On behalf of the World Civilizations Initiative Research Center, I welcome you to the “Global Security and NATO” Meeting and greet you all with our sincerest respects.

Our meeting takes place at a time when the Atlantic System is going through a very rapid process of change. Centrifugal forces within NATO have climbed to their highest level since the organization’s establishment. We are witnessing new changes almost every day in the traditional relations between the US and Europe, the US and Israel, and the US and the Gulf Countries. The deepest rifts seen since the Second World War are also being experienced within the US and European countries themselves. On the international plane, not only NATO but all international organizations that steer the functioning of the Atlantic System have largely lost their effectiveness. Twenty years ago, the IMF and the World Bank held an important and decisive place on Turkey’s agenda. But for the last ten years, these organizations are not even mentioned in our country. The United Nations has been reduced to the position of the most ineffective element in international conflicts. The US applies sanctions to more than forty countries to protect and consolidate the New World Order it declared in the 1990s. Since the appropriateness of a threat is measured by its ability to achieve results without needing to be implemented, sanctions are an indicator not of the US’s enforcement power, but of its widespread inability to enforce what it wants.

This change is also reflected on the ideological plane. Liberalism, and neoliberalism as its concepts adapted to the needs of the system, constituted the ideological basis uniting the Atlantic System for a long time. But today, within the Atlantic System, neither a rules-based international order, nor a global free economic system based on the “laissez-faire, laissez-passer” principle, nor freedoms, nor human rights have become defensible even on the level of discourse. Today, approaches that redefine Western Civilization on the basis of religious content and naked interests are gaining ground.

The center of gravity of production power in the world has shifted from West to East, from North to South, and this process continues. Perhaps even more importantly, the changes and tremors in the nature of a rift are taking place not in the East but in the West, not in the South but in the North. Under these conditions, the NATO summit is convening in Ankara on July 7-8. There is no doubt that this meeting will also create a new breaking point within the Atlantic System.

Global security is of vital importance in terms of building the common future of humanity. Therefore, the main purpose of this meeting we are opening is to determine the reasons behind NATO’s disintegration process and to make inferences about ensuring global security with an unprejudiced and objective approach. Our distinguished speakers will undoubtedly open our horizons and enlighten us by addressing this problematic from different angles. In this opening speech, I also would like to make some determinations on the subject to be tested in our meeting.

From its establishment until the 1990s, NATO was deployed against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO, led by the US, began to expand rapidly. This meant that NATO had not lost its function; on the contrary, the way was paved for the function assigned to it. What was paved in the 1990s was the expansion of US hegemony to encompass the whole world.

NATO’s disintegration process began with the world becoming multipolar and this situation blocking the path of US hegemony. The strengthening of multipolarity caused some powers within NATO to start dragging their feet regarding contributing to US hegemony. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the American military operations that NATO has openly participated in as an organization have been limited to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Afghanistan. Although Russia’s Ukrainian operation is being carried out against NATO forces today, NATO preferred to rely on proxy forces rather than formalizing this position. NATO did not participate as an organization in the US and Israeli attack on Iran.

NATO presented defending Western Civilization and the values of this civilization as its own political and ideological basis. Israel put forward its Gaza genocide and its attacks on Iran and Lebanon as the defense of Western Civilization on the battlefield. The events we have experienced recently have taken on a nature that makes it extremely difficult to defend these values even on a rhetorical level.

Since its establishment, NATO has also been a tool for establishing and consolidating US hegemony within the Atlantic System. Multipolarity caused this hegemony to weaken as well, leading to the strengthening of centrifugal forces within NATO.

At the summit to be held in Ankara, ways will undoubtedly be sought to provide NATO with a “kiss of life” again. However, in an environment where objective conditions make it impossible for NATO to achieve its hegemony goal, it is inevitable that these quests will remain helpless and will not result in a breakthrough.

The view that the disintegration and weakening experienced in NATO paves the way for Turkey within this organization and offers it new opportunities is an extremely huge misconception. Having a larger share in a collapsing organization yields no result other than taking on a larger share of the burden of that collapse. From the perspective of the Atlantic System, using NATO as a cover to bind Turkey more tightly to itself will perhaps be the last task assigned to this disintegrating organization.

Humanity desperately needs a new civilization today and is experiencing the birth pangs of this new civilization. The most important type of energy is human energy. A civilization comes to life and rises with the ability to unleash human energy. Because, historically, the criterion of progress is not the power of destruction, but the power of construction. As the World Civilizations Initiative Research Center, we believe it is necessary to utilize all the achievements that past civilizations gifted to humanity’s power of construction during their periods of rise. Western Civilization has also brought immense values to humanity on a universal scale. We attach great importance to putting these values back into the service of humanity’s development.

Today, the ability and power of construction have passed from the West to the East, from the North to the South. It is inevitable and natural that those who possess the ability and power of construction will leave their mark on the rising new civilization. In parallel with this, the front line in the struggle against hegemony and ensuring global security is formed by the East or the South, especially the leading countries of this geography. However, the future of humanity is of vital importance not only for the East but also for the West, not only for the South but also for the North. In order to ensure global security in the construction of this common future, preventing hegemony aspirations from triggering a new world war or regional wars necessitates the establishment of a HUMANITY FRONT. In the construction of this front, the GUIDANCE OF SCIENCE, which is one of the most important principles that Western Civilization brought to humanity, is indispensable.

In this meeting, with participation from 10 countries outside of Turkey, a total of 20 distinguished speakers will broaden our horizons and enlighten us by addressing the problematic in question from different angles. Therefore, I would like to conclude my words by expressing our sincerest gratitude once again to our speakers on behalf of Dünya-Mer.

Semih Koray President of Dünya-mer