Thanks to the spread of social media and the excessive number of news outlets around the world, in the last few election campaigns, people around the world have started to become more familiar with the main debates in U.S. politics.

After winning a snap election, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got approval for his aggressive economic policies, however he also faces very important social and diplomatic problems.

Entering the last two years of the Obama administration, it is not very difficult to say that foreign policy has not been its strongest point.

The primary source of the Uighur refugee problem is the situation in China and without some significant steps in line with the demands of society, this problem will continue to grow in the coming years.

The crisis in Ukraine is yet another serious test of U.S. leadership in terms of its international alliances, guarantees and assurances.

Today we are witnessing the emergence of a new extreme in US policy. Now it is not about what the US is doing but instead about what the US is not doing...

Kılıç Buğra Kanat: A possible U.S. intervention will not end the civil war. However, in a more optimistic look, it is possible to expect that the strike will seriously damage Assad’s conventional forces and give opposition groups serious advantages.

The analyses over the US policy in Syria have started to concentrate on the USÂ’ gains if the Syrian crisis drags out rather than on the risks Washington will face.

Turkey has been involved, historically and demographically, with many of the regions of “frozen conflict” in post-Soviet space. At this point, one might consider the position of Turkey as being at the epicenter of Euro-Atlantic and Russian extremes concerning the frozen conflicts. Georgia, since 1991, has been considered a valuable “strategic partner” by Turkey for several reasons. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip ErdoÄŸan’s Caucasus Pact idea is a good opportunity to create an inclusive (Russia+Turkey+Georgia+Armenia+Azerbaijan) new foreign policy approach at this stage. This approach should be merged with the representation of all the frozen or unfrozen conflict areas, peoples, ethnic groups and regions included under the roof of such an alliance.

Consider this wild scenario: After years of demonizing each other, the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran put their differences behind them. They agree to be strategic partners and sign a document to seal it.

Everybody is asking if America is in decline. The new big question from the journal Foreign Affairs is whether the American era is over. Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek, answers with a book, his new release "The Post-American World," in which he proposes a number of ideas and strategies for the US power to survive the "rise of the rest."

To continue our discussion from last week, Turkey's smart power is a strategic combination of soft and hard power, but the result is more than a plate of carrots and sticks.

Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s visit to the White House, his first such visit to the US as president and the first visit by a Turkish president in 11 years, comes at a time when US-Turkish relations have taken a new turn.

This is the question everybody is seeking an answer for. The Bush administration thinks it knows what the power is for and Mr. Bush believes he is putting it to good use in Iraq, Afghanistan, potentially in Iran and elsewhere. But the hard realities of war and what is happening in the real world belie this false sense of confidence.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many thought the date would mark a turning point in modern history. The common belief was that nothing would be the same again. We had entered a new era of global terror when humanity would unite against this universal evil. Sept. 11 turned out to be a major turning point, but not in the way the secular ideologues and the religious zealots of America had imagined.  

The Bush administration’s troubles in the Middle East and at home show no sign of diminishing. More and more Americans are coming forward to call the US policy in Iraq a total disaster. Their remedy is immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But there is more to US troubles than the mismanagement of an unjustified war. After much fanfare, the Bush administration’s “new  strategy on Iraq” turned out to be similar to shooting in the dark hoping that some shots will hit their target. Sending more troops to Iraq without pressuring the Maliki government to stop sectarian violence was received with more suspicion than ever.