and my colleague Alexander Gabor has a piece in

Financial Times today explaining why it happens because you want to disrupt networks and weapons facilities that provide material for the battlefront for the Ukrainian military to also retaliate because Russia is taking a lot of casualties because of European weapons but Finally, to demoralize publics.

And it seems to me that at least in the German context, those attacks don't sway public opinion.

Either way, the anti-Russian or Russian skeptic more mainstream forces haven't gained anything from it.

But they're arguing that we are in harm's way because if we escalate, Russia will strike back.

And therefore, what I argued in the piece is that in the short term, Russia is having a free hand because there is not enough attention.

But in the long term, it might turn that weapon into an even more potent instrument because it will stalk of fears of escalation and give actually some credence to that discourse that a peaceful settlement is better than undeclared war, which takes toll on civilians and infrastructure as well.

What stands out to you about this? And do you think that this maybe could be a larger problem when it comes to Europe addressing Russia than, you know, even a wave of far-right parties gaining momentum?

So would you say that is an accurate observation? Do you also think, you know, Turkey is actually, and Erdogan himself, is a less exceptional case than it was maybe 10, 15 years ago?

I do agree, actually, and I won't talk about the world as a whole because there's a lot of diversity and regions vary in constellations.

But zoom in on Europe, you have a number of other smaller companies and less consequential that are trying to do precisely what Erdogan does.

I've written about Serbia and Georgia.

the differences with Turkey, but some of the external behavior, maybe even internal dynamics are not that much dissimilar from the autocratization, multi-vector foreign policy.

But at the same time, trying to deepen the bits of relationship you have with that are beneficial to you economically or politically to gain access.

So Turkey is hardly an outlier.

I mean, how should the EU respond to that? How should other Western countries look towards that? What do you think when you project ahead to those kind of scenarios?

Shouldn't we be, well, let's say, choosing one of these competitors over the other when it comes to the game they're trying to play? Because clearly Russia is the biggest headache, but the other two, in your description, doesn't seem to be such a big problem.

Yes, I mean, it's really important to differentiate as well because they often do political 10,000 feet about the ground analysis.

Many specificities get conflated.

I do want to convey this message with the book.

In fact, I've tried to explain context in each of the cases and go back into the past that shapes the current relationship with Europe, quote unquote.

And To your question about what we should do, we are definitely doing it already.

Think about Turkey again.

We need to do a lot of compromises looking at this, but where is the one focus I need to defend, I need to stay on?

Can you just, uh, hash out your argument that you make in the book and, um, maybe how it's changing in the current moment with regional conflicts in Iran and Ukraine?

So before I get to Turkey, let's spell out in two sentences the general argument, uh, which is that all those three countries, as different as they are, have undergone a change.

They have turned the tables on Europe or the European order.

Um, in the good old days, they used to be on the receiving end, um, and now they are reshaping the situation in Europe or the balance of power, the institutions, and the norms around the European regional order.

Uh, but of course, the difference is that Russia wants to smash things up.

Uh, it might not have the capacity, but it has the intent.

Um, China has the capacity but wants to make Europe dependent on its economic, um, system and, uh, then benefit politically from dependency.

So I'm wondering right now, if Europeans deepen reliance on Turkey's military weight and the Erdoğan government, which many people say provides stability in this unstable moment, is there a risk that these deepened cooperations could keep Erdoğan or the AKP around for another four decades?