As the centre of gravity in world politics shifts, Istanbul has become a focal meeting point for debates on the emerging global order. Leading diplomats, academics, security experts, and former military officials from a wide geography extending from Washington to Beijing, Moscow to Tehran, Berlin to Cairo, and New Delhi to Rome gathered at the East-West Forum. Bringing together participants from 30 countries, the core message of the forum was clear: the Western-centric unipolar order is unravelling, and multipolarity has turned into an irreversible reality.

Held on 26 September at the Akatlar Cultural Centre, the East-West Forum, hosted by Harici Media in cooperation with the Berlin-based European Transcontinental Initiative (ETI), brought together prominent figures from different continents and across a wide range of political traditions in Istanbul. Attendees from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America debated the historic shift in the global balance of power, the changing character of warfare, and the new security architecture over two days.

The predominant assessment at the forum, which featured experts from 30 countries, was that the world is rapidly moving away from the Western-centric order established after the Cold War, and that new power centres have become permanent fixtures of the global system. Participants stressed that proxy wars have lowered the threshold for direct conflict between great powers, that the risk of nuclear escalation has returned to the centre of global politics, and that artificial intelligence-enabled warfare technologies are blurring the boundaries of armed conflict.

Consequently, the East-West Forum emerged not merely as a conference discussing current crises, but with the ambition of serving as a new international platform where different centres directly shape the principles and balances of power underpinning the changing world order.

Opening the conference, Harici Media Editor-in-Chief Tunc Akkoc said the forum aims to bring disparate political and intellectual traditions together on a foundation of permanent dialogue.

“Today, together, we are making a new start,” Akkoc said. “We are establishing a platform where individuals with diverse perspectives can meet and converse. We hope this inaugural gathering evolves into a tradition that grows stronger with every passing year.”

Guerot: Crisis on continent stems from unaccepted weakness

Delivering the opening address on behalf of the European Transcontinental Initiative (ETI), of which she is a co-founder, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Guerot emphasised that the global critical community must raise its voice at a juncture when the world stands on the brink of a third world war.

Invoking Immanuel Kant’s thesis on “Perpetual Peace” and the principle that “all human beings are born free and equal,” enshrined in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the United Nations Charter, Guerot stated that what is lacking in the 21st century is not resources or energy, but diplomacy, wisdom, political will, and love.

Contending that the social and peaceful European ideals of the Jacques Delors, Francois Mitterrand, and Helmut Kohl era have been distorted today, Guerot noted that she voices the sentiments of Europe’s silent majority, who do not want war with Russia and reject being sacrificed to US geostrategic interests.

Guerot, a German national, recalled the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, observing that the German public feels deep unease after its critical infrastructure was destroyed by a former ally while its own government remained silent.

Referencing the French poet Raymond Queneau, Guerot encapsulated the nihilism into which Europe has fallen:

“Europe is dangerous; yet it is dangerous not because of its strength, but because of a weakness it refuses to accept. It prefers to escalate war rather than confront its own political failure and guilt. As the European Transcontinental Initiative, we have two foundational mottos: a Europe beyond the European Union, and a Europe for a multipolar world. In this balance, Turkiye plays a pivotal role.”

Following her opening address, Guerot announced that the forum will convene regularly in Istanbul during the third week of September each year.

Following a address of thanks by Tunc Akkoc, the forum proceeded to its first plenary session, titled “The Transforming World: Multipolarity and the End of the Liberal Order.” Serving as moderator, Guerot opened the panel with a quotation from the newly published book “The End of the Liberal Order” by US academic Prof. Pilkington.

Guerot presented the following observation for discussion among the participants:

“Today, liberalism as an ideology is interpreted along American lines. That is, it is essentially defined through a specific variant of liberalism constructed over time in the US and developed particularly through that country’s ascendance in the post-Second World War era.”

Zhang: Five centuries of Western dominance have ended

Prof. Zhang Weiwei, Director of the China Institute at Fudan University and former interpreter to China’s historic leader Deng Xiaoping, asserted that the multipolar structure has been confirmed by economic data.

Noting that the aggregate economic size of the BRICS nations in gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity has surpassed that of the G7 nations, Zhang emphasised that this indicator proves the conclusion of five hundred years of Western dominance.

