Are New Helsinki and New Westphalia processes possible in Europe and West Asia?

Lasting security orders are born not from shared values, but from the parties' acceptance that they cannot eliminate one another. This was the strategic realism of the 1648 Westphalia and 1975 Helsinki.

In the international system, lasting security orders have often emerged not from the strengthening of the ideal of peace, but from the reality of power forcing itself upon the parties. When none of the parties can eliminate the others politically or militarily, when the cost of seeking absolute superiority becomes unsustainable, and when the continuation of war begins to produce greater risks than the potential gains, diplomacy becomes the language of the balance of power once again. Although there is a three-century gap between them, both the 1648 Westphalia order and the 1975 Helsinki Final Act were products of this fundamental reality, despite having emerged under very different conditions.

The 1648 Westphalia did not eliminate sectarian differences following the Catholic-Protestant wars that consumed Europe. Catholics remained Catholic, and Protestants remained Protestant. The simple truth that changed here was the realization that keeping the state system in a state of constant war due to theological divisions was unsustainable. Sovereignty, state interest, and the balance of power gradually took precedence over sectarian affiliations. The historical significance of Westphalia, therefore, lay not only in ending the Thirty Years' War but in paving the way for an order where different political and religious identities could live within the same state system by accepting each other's existence.

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act was a reflection of a similar power reality on European security. During the Cold War, the ideological and geopolitical struggle between the USA and the Soviet Union had not ended. NATO and the Warsaw Pact stood against each other, and nuclear weapons made the consequences of any major war uncontrollable. However, Washington was not in a position to remove Moscow from the European security equation, nor was Moscow able to remove Washington. For this reason, Helsinki was not a project of friendship, but a strategic compromise based on the mutual acceptance of power. The parties' consideration of each other's existence, borders, and specific security concerns allowed for the regulation of military competition in Europe.

Today, the international system is once again approaching such a historical threshold. As the unipolar order of the post-Cold War era erodes, the rise of China, Russia's military and geopolitical resistance, Iran's regional weight, and the Global South's growing search for strategic autonomy are changing the distribution of power. While the security order between Russia and the Collective West in Europe has effectively collapsed with the Ukraine war, Israel's increasingly expansive use of military power in West Asia is shifting the security calculations of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other regional states, at least away from traditional theological polarizations (such as the Shia-Sunni divide) and back toward geopolitical realities. In both geographies, the same fundamental question arises for different reasons. Will security be established again through the search for hegemonic superiority, or will new balances emerge where powers that cannot eliminate each other accept their mutual existence? In this respect, Europe's need may be a new Helsinki understanding that accepts Russia as a permanent element of the European security system and re-regulates military competition. In West Asia, the need is different. The goal here is not to eliminate the Shia-Sunni divide or the region's historical, ethnic, and ideological differences, but to develop a new political understanding that will prevent these differences from taking precedence over the sovereignty, security, and common geopolitical interests of states. In other words, the question facing Europe is whether a new Helsinki is possible, while the question facing West Asia is whether a new Westphalia is possible. Behind both quests lies the same global transformation: the erosion of hegemonic superiority and the re-emergence of the balance of power as one of the fundamental determinants of international politics.

THE FOUNDATION OF HELSINKI: MUTUAL ACCEPTANCE OF POWER

At the heart of the Helsinki process was not the parties liking each other, reducing their ideological differences, or reaching a common worldview. On the contrary, the fundamental element that made the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) possible was the acceptance by the USA and the Soviet Union that they could not remove each other from the European security system. The Soviet Union was not in a position to eliminate the American military presence in Western Europe and NATO through the Warsaw Pact. The USA and NATO could not ignore the Soviet Union's military and political weight in Eastern Europe. The preparatory talks that began in 1972 and the negotiations between 1973 and 1975 developed on this balance of power. This conventional balance of power was complemented by the balance of nuclear deterrence that had formed between the USA and the Soviet Union at the strategic level. The fact that the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) capacity made the cost of direct war between the great powers unacceptable necessitated not the elimination of competition in Europe, but its management within certain rules and confidence-building mechanisms.

With the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the inviolability of borders, the sovereign equality of states, the non-use of force, non-interference in internal affairs, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and human rights were addressed within the same political framework. Thus, European security was tied not only to military deterrence but to a political understanding of balance that took into account the existence and security concerns of the other side. The fact that the CSCE process continued in subsequent years with meetings in Belgrade, Madrid, and Vienna showed that Helsinki was not designed as a one-time diplomatic compromise, but as a long-term process aimed at managing strategic competition in Europe.

