Title suggestion: In energy wars, Turkey to march on against rivals

In 2010, we consumed 138.6 quadrillion calories of energy to maintain our daily lives, produce goods and services, and travel from place to place. This figure is expected to reach 226.8 quadrillion calories in 2050. The International Energy Agency's report published last September pointed to a 50% increase in the minimum energy requirement in 2050 scenarios. On a global scale, the energy needs of the industry are expected to increase by 30% between 2018 and 2050, while the energy requirement of the transportation sector is expected to increase by 40% in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries and by 80% in non-OECD countries.

While renewable energy facilities met 15% of the world's energy demand in 2018, they are expected to meet 28% of the demand in 2050. The same rates will decrease from 32% to 27% for oil and liquid fuels, while natural gas will maintain its share of 22%. The share of coal is expected to decline from 26% to 20%, while the share of nuclear energy is expected to drop to 4% from 5%. Therefore, the claim that fossil fuels will suffer a significant loss in 2050 in terms of meeting the world's energy needs is entirely an "urban legend." In short, the "global energy competition war'" between the Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific, particularly based around the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf, will continue at the same pace.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his team's perseverance and determination transformed Turkey into Eurasia's most critical playmaker in the Global Energy War and made it Europe's most indispensable actor in the field of energy supply security. The historical steps taken by our Ministry of Energy, starting with Hilmi Güler and Taner Yıldız, and especially Berat Albayrak, on domestic-national energy technologies and on the Turkish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, in addition to Fatih Dönmez moving this process forward with great determination, have all carried Turkey as a strong, respected competitor with whom the other actors in the region should strive to cooperate with.

When Turkey and Libya reached a consensus to sign the "Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Restriction of Marine Jurisdiction" under the auspices of Erdoğan and in agreement with the administration of Moammar Gadhafi, we did not forget how France suddenly bombarded Libya on March 19, 2011, with warplanes and disabled Gadhafi.

Today, the fact that Turkey and Libya, with the never-ending energy and perseverance of President Erdoğan, signed the agreement after eight years is a strategic step of historical importance that put off the globalists and a group of politicians, civilian and military bureaucrats in the administrations of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Egypt and Greece. The deal, along with eight main pipelines as part of TurkStream and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), whose Europe connection is finished, has made Turkey an indispensable actor of the global energy game for 2050. Let’s enjoy this, but always work on strategies that will make our position stronger.

China on NATO's radar

The biggest crisis that NATO has fallen into since the second half of the 1990s was the fact that the North Atlantic Alliance no longer had to fight a major threat against its existence. While Russia seemed to be grappling with the severe problems brought about by the political, economic, administrative and military crises it faced after the collapse of the Soviet Union, causing it to lose all the elements that might make it a threat, China, on the other side of Asia, was far below the level that would be perceived as a threat due to a number of economic, political, or military-related issues.

For this reason, Western Europe, which had felt the warm breath of the Soviet threat at its neck, was mostly under the protective umbrella of the U.S. and was also happy with the power and presence of NATO until the mid-1990s. However, in line with the Single Europe Idea, the European Union – which entered into the process of creating a global European power with the Copenhagen and Maastricht Criteria, while expanding to 28 countries with the enlargement decisions in 2004, 2007 and 2013 – revived the dream of creating a European Army by the end of the 1990s, and from 2010 onward, attempted to have it as an important agenda topic within the EU.

The preliminary idea of some EU politicians and opinion leaders was that they no longer needed a NATO dependent on the United States for Europe's security. Therefore, they began to neglect the military spending and investments they had to make under the NATO convention. The U.S. side, on the other hand, had not brought up the issue of EU member states not doing their part, especially under former President Barack Obama, until Donald Trump came to the White House. Trump this week resolved his heavy criticism that EU countries were not fulfilling their obligations toward NATO with the EU countries finally agreeing to commit their budget during the last summit.

The undisputed loser of the NATO Summit is French President Emmanuel Macron. As a result of the decisive stance of President Erdoğan, President Trump and NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg, Macron – who said that "NATO's brain death took place" – signed the declaration with the following statement: NATO is stronger than ever. While Macron thought they Could corner Turkey with the S-400 issue during his meeting with President Trump, Trump’s statement that "the Obama administration has made mistakes" threw the French president a curve. The fact that the S-400 issue wasn’t mentioned in the NATO summit's final declaration was an important indicator of Turkey’s value.

It seems that the U.S. will not allow NATO to weaken. However, if there is a problem among the member states accepting Russia as a threat in order to make NATO's presence meaningful, this has put China on the radar of NATO as a country that needs to be carefully monitored. NATO has created a new agenda for the all-out fight against terrorism and the close monitoring of China and the Asia-Pacific region. The last summit has once again bolstered the indispensability of Turkey for NATO. Let's focus more on our indispensable role between the Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific.