How will the world take shape after the epidemic (COVID-19)?

As countries continue to fight against the epidemic, they are also trying to foresee the outcome and accordingly prepare.

This is the first time in history that an epidemic has spread to such an extent in such a short period of time.

This is the first time in history that an epidemic has been global rather than regional and hit all countries and nations without any distinction between countries, lifestyles, without differentiating between rich and poor or developed and underdeveloped countries.

Accordingly, past epidemics were local. Accordingly, even the great wars in history (world wars) were local.

Those “local and regional” epidemics and wars drastically changed the world.

New states, new systems and new orders were established.

What about now? What will countries and states change in the aftermath of the epidemic? What sort of trends, political actions, state orders and what global order will emerge?

The world was already changing. The existing global system was crumbling. The discussion that capitalism is leading Western imperialism to the end of history was on the agenda.

The end of the road is near for those who have been ruling the world since geographical discoveries.

General discussions such as the sort of world we are headed to, what the 21st century will change, upcoming power shifts, regressing and rising powers, and the sort of economic/financial order that will be adopted were already on the agenda.

These trends had already started throughout the world at state levels. While the global power of the Atlantic axis was getting weaker, new powers were taking to the stage. Both wealth and influence were becoming as scattered as power.

For example, this is the first time since its founding that Turkey is coming to the fore as a “central power/country,” and intensely preparing for this. This is why the conflict map and fronts surrounding it were built.

Stopping Turkey had become the highest priority for the U.S., Europe, Israel and their partners in our region. This is due to the fact that Turkey had started to act not as a front country but as a superpower.

The epidemic is not kick-starting a new era. It is simply speeding up the radical change, the power shifts that had already started and are ongoing at a dizzying pace. It is gaining unstoppable speed and rising to a point of no return.

The veil over powerful and rich countries has been lifted. Their weaknesses have been exposed. It has also been revealed that some countries – like Turkey – that appear weak are rather resistant and strong.

Now is the perfect time to recalculate everything and redefine truths. This is what awaits us after the coronavirus epidemic.

What could happen in the world at the global scale? What might happen in the U.S. and Europe? What might happen in Russia? What might happen in the Middle East? What should Turkey do, what can it do? The countries that are able to foresee answers to these questions and prepare accordingly are going to rise.

My personal predictions with respect to what could happen in the short and perhaps the medium term are as follows:

1. Globalization is now going to be questioned more severely. We are waiting for countries to become withdrawn and intensify their focus on political and economic defense. This is probably going to lead the world towards the end of the liberal order.

2. States are going to exclude supra-national organizations, brokerage institutions and boost state-to-state relations. As states become more centralized, regional blocs are going to gain prominence.

3. Financial, technological and digital networks are going to be run under state supervision rather than that of companies and multinational organizations. The multi-polar and multidimensional relations network is going to gain prominence. States are going to take defense against the symbols of globalization.

4. Every country is going to make extraordinary efforts to minimize foreign dependency in production. Countries are going to prioritize plans related to becoming self-sufficient, and strategic products are going to be subjected to supervision.

5. Solidarity within and insecurity abroad are going to be taken as a basis. Nations and states are going to strengthen while global networks are going to be considered as threats. Thus, this indicates that globalization is going to be thoroughly questioned.

6. Concepts such as biological war, digital war and bioterrorism are going to be introduced into our everyday life. New political, ideological ideas and forms of networking are going to come to the fore.

7. China is trying to take advantage of the epidemic to rise to global leadership. It is making an incredible soft-power leap. This is manifesting in the form of wiping out the “Chinese Virus” notion from memories and washing its hands of any responsibility, in addition to taking advantage of the U.S. and Europe’s helplessness, as well as dominating the world in strategic industries and playing its cards openly.

8. The U.S.-China competition in Asia is going to become unbearable. The China-India competition in Asia is going to get rougher. An incredible geopolitical power struggle is going to start in a vast region that includes Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and Korea. The weight of the power struggle in the Middle East is going to shift to the Pacific region.

9. There will no longer be any common cause in Europe as the EU. New global-scale power dissolutions and new forms of settling scores are going to render the EU’s presence meaningless. We are going to witness the German project (EU) regarding post-World War II dissolve.

10. EU countries, particularly Italy, Spain, France and Germany, are going to return to their political heritage, history. Imperial countries are going to return to their own map claims.

11. We are going to witness Turkey’s rise in the Middle East, and the countries dependent on the U.S. and Europe weaken.

12. The new status projects with the U.S./Europe recently launched and led by crown princes Mohammad bin Salman and Mohammad bin Zayed are going to encounter major hurdles.

13. The Arab world that has been regressing for the last three decades will experience great collapses as a result of existing regimes and leaders’ dependency relations with the West.

14. The change going to take place in the world in the aftermath of the epidemic is going to pave the way for Turkey to make serious regional breakthroughs. This had already started. A regional wall was being built to prevent this. However, that is no longer going to have any significance. 15. Turkey is going to find the opportunity to consolidate extraordinary power in both the East and the West and in its own geopolitical map.

15. Turkey, also able to give prominence to Islamic geopolitics, is going to be capable of producing a political language, discourse and stance that will influence the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific coasts. This common discourse may pave the way for the strongest political rise of the 21st century.

16. Surely Turkey has the strength, acumen, political background, social awareness, technology and security perspective necessary to handle this. A new world order is indeed taking shape and Turkey is settling in the center of this order.

17. Turkey’s 2023 vision is materializing. The world’s change overlaps with Turkey’s calculations. Just as our state and resistance against the epidemic is better than even the world’s superpowers, post-epidemic changes are going to provide vast opportunities for Turkey.

This is not false hope but reality. We are going to continue discussing such topics in the upcoming days.