THE PARIS CHARTER AND THE CFE

With the end of the Cold War, this architecture moved to a new phase. The Charter of Paris for a New Europe, adopted in November 1990, adapted Helsinki principles to the new era following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the East-West division. While aiming for a common European security space based on democracy, peace, and cooperation on the understanding that "the divided Europe has ended," the institutionalization of the CSCE was also paved. The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), created in the same historical period as the Paris Charter, constituted the military-strategic leg of this political compromise. The treaty, signed in November 1990 by 22 states that were members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, imposed comprehensive limitations on conventional military forces in the vast geography stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals. While total ceilings were set for the two blocs in five main weapon categories (tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery systems, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters), regional and sub-regional limitations were also created to prevent the excessive concentration of forces in certain areas. The "flank" regulations, which limited excessive force buildup, especially on the northern and southern wings of Europe, were also of direct importance for Turkey. The purpose of the CFE was not just to reduce the total number of weapons. The main strategic goal was to reduce the capacity of any of the parties to create a large concentration of force in a short time and launch a surprise attack or large-scale offensive operation. For this, in addition to numerical ceilings, detailed information exchange, notification of military units and equipment, on-site inspections, and verification mechanisms were established. As a result of the implementation of the treaty, tens of thousands of heavy weapon systems were destroyed or decommissioned. Thus, the political security understanding that emerged in Helsinki was supported by a measurable and verifiable military balance of power with the CFE.

However, the CFE was based on the two-bloc military balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent eastward expansion of NATO radically changed the strategic geography upon which the treaty was built. For this reason, the Adapted CFE Treaty was signed at the 1999 Istanbul OSCE Summit, attempting to replace bloc-based ceilings with state- and region-based limitations. However, the new regulation never entered into force for all parties, and the CFE system eroded significantly over time. Meanwhile, the institutionalization of the CSCE continued, and it was renamed the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as of January 1, 1995. Thus, the process that began in Helsinki transformed into a more permanent structure with standing institutions, conflict prevention activities, confidence and security-building measures, field missions, and election observation mechanisms.

THE DISRUPTION OF THE POST-COLD WAR BALANCE OF POWER

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 radically changed the balance of power upon which this system rested. Although the Russian Federation was legally the primary successor to the Soviet Union, it had largely lost its great power capacity from the Soviet era in economic, military, and political terms during the 1990s. The unipolar environment that emerged for the USA also reduced the need to accept Russia as one of the equal-weighted great powers of the European security architecture. Yet, the 1990 Paris Charter and the end of the Cold War could have allowed for the development of a more inclusive European security order stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok, replacing the bloc-based structure between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Instead, in the following period, the USA, especially during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George Bush, succumbed to strong neocon policies and expanded the NATO-centered security architecture toward a vision that would first encircle and then dismantle Russia. Thus, the OSCE, whose foundation was based on the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, turned into an institution operating in the fields of political norms, elections, human rights, crisis management, and confidence-building measures, rather than being the primary balance-of-power mechanism for European security.

FROM YUGOSLAVIA TO NATO'S EASTWARD EXPANSION

The Yugoslav crisis formed an important threshold in Russia's perception of this transformation. The breakup of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian war, and especially the 1999 NATO operation in Yugoslavia, which was carried out without the explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council, strengthened the conviction in Moscow that the new international system formed after the Cold War was based on the West's military superiority. While the breakup of Yugoslavia increased the USA's geopolitical weight in the Balkans, it significantly weakened Russia's historical sphere of influence and its geopolitical connections to the Adriatic. Thus, for Moscow, the Yugoslav crisis became not just a Balkan conflict, but one of the important indicators of the reshaping of the balance of power in Europe after the Cold War to Russia's disadvantage.

During the same period, NATO's eastward expansion, with the accession of first the former Warsaw Pact members and then the Baltic states to the Alliance, significantly reduced the strategic depth between Russia and NATO. While Western states evaluated this expansion within the framework of the right of independent states to make their own security choices, Moscow perceived the same process, especially with the inclusion of Baltic and Black Sea countries in NATO in 2004, as the encirclement of Russia and the exploitation of the weakness that emerged after the Cold War. To understand the subsequent crises of the European security order, these two different security perceptions must be evaluated together.

