By Sefa Yürükel
Global geopolitics stands on the brink of a new fracture. We are witnessing a deepening power struggle not only on the East West axis but also along the global North South divide. In the latest act of this struggle, two moves initiated by the United States to fortify its military presence and intelligence network stand out: a new space based satellite intelligence web and a series of new NATO branches intended to be established across the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Yet this strategy, which ignores the direction of history’s flow and the unstoppable momentum of a rising Asia, is, to put it mildly, flogging a dead horse. What is worse is that the government in Turkey has been assigned a role in this scheme, and by trusting the United States during the forty day Iranian missile crisis and committing such impertinence, it has doomed itself to this scenario. This article analyzes these developments and demonstrates that such adventurism will inevitably suffer delirium and defeat in the face of Asia’s rise.
The New Satellite Project: A Global Surveillance Trap
The new generation satellite systems developed by the United States are built not only for communication and navigation but also for hypersonic missile tracking, the coordination of cyber attacks from space, and most critically, the collection of real time data from the missile batteries of “target countries” like Iran, known as data linking. The essence of the project is to create a “shield from space” by monitoring every mobile ramp and launch system behind enemy lines in real time and sharing this data with land and naval forces. While reminiscent of the Cold War’s Star Wars delusion, this is a technologically more refined trap. However, this trap creates an illusion of trust that entraps America’s own allies, because this satellite network is a system that fosters dependency: only the United States provides the data, and only the Pentagon deciphers the codes. Countries that join this network completely mortgage their intelligence sovereignty to Washington.
NATO’s Branching Fantasy: Islam, Africa, Latin America, and Asia
Parallel to this, NATO’s plan to open new branches in the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America, and Asia represents the alliance’s effort to morph into a “global gendarme” format. The Atlanticist mindset, having learned nothing from the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, is now taking to the field with the rhetoric of “NATO’s local partners” in order to dissolve centers of regional resistance from within. In the Sahel belt of Africa, in a Latin America where BRICS is rising, and in Asia, under the sphere of influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), such an expansion has no chance of finding a foothold. These steps are concrete proof that the United States cannot accept the multipolar reality and is acting on old imperial reflexes. History has written extensively on how forcibly established alliances dissolve in the face of local dynamics. The structure presented as an “Islamic NATO” will be perceived by the vast majority of the Islamic world as a new colonial mechanism and will be rejected.
The Role Assigned to the Turkish Government and the Impertinence of Data Linking During the Forty Day Iranian Missile Crisis
It is precisely at this point that the role assigned to the Turkish government comes into play. According to leaked information and regional observations, it is rumored that Turkey has been offered a mission as a “model country” or even a “co chair” within NATO’s branch for the Islamic world. This reflects the government’s desire to still position itself as an indispensable element of the Atlantic system, despite all the rhetorical crises it has experienced with the West in recent years. Yet this desire is diametrically opposed to regional realities and Turkey’s interests.
The claims that Turkey participated in the “data linking” (data monitoring and targeting) process of Iranian missiles by relying on U.S. satellite data during forty days of Iranian ballistic missile tests show that the government is venturing into a dangerous game. Monitoring Iran’s military movements through real time satellite data provided by the United States and sharing this information under the NATO umbrella is an impertinence that could bring Turkey to the brink of military tension with Iran and dynamite its longstanding relationship with its neighbor. This is a strategic lapse of reason committed by trusting the United States, because throughout history, the United States has never provided a genuine security guarantee to any of its allies; on the contrary, it has used its allies as forward outposts in every crisis. Such intelligence sharing, targeting a regional power like Iran, which also holds strategic partnerships with the rising powers of Asia (Russia and China), carries the potential to drag Turkey into the very middle of a conflict.
Delusion and Doom in the Face of Asia’s Rise
The core of the matter is this: the world’s center of gravity has irreversibly shifted from the Atlantic to the Asia Pacific. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Russia’s energy corridors, India’s technological leap, the security architecture of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the expanding BRICS+ platform have created a brand new economic and political ecosystem. This rise is fortified not only by economic data but also by institutional structures: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank, the use of national currencies in bilateral trade, SWIFT alternative payment systems… No regional crisis can now be read independently of Asia’s rising powers. Iran is a critical component of this equation; it is a full member of the SCO and a key junction on China’s Belt and Road route.
A Turkish government that takes a stance against Iran by relying on U.S. satellite data and the NATO umbrella has missed this colossal Asian rise and has taken a position against the winds of history. This is more than strategic blindness; it is a state of delirium. While in a position where it could establish balance in its own region and bring the principle of zero problems with neighbors to life, subordinating Turkey to the Atlantic’s global gendarme role contradicts the government’s own “domestic and national” rhetoric and binds the country in a dependency chain from which return is difficult.
History is full of moments when empires and alliances flogged a dead horse. The United States’ new satellite project and NATO’s ambition to establish branches in the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America, and Asia are doomed to be drowned sooner or later by the dynamics of the multipolar world, and the partners in this doom are candidates to be left under the wreckage. By trusting the United States’ data linking operation during the forty day Iranian missile crisis and committing such impertinence, the Turkish government has placed itself directly beneath this wreckage. However, Asia’s rise is the main current directing the future of humanity, both economically and politically. Not those who stand against this current, but those who move with it will win. The government will either grasp this reality and shift its course towards cooperation with its neighbors, a policy of regional balance, and the rising institutional architecture of Asia, or it will take its place as a figurant in America’s delusions doomed to defeat, on the scrapheap of history. The choice belongs to the government itself; however, the entire nation pays the price.
Bibliography
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Sefa Yürükel
Danish ethnographer and social anthropologist (MA)
Aarhus University, 1997
Independent Researcher
Fields of Research: International Politics, Public International Law, Geopolitics, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural Studies, Systems and Structures.
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