Atlas Think Club, Washington D.C., DC (2026)

09/03/2026

Interview with Professor Hakan Yavuz on The Torn Republic: Turkey’s Search for Civilizational Identity (Oxford University Press, 2026), Pp. 800.

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 Niyazi Berkes’s The Development of Secularism in Turkey....

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...

08/10/2026

https://atlasthink.org/the-kurdish-question-in-the-new-era/

As is well known, on February 27, 2025, Abdullah Öcalan announced that the PKK, which he had led for forty-eight years, had decided to lay down its arms. On July 11, a symbolic ceremony was held during which the weapons were burned. This marked the beginning of a new era in the Kurdish question—n...

08/10/2026

The Kurdish Question in the New Era

As is well known, on February 27, 2025, Abdullah Öcalan announced that the PKK, which he had led for forty-eight years, had decided to lay down its arms. On July 11, a symbolic ceremony was held during which the weapons were burned. This marked the beginning of a new era in the Kurdish question—not only for Turkey but, indirectly, for the broader region....

As is well known, on February 27, 2025, Abdullah Öcalan announced that the PKK, which he had led for forty-eight years, had decided to lay down its arms. On July 11, a symbolic ceremony was held during which the weapons were burned. This marked the beginning of a new era in the Kurdish question—n...

07/10/2026

A NATO Win for Erdogan

NATO’s Ankara Summit is over and, as expected, the winner is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish host has a lot to be happy about. First, the summit put on display his special relationship to Donald Trump. Trump made it clear that he showed up at the Bestepe Palace largely thanks to his ties to Erdogan. In the run-up to the summit but also in Ankara, the US president spared no word of praise for his Turkish counterpart....

NATO’s Ankara Summit is over and, as expected, the winner is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish host has a lot to be happy about. First, the summit put on display his special relationship to Donald Trump. Trump made it clear that he showed up at the Bestepe Palace largely thanks to his ties to Erdo...

07/08/2026

NATO’s Out-of-Area Strategy

As is known, NATO is a military alliance established after the Second World War to protect the military security of the West against communism and Soviet expansionism. Beyond being merely a military alliance, NATO is a war machine that has also assumed the mission of maintaining the West’s political, diplomatic, strategic, and even cultural superiority. In the 1990s, when the Soviet system collapsed and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, NATO, in a sense, should have become functionless because its adversary had disappeared, but that did not happen....

As is known, NATO is a military alliance established after the Second World War to protect the military security of the West against communism and Soviet expansionism. Beyond being merely a military alliance, NATO is a war machine that has also assumed the mission of maintaining the West’s politic...

07/06/2026

The Future for Turkey and the EU after the July NATO Ankara Summit

On July 7-8, 2026, Turkey will host what has become the annual NATO leaders’ summit. The event will take place this year at the Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara. The leaders from all 32 NATO members including U.S. president Donald J. Trump and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet to discuss transatlantic security, defense planning, and international support, among several others weighty items....

On July 7-8, 2026, Turkey will host what has become the annual NATO leaders’ summit. The event will take place this year at the Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara. The leaders from all 32 NATO members including U.S. president Donald J. Trump and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will mee...

06/21/2026

Great Ambition, Great Disappointment

Turkey's O***m: Football Great Ambition, Great Disappointment Football is an integral part of daily life in many societies around the world. In Turkey, however, this passion takes on an altogether different dimension — particularly at the international level. As the heir to a collapsed empire, Turks experience football as a visible expression of a deep historical inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West....

Turkey’s O***m: Football Great Ambition, Great Disappointment Football is an integral part of daily life in many societies around the world. In Turkey, however, this passion takes on an altogether different dimension — particularly at the international level. As the heir to a collapsed empire, T...

06/16/2026

The Waning Crescent? The Transformation, Not the End, of Political Islam

Faisal Devji’s Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam offers a useful starting point for understanding the current crisis of political Islam. Devji’s central argument is that political Islam should be treated not simply as a timeless expression of religion in politics, but as one of the great ideological projects of the modern age. Like Communism, Baathism, Pan-Arabism, or anti-colonial nationalism, political Islam emerged from a particular historical moment....

Faisal Devji’s Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam offers a useful starting point for understanding the current crisis of political Islam. Devji’s central argument is that political Islam should be treated not simply as a timeless expression of religion in politics, but as one of ...

05/27/2026

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 discuss energy cooperation and the war in Ukraine. The meeting highlights a broader trend in Central and Eastern Europe: Even after Viktor Orban’s fall from power in Hungary, several regional leaders continue to engage with Russia in search of economic and political advantages....

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 discuss energy cooperation and the war in Ukraine. The meeting highlights a broader trend in Central and Eastern Europe: Even after Viktor Orban’s fal...

05/25/2026

The First Phase of Erdogan’s Plan to Neutralize the Main Opposition Is Complete

Turkey’s path to the dictatorship The first phase of Erdoğan’s plan to neutralize the main opposition party — carried out in cooperation with former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu — has been completed. The crisis escalated when figures close to Kılıçdaroğlu, along with individuals linked to organized crime, made their way to CHP headquarters. It intensified further after Kılıçdaroğlu submitted a petition to the Ankara Police Department demanding that the building be handed over to him....

Turkey’s path to the dictatorship The first phase of Erdoğan’s plan to neutralize the main opposition party — carried out in cooperation with former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu — has been completed. The crisis escalated when figures close to Kılıçdaroğlu, along with individuals li...

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