Following the intervention in Yugoslavia, the center of gravity of the West's use of military power gradually shifted to West Asia and North Africa. After September 11, 2001, with the strengthening of the neocon and Zionist approach in US foreign and security policy, the 2003 Iraq intervention took place. In the following period, Libya and Syria also became countries at the center of foreign intervention and regime change policies. This process also resulted in the weakening of regional powers that could form a balance against Israel, such as Iraq, Syria, and Iran, in terms of Israel's regional security geopolitics, and the creation of a belt of failed states around Israel. Thus, the process that began with the narrowing of Russia's geopolitical space in the Balkans continued with the transformation of existing regional power balances in West Asia in favor of Israel.

The increasing military interventions of Western states led by the USA in West Asia and North Africa further hardened Russia's assessment of the West's use of power. The distrust created in Moscow by the use of concepts such as regime change, humanitarian intervention, and democratization in conjunction with military interventions was influential in the Russian foreign and security policy's shift toward an increasingly hard line. Russia began to evaluate developments in its own near abroad not as isolated regional crises, but as parts of a broader geopolitical transformation stretching from Yugoslavia to Iraq and NATO's eastward expansion, which ultimately aimed at the encirclement and dismantling of Russia. It is clear that from the second half of the 2000s, Moscow no longer viewed the European security order formed after the Cold War as acceptable.

THE 2008 GEORGIA WAR: RUSSIA'S FIRST GEOPOLITICAL BRAKE

In this respect, the 2008 Georgia War is an important turning point. The declaration at the NATO Bucharest Summit in April 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be future NATO members was perceived by Russia as a strategic development directly targeting its own security space. The war, which began with Russia's large-scale military intervention following Georgia's military operation against South Ossetia and Tskhinvali on the night of August 7-8, 2008, was significant in that it showed for the first time after the Cold War that Moscow was ready to use military force to counter the expansion of Western and NATO influence in the former Soviet geography. The Russian intervention, which created serious consequences for Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, was also a harbinger of the change in the balance of power in the European security system. Moscow was demonstrating that the weak Russia of the 1990s was beginning to be left behind and that it would respond with military tools when necessary to the unilateral changing of security balances in its own near abroad. In this aspect, the August 2008 war can be evaluated as the first serious military and geopolitical brake applied by Russia against the geopolitical space expanding in favor of the West after the Cold War.

THE 2014 UKRAINE CRISIS AND THE EROSION OF THE HELSINKI ORDER

The Maidan events that began in Kiev in 2014 against the Yanukovych government and Russia's annexation of Crimea after the coup carried out with US & EU neocon intervention cannot be evaluated independently of the 2008 crisis. While the overthrow of the administration by a US-backed coup was evaluated in Western countries as the result of a democratic popular movement and the European-oriented political preference of Ukrainian society, Moscow saw this process as a change of power actively supported by the USA and Western states, aimed at tearing Ukraine away from the Russian geopolitical space.

However, the 2014 crisis also exposed the conflict between the two security understandings at the foundation of the Helsinki order. While the West emphasized Ukraine's sovereignty and its right to determine its own foreign policy choices, Russia evaluated NATO's expansion toward its borders and the possibility of Ukraine's inclusion in the Western security system as a strategic threat to its own security. Thus, a period began where one side emphasized sovereignty and the freedom to choose alliances, while the other emphasized the indivisibility of security and the preservation of the strategic balance in its own near abroad. A period was entered where the parties accused each other of violating Helsinki principles, but increasingly lost the common security mechanisms that could manage the tension between these principles. The Russia-Ukraine war that began in 2022 after the failure of the Minsk processes can therefore be evaluated not only as a regional war that emerged after 2014, but as the military collapse of the European security architecture that had been eroding for a long time. The mutual acceptance of power and the understanding of managing security concerns at the heart of 1975 Helsinki had been replaced by a new and much more dangerous period in which the parties tried to ensure their own security through the strategic decline of the other side.

