2025: A Year of Disappointments
December 15, 2025
In two weeks, the year 2025 will be behind us. The end of a year is a moment of reflection on the achievements, disappointments, and failures of the past twelve months and whether different paths could have been taken. In international relations, those who choose between “new chapters” and “the same old story” are world leaders, primarily among them the leaders of major powers. And “new chapters” are not easy to start writing.
February 24, 2026, will mark the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, nearly two-and-a-half years ago. Many thought that Russia would “conquer” Ukraine in a matter of months, if not weeks, and that Israel would deal Hamas a blow of death in no time. Surprisingly, both Ukraine and Hamas have proved more resilient than expected.
Today, Russia remains engaged in a war of attrition, insisting on conditions that would allow President Putin to claim that he has brought the war to a satisfactory conclusion, if not outright victory.
For him, the ongoing war is not just about Ukraine; it is also a message to the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Would any of those countries ever consider allying with the West? Knowing the risks, probably not. Still, even closer ties with the West, far short of an alliance, would likely be met with opposition from Moscow.
Before yesterday’s talks in Berlin, President Zelensky offered to drop Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, and after the talks, special envoy Steve Witkoff said, “a lot of progress was made.”
“Peace in Ukraine,” with Russia’s slow but ongoing advance on the battlefield and Washington’s search for a “deal” between the parties, perhaps one also between Russia and the US, will likely remain the top international agenda item in 2026, and an “uncomfortable” peace deal may not be too far off.
President Trump often says that the Russia-Ukraine war would not have started had he been at the White House. Could a Ukrainian commitment not to join NATO have prevented the war? With additional Russia-West understandings on European security, perhaps history could have been written differently. Ukraine’s four-year journey, from enjoying Mr. Biden’s generous military support to coming under Mr. Trump’s pressure for a deal, is a sad one.
The war in Ukraine, continuing European military support to Kyiv, and the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions have led to speculation about a Russia-NATO military conflict, with reference to possible Russian provocations in the Baltic.
On December 2, 2025, an hour before meeting with Mr. Trump’s Special Envoy Witkoff and son-in-law Kushner, President Putin answered questions from the media. Regarding the risks of a wider armed conflict in Europe, he said:
“We are not planning to go to war against Europe. I have said that a hundred times. But if Europe wants to wage a war against us and suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready. There should be no doubt about that.”
Despite uncertainties in Russia-West relations, Moscow’s starting a wider military conflict in Europe is unlikely.
First, the invasion of Ukraine has shown the limits of what Russia can achieve in a conventional war in Europe. This could be why, despite continuing civilian casualties, Mr. Putin has mentioned “surgical precision” in Russian military operations in Ukraine, thus threatening that in an all-out war in Europe, this might not be the case.
Second, Russians may support the war in Ukraine, but with so many casualties already, they would not be ready for more.
And third, by the end of the century, Russia’s population is projected to drop to around 126 million from the current 146 million. There is no doubt that Russia, the world’s largest country, sees its population decline as a major problem, perhaps a reason to avoid new conflicts.
Nonetheless, it appears that Russia’s harassment of the northern members of NATO in the form of drone flights and expanded naval presence in the Baltic will continue until a settlement with Ukraine.
As for the war in Gaza, the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel killed about 1,200 people, primarily Israeli citizens. More than 240 people were taken hostage. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 70,000 people have been killed since then, including more than 10,000 women and 20,000 children. Gaza has been reduced to rubble.
The West, led by Washington, has stood solidly behind the Netanyahu government. As the IDF kept pounding Gaza, some European countries gradually started expressing their opposition to Israel’s military campaigns, but that was mostly public relations.
During the first sixteen months of the Gaza conflict, President Biden, who has never missed an opportunity to highlight his unmatched knowledge and expertise in international affairs, was at the White House.
In a recent guest essay titled, “This Is the Story of How the Democrats Blew It on Gaza”, Mr. Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under President Obama, said the following:
“During the Biden presidency, it was short-handed the “hug Bibi” strategy — the idea that smothering Mr. Netanyahu with unconditional support would give the U.S. leverage to influence his actions. Over the final 15 months of the Biden presidency, this approach led the White House to provide a flood of weapons for Israel’s bombardment of Palestinians, veto United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire, attack the International Criminal Court for pursuing charges against Mr. Netanyahu, ignore its own policies about supporting military units credibly accused of war crimes and blame Hamas for not accepting cease-fire terms that the Israeli government was also rejecting.
“… And in an age of authoritarianism, fealty to an Israeli strongman who routinely humiliated them made Democrats appear weak: Mr. Netanyahu was hugged all the way into the arms of Donald Trump.”[i]
Now, at least, there is a fragile ceasefire in Gaza. However, the future remains unpromising. Israeli attacks on Gaza are continuing. In October, a bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of land which Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament. Israel’s settlement surge and settler violence in the West Bank are displacing Palestinians, confirming my impression that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s goal could be to push the Gazans into a small stretch of the Strip in the south, move the West Bank Palestinians there as well, persuade Egypt to cede more land beyond the Rafah crossing, and then say, “There it is, your State of Palestine.”
The recently published US “National Security Strategy” (NSS) says, “We want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the ‘forever wars’ that bogged us down in that region at great cost.”[ii]
Yet, the war in Gaza and developments in Syria are likely to keep Washington “bogged down” in the region.
With President Trump at the White House, 2025 began as a testing year for transatlantic relations. With the release of the NSS and Mr. Trump’s comments over the past ten days, it may be remembered as “the year of crisis.”
Mr. Trump and his “Team of Three” (Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth) have ignored European countries’ appeals for joint action based on closer consultation.
