We need to very carefully consider Turkey, our environment, the region, and the world, and both follow and interpret all developments as a whole. We are witnessing an extremely tight time-frame in which countries are collapsing, new countries are rising, and the world’s axis is changing.

Forget the world as we know it. We will witness such shattering changes in the next decade that our mentality, political identities and opinions will undergo a complete change.

The power map project will be overturned. Physical maps will change. All structures that were formatted in accordance with the present power balance will be reidentified and re-designed.

Some nations that shaped the world will lose their “unrivaled” power. Surprising countries will gain prominence, rising stars will emerge, and new regional partnerships, power and wealth domains will be formed.

There is no doubt that the region’s characteristics, geopolitical claims, civilization identity, and countries’ historical references will be extremely determining in this great transformation.

Information, mental transformation and speed are going to develop new society models through a new brand of sociology and social psychology that were expedited and shaped by the coronavirus pandemic.

This will speed up the axis shift in question at a mind-boggling rate, and this change will shortly lead to major shifts in power.

Hence, let us look very carefully not only at the U.S. and Europe, but also at Asia. Let us not get hooked on the West, because there will no longer be a West-centered world. If we limit ourselves to Europe and the U.S., otherwise known as the Atlantic group, we will lose the world. Thus, this contains a threat that will reset our vision, our objectives and all our claims.

Because we are not a Western country. We are not an Eastern country either. We are a “Middle Zone” country. But where is this Middle Zone? Why is it different than the East and the West? What are we aiming to achieve through the quest for a new center other than the East and the West?

We must reidentify this zone. Regionally, culturally, as a common historical heritage, as a tradition of empires, as a pursuit for power, as resources and markets, and most importantly, as a civilization identity, we are obligated to produce a regional definition. We have to give it a name.

This is due to the fact that this definition will not only shape our minds, but also determine our belonging and strengthen our claims. It will localize the way we perceive our country and the world for the first time after many years.

This region is the world’s intersection and Turkey is at its center. It is the main axis of the earth, which spans the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, comprising three continents, and where civilizations were born.

It expands from the depths of Africa to Central Asia, from Southeast Asia’s rainforests to Europe’s gateway, the Balkans. Thus, the “East and West power definition does not do it justice.”

It is where all resources, traditional maritime and land trade routes, new trade routes are all located, connecting the world’s seas and continents. No country can become a global power before making room for themselves in this region.

Let us carefully evaluate power, information, human resources, political and geopolitical pursuits. Let us examine the rise of Asia, the shrinking of the West, the power struggles, distributions and pursuits in Africa.

We will see the sort of painful and shattering changes the world, regions and countries will undergo, their great pursuits and priorities, but we should not be late to do so.

We will see the sort of future countries and nations are preparing for, which countries are leading in this race, which countries are falling behind, whom they are trying to seek refuge in, how some superpowers are diminishing, and how super states are rising. We just need to take care to not be late to the game.

The current day and age is the fastest in which this major power shift is happening. Those who fail to see this and take action, those who are unable to take precautions are not going to have a leading role in the world of the future.

Let us evaluate Turkey, its struggle, its preparations, and the steps it has taken from this perspective. This will reveal the mental myopia caused by internal debates.

Let us consider the current day: Following U.S. and Europe’s great power showdown with China and Russia, Turkey is the world’s second hot-button topic. Western and Eastern political minds, media groups are frantically discussing this matter. “What does Turkey want to do, what is on Erdoğan’s mind?” is plaguing their minds.

This is at the heart of all discussions, new friendships, as well as new enmities. Every country is trying to redefine its relations with Turkey and determine a new sort of relationship.

Every step Turkey takes is echoed throughout the world. Its technological breakthroughs, revolutions in defense, its fight against the pandemic, its economic war, its systemic transformation and preparation, and its interrogating attitude in the global field are followed carefully.

World’s biggest powers are against us. Will Turkey become a nuclear power?

Whenever and wherever we make a geopolitical breakthrough, all global power domains are affected. Thus, we encounter multinational alliances and the world’s biggest powers in the north of Syria and Iraq, in Libya, in Karabakh, in the East Mediterranean and the Aegean, and in North and Central Africa.

The whole of the West is concerned about Turkey’s power concentration in the Middle East. They are questioning and trying to halt to a ground Turkey’s increasing influence in North and Central Africa. India is panicking over the defense cooperation between Turkey and Pakistan, while apparently pursuing nuclear power.

Russia is closely following Turkey’s rapprochement with the Caucasus and Central Asia. Greece is calling all the countries it can reach and the great powers of the world to the anti-Turkey front. All these groups are building alliance after alliance around the concept of “stopping Turkey” or at least “slowing it down.”

The Western mind has started to make sensational and provocative statements like, “Turkey may rival Russia and China in Central Asia,” while Russia and China are saying, “If Turkey detaches from the West, Asia’s gates will be closed to the West.”

As both the East and West want to use Turkey as a weapon against each other, this is where Turkey sets its own game.

This is an intellectual leap and its impacts will last centuries. This is what we mean when we say, the “return of the history-changing, region-building power” is upon us. It cannot be stopped by sieging externally, building fronts within. “Cooperating” with this rise is the smartest option.

Turkey has the capacity to change the world’s axis. It can achieve this through the new regional definition, its political mind, its goals and claims, with its determined and patient steps, the division of power around the world and the area of maneuver afforded to it through new pursuits.

This is truly possible.

We have to view both the world and Turkey from this angle. We have to follow through with this surprise ascension for our country and the region’s map, against those who have been making plans to transform our country and the region into city states.

We did it many times in history. We will do it again.