Barış Pınarı

The book’s frame is geopolitical before it is operational. It opens not in Syria but on the Eastern Mediterranean: the importance of geopolitics, the question of endless war, the gas-pipeline alignment between Israel, Greek Cyprus, Greece and Italy, and why Turkey changed its Eastern Mediterranean policy. Only then does it move to the ground.

Its argument about method is stated early and bluntly: do not make grand pronouncements on current politics, and do not become a sharp partisan, without first going deep on the geopolitical questions. Humanity conducts an unwearying power struggle, and it conducts it on geopolitical foundations; those who cannot move power into the field in time, or use diplomacy at the scale the age demands, fall behind, and opportunists occupy the space they vacate.

What follows is a chronological account written close to the events: Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch, the road to Sochi, the Astana process, the quarrel with Washington over the YPG, American observation posts on the border, the withdrawal decision and its reversal, Idlib, the safe zone, the joint operations center, and then the operation itself. Running underneath it: a gray-zone conflict between two NATO allies, the question of whether the subject is really terrorism, the legitimacy of the American position, and Turkey’s survival strategy as the organizing thread.