By Sefa Yürükel
Global power competition has undergone a qualitative leap with the “Pax Silica” initiative announced by the United States in late 2025. This conceptual framework, formed by combining “Pax,” meaning “peace, stability and order” in Latin, with “Silica,” referring to silicon dioxide, the fundamental raw material of silicon and thus the chip industry, moves Washington’s technology blockade against China onto a new geopolitical plane. The initiative aims to coordinate semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence infrastructure, critical minerals, data centres, energy resources and logistics networks among “trusted countries” in order to counterbalance China’s weight in technology and supply chains. The fact that officials in Washington describe this formation as a “technological NATO” reveals that the initiative carries a deep military strategic dimension beyond a mere economic cooperation platform. The reference to Pax Americana, which established a global order by controlling sea lanes, is echoed in the claim that Pax Silica will build a new order by controlling chip routes, data flows and artificial intelligence infrastructures, demonstrating that the initiative is consciously associated with historical precedents. Within this framework, Turkey’s exclusion from this strategic structure encompassing 24 countries confirms that the exclusionary tendencies recently observed in NATO’s platforms such as DIANA and the Innovation Fund have now acquired a global scale and a far more structural character.
The Institutional Architecture of Pax Silica and the Geostrategic Meaning of Its Membership Profile
The membership structure of Pax Silica offers an X ray of the US strategy to reconfigure the global technology supply chain. The core group announced in December 2025 consists of the indisputably most critical actors in the global technology ecosystem: the United States, alongside Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel. The selection of these seven countries is not coincidental. Japan and South Korea are defined by their global leadership positions in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and memory chips; Singapore is a strategic node in global chip trade; the United Kingdom is a hub for artificial intelligence and financial technologies; Australia is a major supplier of critical minerals; and Israel is an undisputed power in cyber security and military artificial intelligence technologies. This composition of the core group reflects the strategy of first bringing together the actors at the apex of the existing technology hierarchy to create an initial critical mass for Pax Silica.
The expansion waves that took place throughout 2026 demonstrate that the initiative is growing with a logic of functional complementarity. The participation of the Netherlands means the incorporation of advanced lithography technology into the initiative through the ASML company, while the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar ensures the integration of the enormous energy capital required for technology infrastructure. India’s participation adds demographic and industrial depth to the initiative with its software engineering pool and growing semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Sweden and Finland stand out with their competencies in advanced materials and telecommunications infrastructure, while Norway draws attention with its potential in renewable energy and rare earth elements. The participation of the Philippines represents the assembly and test base capacity in Southeast Asia; Panama’s participation represents the control of global logistics flows; Kazakhstan’s participation represents the land supply route for critical minerals; and the participation of Chile and Costa Rica represents supply security for lithium and other battery minerals. Argentina’s participation is meaningful in terms of access to rare earth element reserves in Latin America. The institutional involvement of the European Union reinforces the transatlantic dimension.
The latest development, and the most striking one from Turkey’s perspective, is Greece’s formal accession to the initiative. The accession declaration signed by Greece’s Ambassador to the US, Antonis Alexandridis, and the US State Department’s Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, Jacob Helberg, includes the goal of transforming Greece from a mere energy hub into a regional centre for data infrastructure, digital services and artificial intelligence. The Greek press describing this accession as “far beyond an ordinary diplomatic agreement” reveals the perceived strategic value of Pax Silica membership. The geopolitical dilemma Turkey faces at this point becomes clear: Turkey’s role, historically positioned as a regional energy and logistics hub, is now being transferred to Greece within this new technology architecture, and the data corridors and digital infrastructure investments in the Eastern Mediterranean are being shaped along a geographical route that bypasses Ankara.
The Geo Economic Function Map of Pax Silica and the Codes of Turkey’s Exclusion
Pax Silica, defined by the US State Department as “the Department’s flagship initiative to strengthen economic security through trusted technology partnerships,” is built upon a functional division of labour. Chip manufacturers have been designated as Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands; artificial intelligence and software centres as the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and India; critical mineral suppliers as Australia, Kazakhstan and Chile; energy capital providers as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Norway; and maritime logistics nodes as Singapore, Panama and Greece. This functional map encompasses almost all the critical links of the global technology supply chain, and in each of these links, “trusted” actors operating under the strategic control of the United States are positioned.