The NSS says that although the US has looked at European challenges in the context of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation, Europe’s real problems are even deeper.
Under the heading “Promoting European Greatness”, the paper mentions the undermining of political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence as Europe’s problems. “Should present trends continue,” it adds, “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
Those references have immediately been interpreted as Washington’s support for the European far-right.
Furthermore, the NSS states that the US will engage in an effort “to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.” In other words, Mr. Trump will mediate to resolve NATO/EU differences with Russia.
In international relations, mediation efforts are usually undertaken by impartial third parties.
What is not stated openly but implicit in the wording of NSS, beyond the public criticism directed by Mr. Trump at European leaders, is Europe’s leadership problem. Looking back at the founding fathers of the European Union and the US presidents who contributed to Western security, Europeans may also feel unhappy with the current Western leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.
The NSS then mentions the following principles, among others, that Washington’s broad policy for Europe should prioritize:
“Enabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including by taking primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any adversarial power;
“Ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance…”
Following the publication of the document, “The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision,” said the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
In brief, President Trump is asking European countries to provide for their own defense, with the US commitment under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty remaining in place. Thus, European countries have three years, until the end of Mr. Trump’s second term, to prepare for a transformed transatlantic relationship, depending also on who succeeds him. Where the UK and Türkiye would be in this endeavor would be interesting to watch.
At this point, the European Three still appear to “rally behind Ukraine”, but all those expressions of continuing support and the hugs with President Zelensky are theatre. European leaders are mostly interested in maximizing the “security guarantees” that Washington may provide Kyiv, rather than its loss of territory. They also wish to spend less on Ukraine. Their plans to use Russia’s frozen assets to help Kyiv fund its military and economy will only add another dimension to the EU-Russia conflict.
As before, over the past year, China has continued to emphasize multilateralism, a multipolar world, respect for international law, and the UN, which it calls “the banner of multilateralism.” Beijing has repeatedly stated that international rules must be based on international law, created by all, with no room for exceptionalism. Its foreign policy public discourse remains much more stable.
Mr. Trump’s positive attitude towards Russia is essentially linked to its competition with China, which Washington sees as a top priority. Yet, the Russian Foreign Ministry, following the talks between Mr. Lavrov and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Moscow in early December, stated that the two sides noted overlapping or close positions on all key bilateral and international issues, which serves as a foundation for the stable and positive dynamics of the Russia-China strategic partnership, regardless of the complex geopolitical environment.
It appears that China and the US will remain fully engaged in economic competition while trying to prevent open conflict.
President Trump’s quest for the Nobel Peace Prize is well-known. However, his recent escalation against Venezuela’s President Maduro and the ongoing attacks on so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, along with the legal justifications provided, are becoming problematic. The NSS states that the US “… will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”
Should that corollary lead to another regime change project, it will be the last nail in the coffin for Washington’s claim to the so-called “rules-based international order” and encourage Moscow and Beijing to come up with their own “corollaries”. Last week, South Korea lodged a complaint with China and Russia about airspace violations.
As for Türkiye, I concluded my last review of the year with the following: “For Türkiye, 2024 was a difficult year, but with the continuing economic downturn, 2025 would prove a bigger challenge.”
Was that foretelling? No, it was stating the obvious.
For Türkiye, 2025 has been another year of political and economic decline.
The separation of powers, the foundation of democratic rule, is no longer with us.
The country remains polarized on multiple fronts.
In foreign policy, our top problems are Syria’s future and managing an extremely hostile relationship with Israel, not only over Gaza but Syria as well.
December 8, 2025, marked the first anniversary of President Assad’s ejection from power. On December 17, 2024, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Türkiye had successfully convinced Russia and Iran not to intervene militarily in Syria during the Syrian opposition factions’ offensive, which led to his fall.[iii] However, the US and Israel intervened.
Despite their partnership in the ouster of President Assad, Ankara and Tel Aviv are now on opposite ends. Ankara wants a unified Syria, whereas Tel Aviv, supported by Washington, is after a divided, cantonized country.
Emboldened by total US support since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, the ouster of President Assad, and the US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mr. Netanyahu now sees himself as the regional hegemon.
Israel and Türkiye do not share borders, but they are now neighbors in Syria. Until the early 2000s, the two countries maintained a stable and friendly relationship. Today, their relationship is adversarial.
The White House is reportedly looking to broker a summit between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Egyptian el-Sissi. Another Trump initiative for an Erdoğan-Netanyahu summit would not be a surprise.
In brief, we are in conflict with both the US and Israel over Syria.
Regarding the state of our economy, the decline of the Turkish lira speaks volumes. Currently, the two-hundred-Turkish-lira note is the highest-value Turkish banknote; it is worth less than the five-euro note, the lowest-value EU banknote.
The middle class is gone. Under the high double-digit inflation, people cannot make a living on the minimum wage.
In conclusion, Türkiye is facing serious challenges on both the domestic and international fronts. If there is a will, a quick return to democracy can help solve these problems by ensuring national unity, so crucial in times of external challenges. After all, what the AKP government needs to do is to reinstate the jailed mayors, dismiss the trustees, and release all imprisoned party leaders and parliament members.
“After all, as wise people say, ‘foreign policy begins at home,’ and one cannot claim a foreign triumph against the background of domestic chaos.”[iv]
[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/opinion/democrats-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U8.dr5K.a8AR8fKI2XAs&smid=em-share
[ii] https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/national-security/
[iii] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241217-turkiye-we-convinced-russia-iran-to-avoid-military-intervention-for-assad/
[iv] Vladislav M. Zubok, “Collapse, The Fall of the Soviet Union”, (Yale University Press, 2022) 6.
