new US National Security Strategy will clash with reality

  It’s no secret that Donald Trump has a soft spot for Europe. He might not exactly be in love with the European Union (EU), ...

A Pragmatic Reset in EU–Turkey Relations

Turkey and the EU are going through a honeymoon of sorts. Friedrich Merz’s recent trip to Ankara capped a season of renewed engagement between...

NATO’s Hague Summit: a Post-Mortem 

  Donald Trump must be feeling content after the summit NATO just wrapped up in The Hague.  “Very big news”.  That’s how he called the...

Europe’s New Geometry in the Age of Trump

A hundred days into Donald Trump’s second presidency, the contours of transatlantic relations have shifted dramatically. US foreign policy, once anchored in multilateralism, now...

Europe’s Response to Trump: Time to Grow Up?

Three years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting the largest-scale and deadliest war in Europe since 1945. However, Ukraine’s heroic resistance—bolstered by military and political...