The reasons why Turkey cannot find a place for itself on this map are structural enough not to be explained solely by current political tensions. First, Turkey does not yet have a globally competitive capacity in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. The chip design activities carried out within ASELSAN and TUBITAK BILGEM are far from the scale and depth required by Pax Silica. Second, in the field of critical minerals, Turkey’s rare earth element reserve in Eskisehir Beylikova has not yet reached the operational stage, and its integration into the global supply chain will take time. Third, and most decisively, the persistent hesitations in Washington regarding Turkey’s status as a “trusted partner” are embodied in the exclusionary logic of Pax Silica.
The roots of this trust problem lie in the transatlantic crisis that began with Turkey’s procurement of the S 400 air defence system and deepened thereafter. The crisis of confidence, concretised by the US CAATSA sanctions and the decision to remove Turkey from the F 35 programme, led to Turkey assuming limited roles in NATO’s new generation technology platforms such as DIANA and the Innovation Fund. Pax Silica represents a much more advanced stage of this exclusionary trend: Turkey, already marginalised from the technology cooperation mechanisms within NATO, is now being left completely out of this critical platform where the global technology architecture is being restructured. Moreover, this exclusion is being carried out not only on the initiative of the United States, but through a broad coalition that includes South Korea, which Turkey considers a close ally, Japan, with which it is in strategic dialogue, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with which it has deep economic relations.
Greece’s accession is a development that aggravates the practical as well as the symbolic consequences of this exclusion. Athens’ positioning within Pax Silica as a maritime logistics node and a regional data centre carries the potential to transform the strategic balances in the Eastern Mediterranean to the detriment of Turkey. Greece’s ability to combine the institutional advantages it enjoys as an EU member with the investment and technology transfer opportunities to be provided by Pax Silica may deepen the technology gap between the two countries. Turkey’s maritime jurisdiction areas, energy exploration activities and regional influence projection in the Eastern Mediterranean face the risk of being overshadowed by the new maritime logistics and data infrastructure corridors to be developed under the Pax Silica umbrella.
The 2026 Washington Summit and the Strategic Deepening Trend of Pax Silica
The first Pax Silica Summit, to be held in Washington in June 2026, should be considered a critical threshold on the path to the institutionalisation of the initiative. The summit, which will bring together representatives of participating countries with senior executives from leading artificial intelligence, semiconductor, energy and technology companies, goes beyond being just an intergovernmental meeting; it also aims to ensure the integration of global technology capital into this new architecture. The agenda of the summit is expected to include topics such as common investment standards, supply chain mapping, critical technology transfer protocols and the harmonisation of export controls targeting China.
This summit should be read as an effort by Pax Silica to move beyond the initial declaration of intent stage and acquire an operational framework. The Trump administration’s view of technological competition with China as “one of the defining geopolitical challenges of the coming decades” reveals the magnitude of the historical mission assigned to Pax Silica. The initiative’s goal of creating a community of countries operating within a framework of common security, investment and technological cooperation standards is essentially the institutional expression of a comprehensive containment strategy aimed at isolating China from the global technology ecosystem.
Turkey’s lack of representation at this summit is not merely a momentary diplomatic shortcoming but a situation of exclusion that will produce structural consequences in the medium and long term. The common standards, technology transfer regimes and investment flows to be developed among Pax Silica member countries will bring the technology ecosystems of these countries closer together and increase the costs for countries left outside to later integrate into this process. The exclusion process that began for Turkey with its limited participation in NATO’s DIANA program has now, with Pax Silica, acquired a global scale and a multi sectoral character.
The Impact of Pax Silica on Global Supply Chains and China’s Response Capacity
Pax Silica aims to reorganise global technology supply chains around a US centric “circle of trust.” One of the most important consequences of this reorganisation will be the transformation of the geography of chip production. The advanced manufacturing capacities of Japan and South Korea, the lithography technology of the Netherlands and the design competence of the United States will form an integrated ecosystem under the Pax Silica umbrella, while countries outside this ecosystem will face gradually increasing restrictions on access to advanced chip technology. India’s enormous domestic market and rising semiconductor manufacturing capacity will be integrated into this ecosystem on both the demand and supply sides, while logistics nodes such as Singapore and Panama will control the physical flow of chip trade.
In the critical minerals dimension, the inclusion of suppliers such as Australia, Chile, Kazakhstan and Argentina in Pax Silica aims to counterbalance China’s current dominance in this field. China’s overwhelming superiority in the processing of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements and gallium will be challenged through the establishment of new processing facilities among Pax Silica member countries and the development of alternative supply routes. Turkey’s rare earth element reserve in Eskisehir, while a potential strategic asset in this context, is condemned to remain idle as long as it is not brought into operation and integrated into the global value chain.
