How long will the Age of Global Change last?

By nature, human beings value peace, stability, and security. Most of the time, they find taking risks to achieve what they want unnecessary; this stems not from being "cowardly" or "lazy," but from being "rational" beings. They do not want to lose what they already have while chasing after something else.

For centuries, states have also been treated as "human-like" entities, imagined in an "anthropomorphic" way. States have interests; they have friends and adversaries, though these are not as permanent as their interests. We could even say they have a "mind," to borrow from a concept that has been incorrectly translated into Turkish. That is, of course, if we are looking at political science and international relations from a state-centric perspective.

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Last week, a scientific article co-authored by Dr. Nurettin Taşar and Prof. Dr. Soyalp Tamçelik was published. The title of this study, which I believe everyone interested in international relations should read, is "International Systemic Transformation and Middle Power Behavior: Determining Dynamics in Turkey's Search for Strategic Autonomy (2002–2017)."

A few weeks before this publication, on June 27, an inference was made at an event held under the auspices of TEPAV: "Geopolitical uncertainty is no longer a temporary state of crisis; it has become a structural feature of the international system."

A (lengthy) definition in Taşar and Tamçelik's paper regarding this very inference caught my attention:

"Global change is evaluated as a large-scale process that fundamentally shakes both the structure of the international system and the behavior of actors. This process, which is characterized as a phase of transition and disorder, constitutes structural dynamics such as the intensification of interaction networks, as the system takes on a multi-centric character, and the rapid differentiation of states' foreign policy orientations. Systematic change plays the role of an independent variable that directly affects a state's foreign policy motivation and the selection of strategic/military tools to be used in security policy. In this context, change in the international system is accepted as an input in the foreign policy of states, and it is assessed that the production of new foreign policy preferences—that is, outputs—by this input is inevitable. In this scope, it is observed that this change has emerged in many contexts since the Cold War." (p. 11)

Temporary, transition, change, transformation… Different views, different approaches, different realities… The only common conclusion is that we are in an "age of global change."

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By their dictionary definitions, "change" and "transformation" express alterations within a period of time, a transition from one state to another. And "uncertainty" is the state of being uncertain (Thanks, TDK!). This state, by its nature, will also occur within certain time limits. If we accept the saying of our fellow citizen from Ephesus, Heraclitus, that "the only thing that is constant is change," then uncertainty will also transition into a state of certainty after a certain time.

Let us not lose heart! Geopolitical "uncertainty" will eventually give way to a state of certainty. This situation ultimately occurs during "transition" periods in the international system. The duality of the anarchic structure and orderliness at the foundation of the theory—which is a legacy from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke—reminds us that no state is permanent. As Taşar and Tamçelik put it:

"The global transition period is described as a process of establishing a new order in the international system. This period refers to a time interval in which hegemonic powers or the rules of the existing system are questioned, and old structures in the system lose their influence, but new rules and order have not yet fully taken shape. Today, the international system does not have a static structure; global transition periods are being experienced in which hegemonic powers are weakening and the system is trending from unipolarity toward multi-centricity." (p. 7)

The liberal democratic system established in the West after 1945 ingrained the argument in our minds, through academia and the media, that we were living through the most prosperous and peaceful era in history (roughly 1945–2014/2022). It is possible to say that this was indeed experienced within the borders of Europe. But in the rest of the world, unfortunately, events that often exceeded the destruction of the Second World War were witnessed.

However, these destructions could not shake the bipolar and subsequently (according to some) unipolar identity of the international system. The first blow to the moment of victory experienced by the West after the collapse of the Soviets in 1991 was struck in 2001. This was followed by the beginning of the collapse of the neoliberal system in 2008. In 2014, and permanently in 2022, Russia opened Pandora's box.

So, yes, for a certain period, a state of "geopolitical certainty" was witnessed across the world. But tests and threats toward this situation have always existed: the experiences of Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela, Taiwan, Israel, Ukraine, and Iran show us this.

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Against the human search for stability, it is possible to see a constant state of "chaos" or anarchy in the universe. So much so that there is a debate in this field that enters the boundaries not only of political philosophy or "positive" sciences but even of theology.

If we listen to our fellow citizen from Ephesus, it becomes easier to defend the reality that change is unstoppable. In that case, the consequence of the US-led hegemony that has dominated the system being threatened by actors centered primarily in Beijing and Moscow depends on whether this hegemony will survive or who will fill its place.

In other words, no state is uncertain or permanent. Indeed, as our ancestors, who did not worry much about the international system, said: "This too shall pass!"

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Then let us return to the question in the title: "How long will the Age of Global Change last?"

We are on the eve of a painful birth. With the famous Gramsci quote that we are happy to be reminded of by Taşar and Tamçelik, we are in a time of monsters "where the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born." Although these monstrosities are currently passing through the lands of Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran, it is likely that they will soon spread to geographies such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Taiwan, the Baltics, the Caribbean, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Eastern and Western Europe. "Geopolitical uncertainty" is "permanent" in the short and medium term, yes, but what happens after that, we shall see if we live!