U.S. President Joe Biden, right, speaks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a NATO summit in Brussels, June 14, 2021 (AP photo by Olivier Matthys).

Weeks before U.S. President Joe Biden met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Erdogan vowed that the meeting would be transformative. In a virtual gathering with American investors last month, he predicted that the encounter would “herald a new era.” It was no surprise, then, that after the Monday meeting in Brussels concluded, Erdogan took pains to stretch the truth and describe it as a major success. Whatever happened to the provocateur, the pugnacious politician whose words and actions so frequently put him at odds with his neighbors and his allies? Where did […]

Protesters take part in a Campaign to Ban Killer Robots demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate, in Berlin, Germany, March 21, 2019 (Photo by Wolfgang Kumm for dpa via AP Images).

In late May, news broke that a Turkish-made Kargu-2 drone had possibly taken action without the intervention or command of a human operator to hunt down, engage and possibly kill or injure human beings in the Libyan desert last year. The incident, described in a recent United Nations report, spurred a rash of media coverage and commentary along the lines of an Axios article, titled, “The Age of Killer Robots Has Already Begun.” Though some observers argue that what happened, as described by the U.N. report, is less serious than what the media is reporting, the event represents a watershed […]

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, center, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiadis, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Athens, Jan. 2, 2020 (AP photo).

Developments in the Eastern Mediterranean region are unfolding at a breakneck pace. Blink an eye and one is bound to miss a new multilateral initiative, an impressive military exercise or even the creation of an international organization. Greece is very much in the middle of this diplomatic and military frenzy, so understanding Greek foreign policy can provide penetrating insights into developments in the region. Athens views the Eastern Mediterranean as a source of turbulence and instability—a transit route for waves of refugees, bordered by war-torn states like Libya and Syria, and with the potential for jihadist terrorist attacks. The recent […]