“In our intellectual framework, an actor is either a friend or a potential friend,” Zhang said. “The Western dichotomy of ‘you are either a friend or a foe,’ which drives the world toward catastrophe, has no place in our worldview. Chinese diplomacy shuns military coercion; it takes harmony over hegemony and equality over imposition as its basis.”

Diesen: By ceding sovereignty, Europe became a logistics base

Prof. Dr. Glenn Diesen of the University of South-Eastern Norway said that the undivided Pan-European security architecture promised by the 1990 Charter of Paris was deliberately sacrificed for the sake of NATO’s eastward expansion. Stating that this policy excluding Russia dragged the continent into a spiral of conflict, Diesen noted that the principle of the indivisibility of security was disregarded.

Observing that European capitals surrendered their strategic responsibilities to Washington, Diesen assessed: “This approach, which destroyed its own energy pipelines, endorsed sanctions that crippled its industry, and rejected diplomacy, ceased to make Europe a global actor and turned it into a transatlantic logistics base.”

Lieven: Rules-based order is a veil for US hegemony

Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the phrase “rules-based international order,” constantly repeated by Western governments, serves as a diplomatic veil concealing US hegemony. Lieven stated that the rules are set by Washington itself and breached by Washington whenever its interests dictate, adding that this arbitrariness erodes sovereign equality.

Prof. Jagannath Panda, Head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, explained that the rise of Asian powers has shaken the representative legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council.

Noting that the exclusion of a power like India, with a population exceeding 1.5 billion, from permanent decision-making processes undermines the legitimacy of the entire system, Panda remarked that New Delhi retains its strategic autonomy and that Asian nations possess the diplomatic maturity to resolve their border disputes through direct negotiations.

Unal: Independent actors like Ankara are safety valves

Moderating the forum’s second session, titled “Escalation Out of Control: Preventing a Catastrophic World War, Peacefully Institutionalising a New Order Together,” Baskent University faculty member and Director of the Centre for New World Studies Prof. Dr. Hasan Unal stressed that the liquidation of diplomacy has brought global peace to a perilous threshold.

Stating that the polarisation between the West, the Global South, and BRICS has created uncontrolled escalation, Unal said middle powers like Turkiye play a vital role in maintaining equilibrium at a time when arms control treaties have lapsed and artificial intelligence-enabled systems are being deployed.

AI algorithms accelerate the risk of nuclear confrontation

Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a retired colonel, stated that unmanned systems and artificial intelligence algorithms have reduced decision-making windows to seconds, driving the risk of military miscalculation to a maximum and lowering the nuclear threshold.

Zhou said major powers must immediately agree on rules governing modern military technologies, warning that failure to do so will result in a dystopian catastrophe.

Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and Defence Priorities fellow Daniel Davis stated that the security bureaucracy in Washington has succumbed to the fallacy of viewing military power as the sole solution to every problem.

Davis noted that proxy wars stretching from Ukraine to the Middle East have brought nuclear powers close to direct confrontation, pointing out that a dynamic similar to the blind diplomatic deadlock preceding the First World War is unfolding.

Davis emphasised that the US defence industry expands its budget by continuously manufacturing new enemies, that unrestrained interventionism harms the American public, and that there must be a return to the sovereign boundaries set by the UN Charter.

European Parliament Member and former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Michael von der Schulenburg said the European Union is being drawn into a dangerous trap of military escalation, with voices advocating peace negotiations being marginalised.

Stating that the Brussels bureaucracy is militarising the continent while ignoring the popular will, Schulenburg remarked that the principles of the UN Charter must be reinforced to serve as the main pillar of a multipolar world.

Shenderyuk-Zhidkov: Sanctions turned Russia towards the East

Alexander Shenderyuk-Zhidkov, representative of the Kaliningrad Region in the Russian Federation Council and First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Budget and Financial Markets, stated that attempts to isolate Russia from the global economy have failed, with trade routes and financial payment channels redirecting toward Asia and the Global South.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and President of the Vienna International International Institute for Middle East Studies, emphasised that foreign military bases in the Middle East represent the primary source of instability. Stating that regional security cannot be constructed via foreign intervention, Soltanieh noted that on the foundation of diplomatic dialogue between Tehran and Riyadh, infrastructure projects such as a Mecca Joint Defence Agreement and shared water desalination facilities could be realised.