China’s response to Pax Silica will undoubtedly be one of the fundamental variables determining the future of the global technology architecture. The Beijing administration has so far pursued a two pronged strategy against US export controls and technology blockades. On the one hand, it has rapidly increased its domestic chip production capacity and achieved surprise leaps in advanced manufacturing processes through companies such as SMIC and Huawei. On the other hand, with the Digital Silk Road project developed within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is expanding its own technology export ecosystem towards developing countries. The deepening of Pax Silica will push China to implement these two strategies more aggressively and to deepen its own technology cooperation networks with countries that remain outside Pax Silica, such as Turkey, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, parts of Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and many African nations.
Turkey’s Strategic Dilemma and the Requirement for a Multidimensional Response
By being left out of Pax Silica, Turkey is in fact being dragged into a strategic ambiguity between two technology blocs. A country positioned, on the one hand, as excluded from the alliance’s new technology platforms despite being a NATO member, and, on the other hand, as having technology relations with China and Russia limited to certain areas and facing the risk of further weakening its transatlantic ties if these relations deepen, does not represent a sustainable strategic balance for Ankara.
Finding a way out of this dilemma requires a multidimensional and simultaneous strategic mobilisation. The first dimension is the systematic analysis of the risks posed by Turkey’s exclusion from Pax Silica and the abandonment of the fallacy that this exclusion is based on technological rather than political grounds. Turkey’s exclusion stems primarily from a political trust problem, and high level diplomatic initiatives with Washington are essential to resolve this issue. The second dimension is for Turkey to rapidly mature its own semiconductor strategy. The implementation of the national chip production facility project, the deepening of chip design competencies through the cooperation of ASELSAN, HAVELSAN, TUBITAK BILGEM and universities, and the vigorous pursuit of bilateral cooperation opportunities with South Korea, Japan and India in this field are all necessary.
The third dimension is to bring the Eskisehir Beylikova reserve in the field of critical minerals into operation as soon as possible and to ensure its integration into the global value chain. This reserve carries the potential to provide Turkey with a strategic lever with which to negotiate with structures like Pax Silica. The fourth dimension is for Turkey to develop its data centre infrastructure and to accelerate the necessary investments in order not to fall behind Greece in the competition over data corridors in the Eastern Mediterranean. The fifth dimension is the diversification of diplomatic initiatives. Turkey should deepen its bilateral technology cooperation with Pax Silica members such as South Korea, Japan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in a way that does not allow these countries to use their positions within Pax Silica to legitimise Turkey’s exclusion.
The sixth dimension is the creation of alternative technology cooperation platforms with countries that are left out of Pax Silica. In this context, the enlargement process of BRICS, the technology agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and regional technology partnerships that Turkey could spearhead should be considered as channels that could balance the sense of exclusion created by Pax Silica. The seventh and final dimension is the long term and determined pursuit, as a state policy, of the national technology move in the fields of semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and advanced materials. Paradoxically, exclusion serves as a warning that makes the necessity of technological independence more visible for Turkey.
With the convening of the first Pax Silica summit in Washington, a new era is formally beginning in the global technology architecture. Turkey’s positioning in this era involves critical choices that will determine the strategic landscape of the coming decades. The successful management of these choices necessitates both the reconsolidation of Turkey’s position within the transatlantic alliance and the intelligent evaluation of alternative technology corridors in Asia and the Global South, and above all, the uncompromising construction of national technology sovereignty.
References
NATO. (2022). Strategic Concept 2022: Adopted by Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Madrid. NATO Official Documents, 29 June 2022.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security. (2022). Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items. Federal Register, 7 October 2022.
NATO. (2023). DIANA – Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic: Initial Governance and Site Selection. NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, January 2023.
Aydınlık. (2024). “Türkiye’siz teknolojik NATO girişimi.” Aydınlık Newspaper, 15 March 2024, https://www.aydinlik.com.tr/haber/turkiyesiz-teknolojik-nato-girisimi-581359.
U.S. Department of State. (2025). Pax Silica Initiative: Framework for Trusted Technology Partnerships. Office of Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Washington, D.C., December 2025.
Ekathimerini. (2026). “Greece Joins US led Pax Silica Technology Partnership.” Ekathimerini Newspaper, Athens, June 2026.
U.S. Department of State. (2026). Pax Silica Summit: Agenda and Participating Nations. Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, Washington, D.C., June 2026.
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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