THE DETERMINING ELEMENT OF THE NEW EQUATION: CHINA

One of the most important elements distinguishing today's conditions from 1975 is the economic, technological, and military power China has reached in the global system. At the time the Helsinki Final Act was signed, the military-strategic balance of the international system was established mainly between the USA and the Soviet Union. Today, however, while the USA is trying to contain and strategically wear down Russia in Europe, it is also conducting an increasingly intense strategic competition with a rising China in the Indo-Pacific region and trying to maintain the Israel-centered military-political order in West Asia. Thus, unlike the Cold War period, Washington is forced to allocate power and resources on multiple major geopolitical fronts simultaneously.

On the other hand, Russia's exclusion from the European security system and the narrowing of its economic relations with the West have further deepened Moscow's relations with Beijing. The China-Russia rapprochement, developing through energy, trade, military technology, diplomacy, and transportation networks in Eurasia, presents the possibility of a Eurasian geopolitical integration on a scale the USA did not encounter during the Cold War. Iran's development of its political, economic, and military relations with Russia and China also strengthens this trend, making it increasingly difficult to evaluate the geopolitical struggles taking place in Europe, West Asia, and the Indo-Pacific independently of each other.

For this reason, the China factor is also becoming decisive in terms of the possibility of a new Helsinki in Europe. If China becomes the primary strategic competitor for Washington, the question of whether Russia's permanent exclusion from the European security system creates a broad Eurasian power concentration against the USA by pushing Moscow closer to Beijing will gain importance. One of the fundamental geopolitical variables that could pave the way for a new Helsinki search could be the USA's re-evaluation of the cost of making Russia a permanent strategic partner of China in terms of its own long-term interests.

IS A NEW HELSINKI POSSIBLE IN EUROPE?

Whether a new Helsinki process will emerge will largely depend on the change in Washington's geopolitical assessment regarding Russia. As long as the USA continues to view Russia as a power that must be excluded from the European security system or strategically neutralized in the long term, it is very difficult to establish a new Helsinki order. Conversely, the rise of China becoming the primary priority of American strategy and the acceptance that Russia becoming a full strategic partner of China would create a greater geopolitical cost for Washington could pave the way for a different security approach in Europe.

Such an approach should not require the acceptance of all of Russia's demands, nor should it mean ignoring the sovereignty and security concerns of Ukraine or Eastern European states. A new Helsinki cannot be thought of as a new division of spheres of influence to be imposed on the rest of Europe between the USA and Russia. On the contrary, the goal should be to create a balance that can reconcile the reality that Russia is a permanent element of the European security system with the sovereignty and security rights of other European states within the same architecture. The essence of the new Helsinki, as it was in 1975, is for the parties to accept that they cannot eliminate each other and that they cannot build their own absolute security on the absolute insecurity of the other side. Such a European security architecture must cover a wide area, from Ukraine's post-war status to Black Sea security, from NATO-Russia contact lines to medium- and long-range missiles, and from the forward deployment of nuclear weapons to large-scale military exercises. However, simply reproducing the security mechanisms of 1975 or 1990 will not be enough. Hypersonic weapons, long-range precision strike systems, UAVs/UCAVs, and increasingly developing intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance capabilities have made the military balance in Europe much more complex than in the past. Therefore, the new security architecture will need to take these new military capabilities into account in addition to conventional force limitations.

In this framework, utilizing the CFE experience, it is possible to consider limiting conventional forces and especially force concentrations on contact lines, mutually notifying military activities, giving advance notice of large-scale exercises, re-establishing on-site inspection and verification mechanisms, and developing new confidence-building measures. Thus, the new Helsinki could turn into a security architecture that rests not only on a political declaration but on a measurable and verifiable military balance. Therefore, the goal of the new Helsinki should not be to reproduce Cold War institutions exactly or to re-divide Europe into spheres of influence, but to create a balance that accepts the existing distribution of power, accounts for Russia as one of the permanent elements of the European security system, and re-institutionalizes the understanding that no state's security can be built on the absolute insecurity of another.

THE CHANGING GEOPOLITICAL GROUND IN WEST ASIA

A different but equally important possibility of transformation is emerging in West Asia. In the modern history of the region, sectarian, ethnic, and ideological divisions have been constantly intertwined with interstate competition, and the struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in particular, has long been evaluated as the geopolitical projection of the Shia-Sunni divide. Non-regional powers have strengthened their influence and military presence in West Asia by encouraging these divisions, conducting false-flag operations, and buying off leaders. However, important signs have emerged in recent years that this structure is beginning to change.

