Turkey aspires to be a “Third Pole,” an autonomous power navigating competing alignments but not tied exclusively to any single one. The Mecca Pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan advances that strategy beyond NATO, expanding Ankara’s strategic autonomy while creating new commitments, vulnerabilities, and risks of entanglement.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

Europe’s next critical infrastructure test may come beneath the waves. The cables running across the seabed carry data on which its economies and security systems depend, yet they remain physically exposed and difficult to defend. That vulnerability poses a problem that conventional infrastructure protection cannot solve.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

The EU projects power without projecting force. Its sharpest geopolitical instrument is the promise of membership. For over three decades, that promise reshaped Europe’s strategic map, pulling former Communist states out of Moscow’s orbit and into a Western order.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

Over the past decade, China played the long game in Europe, and for years it drew little response. Piece by piece, Chinese firms bought into the continent’s ports, railways, and logistics networks, each deal looking like ordinary commerce. But together they formed something else: a strategic map drawn in concrete and steel.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

The decisive question in Europe’s next security crisis may not be whether NATO can deter an external adversary, but whether the EU can defend a member state when the crisis itself involves a NATO ally. Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Middle East war, and uncertainty surrounding long-term U.S. commitments, a quiet crisis is deepening.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

Turkey is not seeking to block Greece–Cyprus–Israel cooperation outright; it is working to ensure that this cooperation does not become the organizing framework defining Eastern Mediterranean power. Its success depends on Ankara’s ability to sustain political and operational contestation that delays trilateral consolidation as much as possible.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

French efforts to extend nuclear deterrence into a broader European architecture introduce additional strategic capability into the Eastern Mediterranean, but they do not stabilize regional security. They redistribute risk across a theater defined by dense military activity, overlapping jurisdictions, and weak escalation controls.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

The Red Sea is emerging as a second front in a dual-chokepoint crisis driven by the Iran war. The Hormuz Strait is operating under sustained disruption, placing pressure on a primary corridor of global trade, energy flows. Instability in the Red Sea extends pressure into a second maritime corridor, linking both into one operational system.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

Regional crises function as strategic signaling events within the global system characterized by intensifying multipolar competition. When major powers become directly involved in regional conflicts, their military actions and escalation decisions generate signals that are closely observed by other states assessing the broader balance of power.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

Israel’s strike on Iranian territory marks a structural rupture in the Israel–Iran deterrence framework. For over a decade, confrontation was geographically displaced and institutionally buffered through proxy networks, covert operations, and calibrated signaling, preserving escalation ceilings. Direct state-level exposure narrows the margin for controlled retaliation.

By Nicoletta Kouroushi

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Nicoletta Kouroushi

Nicoletta Kouroushi

Turkey’s Balancing Act Beyond NATO

Europe’s Invisible Front Beneath the Waves

Can EU Enlargement Still Deliver Geopolitical Influence?

European Ports and the China Dependency Trap

Article 42(7) Faces NATO’s Limits

Turkey’s Strategy Against a Trilateral Order

French Nuclear Deterrence Expands Mediterranean Risk

Dual-Chokepoint Crisis in the Red Sea

U.S. Credibility and Multipolar Observation

Escalation Compression and Risk in Iran

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