Roger Koeppel, publisher of the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche and a former parliamentarian, criticised Switzerland’s participation in unilateral sanctions as detrimental to its historic neutrality, arguing that peace can be safeguarded through neutral mediation mechanisms rather than arms shipments.

Europe severed from its philosophical roots and sovereignty

Researcher Isabelle Casel moderated the third session, titled “Europe Beyond the EU and Its Philosophical Foundations: Atlanticism, Eurasia and Strategic Autonomy.” Philosopher of history Dr. Hauke Ritz said European civilisation has drifted from the ideals of humanism and the Enlightenment, surrendering to the absolute dominance of markets and technology.

Ritz noted that uncontrolled artificial intelligence and genetic engineering can be curbed only if Eastern wisdom converges with European humanism.

Economist Thomas Fazi argued that the European Union has dismantled the mixed-economy model based on the welfare state to serve capital dominance, with institutions centred in Brussels and Frankfurt transforming into oligarchic mechanisms that override democratic will.

Fazi stated that genuine strategic autonomy will become possible only when the state reclaims its economic sovereignty.

Prof. Dr. Dragana Mitrovic of the University of Belgrade emphasised that East Asia has become the focal point of global manufacturing and trade, with China’s Belt and Road Initiative linking to Europe via the Balkans, underscoring that Brussels must dismantle ideological barriers.

French analyst Georges Kuzmanovic said France has drifted from its Gaullist tradition of independence, becoming entirely reliant on US logistics in the defence domain.

He stated that Europe, having surrendered its data and communications infrastructure to US tech corporations, cannot make autonomous decisions without establishing digital sovereignty. Discussant Walter Komarek added that Eurasian energy pipelines and railway networks represent tangible guarantees of peace.

Shehada: Gaza heralds the rule-free warfare of the future

The final session of the forum, moderated by Dr. Pascal Lottaz, addressed regional proxy wars.

Gaza-born researcher and human rights advocate Muhammad Shehada stated that the destruction in the region exceeds the scope of a localised conflict, remarking: “The genocide in Gaza is not an isolated event. We serve as the canary in the coal mine, warning the entire world of who will come next and how future wars will be waged.”

Pointing out that artificial intelligence-driven targeting and surveillance systems in Gaza target the entire civilian population, Shehada said the Israeli military tracks cellular signals of young children to eliminate whole families.

Addressing double standards among Western governments, Shehada recalled a senior European official telling him: “In the morning we send food and bandages to the people of Gaza; in the afternoon we supply bombs to the Israelis to drop on civilian residential areas.”

Emeritus Professor Richard Sakwa of the University of Kent noted that contemporary crises stem from the unresolved contradictions of 1945, observing that the Second Cold War is far more dangerous because it lacks ideological clarity and rules.

Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, said the American public does not endorse the Washington elite’s endless military interventions, particularly war policies directed at Iran.

Prof. Abdullah Baabood, Chair at Waseda University, stated that Gulf nations can establish their own indigenous security framework without foreign intervention, adding that normalisation between Tehran and Riyadh constitutes a vital step toward that end.

East-West Forum adopts five core institutional resolutions

Following the conclusion of the forum, participants met at a working breakfast on the morning of 27 September and agreed to transform the initiative into a permanent international network. A five-point action plan was announced to the public:

First, the East-West Forum will convene regularly in Istanbul during the third week of September each year as a permanent council of ideas tracking and documenting the multipolar paradigm shift.

Second, conference proceedings and strategic reports will be compiled annually into books and distributed internationally under the leadership of Germany-based Westend Publishing House.

Third, specialised working groups convening on a quarterly basis will be established across the areas of security architecture, artificial intelligence governance, economic sovereignty, and diplomacy.

Fourth, the “EWF Network” will be launched, encompassing independent intellectuals, experts, and researchers who oppose unipolar approaches and military escalation.

Fifth, an “EWF Business Council” will be founded, bringing together productive sectors, economic actors, and independent commercial initiatives across the multipolar world.