With Israel's transformation into the primary actor of US geopolitics after 1973, the facilitation of control over both the wealthy Gulf countries and the strategic Suez Canal was ensured. For this, eschatology was also turned into a joint US and Israeli geopolitical tool through Zionism. Thus, the increasingly expansive use of military power and the strategy of maintaining its military superiority in the region became one of the important factors reshaping the security perceptions of West Asian states. The US and Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, 2026, gave a major warning in this process. The important change here is the decrease in the determinative power of theological and ideological differences over the security and geopolitical interests of states. While the pressure created by Israel's aggressive and genocidal military policies accelerates this trend, the common interests of regional states such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, and strategic autonomy are coming to the fore more.

The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia through China's mediation, the diversification of Gulf countries' relations with China and Russia, and the normalization processes Turkey is conducting with regional countries show that it is not mandatory for ideological and sectarian differences to take precedence over state interests. These developments do not yet mean that a common regional security architecture has emerged. However, an important ground is forming for West Asian politics to be reshaped not through sectarian affiliations, but through state sovereignty, national interest, and the balance of power.

THE ISRAEL FACTOR AND THE SUNNI-SHIA DIVIDE

Israel's use of aggressive and genocidal military power in a vast geography stretching from Gaza to Lebanon, from Syria to Iran, and its policies aimed at maintaining its military superiority in the region are accelerating the reshaping of traditional threat perceptions in West Asia. The policies of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt regarding Israel, their security priorities, and their relations with non-regional powers are not the same; nor should it be expected that these will turn into a common political or military vision in the near future. However, the geographical expansion of Israel's use of military power, the lack of a solution to the Palestinian issue, and the decisive role of non-regional powers in the West Asian security architecture may lead regional states, which have seen each other as rivals or even threats for many years, to seek to ensure their own security increasingly through regional means. Such a process, even if it does not eliminate sectarian divisions, could make it possible for new geopolitical interest areas based on state sovereignty and common security concerns to form above them.

The Mecca Joint Defense Treaty, signed between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on August 7, 2026, is one of the early but extremely important signs of this transformation. The fact that the treaty is based on the principle that an armed attack on one of the parties is considered an attack on the others does not only mean the deepening of military cooperation between the three countries. More importantly, it strengthens the idea that regional security can be organized through the regional states' own military, economic, and technological capacities without remaining dependent on security umbrellas provided by non-regional powers, especially the USA. The fact that the treaty does not define a specific state as a threat, Ankara's specific emphasis that it was not established against Iran or any other country, and Egypt being seen as one of the natural partners that could join this structure in the future reveal the possibility of the Mecca Entente transforming from a narrow Sunni bloc into a broader regional security architecture.

If this structure, developing on the axis of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and possibly Egypt, can evolve over time into a broader security understanding that does not exclude Iran, it could form the core of a transition from alliance systems determined by external hegemons to a balance-of-power system created by regional states among themselves in West Asia. Indeed, in some official statements from Iran, the Mecca Treaty has been evaluated as an indicator of a new approach that could reduce the dependence of regional states on external powers for security.

Therefore, what is in question here is not the Shia and Sunni worlds forming a new ideological unity. The more realistic possibility is that despite the persistence of theological and sectarian differences, states can cooperate around common interests such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, security, and strategic autonomy. If such a transformation occurs, the Shia-Sunni divide will not disappear, but West Asian geopolitics may gradually lose its quality of being the divisive element always exploited and encouraged in the eyes of the collective West. In this respect, the true strategic value of the Mecca Entente, beyond being a defense agreement between three states, should be sought in its carrying the possibility of West Asian security evolving from a hegemonic order managed from outside the region to a new architecture based on the principle of regional balance of power into an institutional framework for the first time.

THE INTERSECTION OF HELSINKI AND WESTPHALIA IN THE NEW MULTIPOLARITY

The Westphalia order did not eliminate the theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism in 1648, but it paved the way for the European state system to operate increasingly through sovereignty, state interest, and the balance of power rather than sectarian affiliations. If a similar development occurs in West Asia, Iran will continue to maintain its Shia character, Saudi Arabia its position in the Sunni world, and Turkey and Egypt their own historical and strategic identities. What is likely to change is not the disappearance of these differences, but their loss of quality as the determining axis of regional geopolitics. The main goal here is the curbing of Israel's aggressive stance and reaching a peaceful and just solution in Palestine.

