EDITOR'S NOTE.

• Author: Ataman, Muhittin

The regions surrounding Turkey, namely the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, North Africa, the Black Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean, continue to attract the attention of many regional and global powers. Unfortunately, these regions mostly come to the agenda of international politics for detrimental developments such as civil wars, ethnic conflicts, political instabilities, and sectarian politics. External interventions by regional and global powers generally exacerbate the problems, rather than solving them. After each external intervention, the countries of these regions find themselves in political dependency, social vulnerability, and economic deadlock. Whenever these countries attempt to get rid of the political dependency, to end social vulnerability, and to provide economic development, they are strongly punished by some external powers. It seems that it will not be easy to end the hierarchical relationship between small regional states and the more powerful countries.

However, the most recent developments show that the continuation of the traditional hierarchical relationship by regional and global powers is not cost-free. Regional and global powers have to pay high prices in order to maintain their control over these states. Sometimes it becomes too costly to maintain their presence in the crises areas and they have to withdraw their military forces and political actors from the ground. The intensified rivalry between the global powers and the quest by some regional powers to involve more into the regional crises increases the cost of maintaining control in a region. Given the geographical location of the abovementioned regions, they attract the attention of many big powers. That is, a large number of powers involve in crises of these regions.

When we look at these regions, we see that political cards are reshuffled over many issues. For example, the tension is on the rise in the Black Sea basin. After the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia and its intervention in the Ukrainian civil war, the tension between western countries, namely the NATO alliance, and the Russian Federation rose dramatically. Western countries have been trying to take military, political and economic measures against Russia in order to deter it not to extend its influence Westward. On the other hand, the Second Karabagh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia has created a new balance in the Caucasus. On the western front, the multi-ethnic...