The year 2018 can be considered a year that will reflect and reveal the current global "great transformation" in many respects. It will be a beginning year in which the U.S. and the EU's current political and economic crisis will intensify and developing countries will start to rise politically and economically. In other words, 2018 will be a year of reorientation, as Andre Gunder Frank says.
No one doubts that the U.S.'s political and economic challenges will peak in 2018 and beyond. The European crisis, on the other hand, has revealed a dynamic that will shatter the EU. This dynamic has three main fronts: Northern Europe headed by Germany, Eastern and Southern Europe and the new fragmentation process that will be formed by the secession of the U.K.
All three dynamics do not in fact want the current state of the EU.
Germany and countries surrounding it, such as the Netherlands, Austria and Brussels, believe that Southern and Eastern Europe will be a burden on them unless they exert their political and economic power there. Therefore, aside from new expansion, they are trying to introduce a new post-Brexit strategy of restraint and recovery.
The southern and eastern blocs, including big European countries such as Italy and Spain, see that German-centric economic policies and the eurozone economy are in a stalemate and that monetary policies based on limited finance and an overvalued euro produce crises for themselves. The former Yugoslavian countries, which Germany crumbled together with NATO, and Eastern Europe have yet to recover in political terms. They are in a very serious economic stalemate.
These countries, once the centers of production and innovation of global industry, are looking for their former wealth. In fact, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel's statement that "the U.K.'s relations and position with the EU in the post-Brexit period may set an example for Turkey" is not only the wish of Germany about Turkey. This is because Germany considers all Eastern European countries, which are not directly in its backyard, to be a burden on itself (the EU), and want a quasi-Brexit processes for them in the upcoming days. This being the case, it is possible to argue that Brexit and the Eastern European crisis will hit Europe's agenda in 2018. In this context, it is also possible to say that Turkey will have healthier political and economic relations with Eastern and Southern Europe in 2018 and beyond.
We are coming to the end of Angela Merkel's rule in Germany. Interestingly, however, German politics cannot produce an alternative to Merkel. This political deadlock will soon have serious economic impacts on Germany. Let us also note that German industry will invest in more profitable and less costly regions in the world, including Turkey, which will be one of the main dynamics of this economic dissolution in Germany and the current disintegration of the EU.
On the other hand, the crisis beyond the ocean is not actually the crisis of the U.S. or Donald Trump. This crisis, which will deepen in 2018 and the following years, is the direct crisis of the political and economic system that the U.S. established in the post-World War II period declaring itself to be the center of the world. I think the U.S. crisis stemming from Trump's "failure to manage" will deepen in 2018, and U.S. isolation will be discussed as a permanent political phenomenon. So, the wings of U.S. state will maintain the power struggle between them in 2018. This dynamic will bring the U.S.'s post-World War II alliances into question, as well as concepts like strategic alliance and NATO.
The U.S. will continue to lose strength and dominance in the Eurasian and Pacific region. This is a natural process, which certainly does not mean the breakdown of the U.S.'s relations with countries like Turkey. This relationship will now be a mutual interest relationship between equals. This, of course, will bring into question Israel's current politics, legitimacy and existence in the Middle East.
We will also see in 2018 that the political powers behind the dollar and the euro, two main reserve currencies, will decline, which will have two consequences in the medium term: First, the local and new global monetary system and their trade system will be shaped as an alternative to the Bretton Woods system. Digital monetary technologies will be on the agenda and develop further.
This whole picture offers golden opportunities for Turkey. Certainly, Turkey will not continue with 20th century economic policies in 2018. We will see quite different approaches toward key issues such as growth, inflation and unemployment like the Credit Guarantee Fund (CGF) that was introduced in 2017. Regulations on monetary and capital markets should be based on priorities that support the new industrial revolution, taking into account inclusive growth.
Turkey will grow by 7 percent or above and spread welfare without creating inflation and current account deficit. If there is a crisis in 2018, this will be for the West as I mentioned above. Now, the West's crisis is permanent, and unless the Eastern bloc, including Turkey, establishes a new world, this crisis will not end.
May 2018 be the year of the oppressed!