For this reason, the foundation of a new Westphalia for West Asia could be formed by the re-emergence of state sovereignty rather than theological compromise. States respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, the transformation of Israel into a state of norms that respects international law, the limitation of foreign interventions aiming at regime change in the region, the non-use of sectarian and ethnic differences as a tool for interference in other states' internal affairs, and regional security being shaped by regional states as much as possible could be the fundamental principles of such an order. In this sense, the new Westphalia will not require West Asian states to unite on the same ideological or political line, but to accept each other's existence and legitimate security interests despite their differences.

Israel's increasing military pressure could become a geopolitical catalyst that could accelerate such a transformation. The policies of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, which have competed with each other for a long time, regarding Israel do not need to reach a similar vision. Therefore, West Asia's search for Westphalia should not be seen as a search for forming a new alliance or bloc. The true transformation will be regional states beginning to establish their security not through sectarian polarization or the patronage of non-regional powers, but through the balance of power between sovereign states and the recognition of mutual interests.

CONCLUSION: FROM HEGEMONY TO BALANCE OF POWER

The fundamental dynamic that could make the searches for a new Helsinki and a new Westphalia possible is the change in the distribution of power in the international system. The unipolar period that emerged after the Cold War was the product of a specific historical balance of power, and this balance is now behind us. Therefore, the fundamental issue of the coming period is not whether multipolarity will emerge, but to what extent and through which mechanisms this new distribution of power, which is effectively developing, will be accepted by the existing international order. The transition from hegemony to the balance of power has already begun.

For Europe, the most important result of this is the necessity of redefining Russia's place in the European security architecture. An order based on the permanent exclusion of Russia from the European security system increases military tension on the European continent while pushing Moscow closer to Beijing. Especially for the USA, the prioritization of long-term strategic competition with China may make the cost of this policy more visible over time. The ground for a new Helsinki also emerges here. The issue is not the acceptance of all of Russia's demands or the re-division of Europe into spheres of influence. On the contrary, it is the re-remembering of the fundamental reality that made the 1975 Helsinki process possible. If none of the parties can eliminate the other from the European security equation, security must be built not on the absolute insecurity of the other side, but on the mutual acceptance of power and a controllable balance. Therefore, Europe's need is not a new era of friendship, but a new security architecture that manages competition, determines the limits of the use of military power, makes armament controllable, keeps crisis management and communication channels open, and narrows the paths leading directly to war. The true value of Helsinki for today lies not in reproducing the institutions of the past exactly, but in re-establishing this strategic realism based on the mutual acceptance of power.

In West Asia, the same transformation is developing on a different historical and geopolitical ground. Here, the prerequisite for a new Westphalia is not the disappearance of the Shia-Sunni divide or the regional states uniting under a common ideological identity. The true transformation can begin with sectarian differences ceasing to be the primary geopolitical axis determining the security policies of states. Israel's expansive use of aggressive and genocidal military power, the lack of a solution to the Palestinian issue, and the common security concerns created by non-regional interventions are making the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, strategic autonomy, and the limitation of foreign interventions increasingly important for states with different interests. The historical meaning of new regional security searches like the Mecca Entente should also be evaluated within this framework.

Therefore, West Asia's new Westphalia will mean creating a new regional behavioral order rather than establishing an alliance system. States moving away from the search for changing each other's regimes, using internal fault lines, or eliminating regional rivals and mutually recognizing their sovereignty and legitimate security interests could also reduce the region's dependence on the interventions of external hegemons. The meaning of the Westphalia analogy emerges exactly here: The essential thing is not to have the same values, but to accept the rules of existing together despite differences.

In this respect, the new Helsinki in Europe and the new Westphalia in West Asia should not be seen as two independent processes. Both are reflections in different geographies of a larger historical transformation where hegemonic superiority is eroding and the balance of power is being placed back at the center of international politics. Helsinki can represent the mutual acceptance of power in Europe, and Westphalia can represent the mutual acceptance of existence by sovereign states in West Asia despite Israeli pressure. The former requires ensuring security not by encircling the other side but by taking its existence into account; the latter requires establishing order not by dismantling rival states under US/Israeli pressure but by recognizing their sovereignty.

The fundamental truth revealed by historical experience has not changed. Lasting security orders are built not on the parties loving each other or sharing the same values, but on their acceptance that they cannot eliminate one another. This was the strategic realism that the 1648 Westphalia and 1975 Helsinki represented under different conditions.