1. CONCEPT OF THE CONFERENCE

A two-year length pandemic reminded us how vulnerable humankind is. The degradation of nature added another brick to the catastrophe of Pandemic losses under the shade of ongoing conflicts. In his sense, natural disasters have challenged the sustainability of the global ‘system’ under the impacts of, for instance, flash floods, wildfires, contamination of soil – water - air, or heat waves. On the other hand, there was an expectation that conflicts would give a break to facilitate a collective responsibility for the sake of human and humanity’s security. Unfortunately, the conflicts continued almost at the same momentum pushing back the needs of the deprived.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction argues in its Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction that “Our World is at risk!” with a demand for transformation in the systems and subsystems. In this sense, the concern and justification of such a motto was the series of disasters despite humankind having a hope of concluding the COVID crisis management. The devastated international order still continues to mend the impact of the pandemics, though; the shock waves of economic recession and natural disasters challenged the efforts of restoring the political and economic order. Nevertheless, the impact of such a tense period is still at large. Commodity prices, for instance, touched the peak in two years while the responsibility of state actors for providing service to their publics identified their governmental or regime continuity. In other words, a proceeding of biological ‘disaster’ impacted both societal, psychological and political attitudes of individuals and communal entities shaping their collective behaviours.

Given the fact that “there has been a rise in climate-related disasters during the past 20 years”, the inclination of disputes and concurrent conflicts did not lose its tempo, at least, to build a united and resilient stance against the consequences of them. In this sense, the conflicts in Syria and Libya continued during the pandemic while the density of them resonated pending to global, regional and internal dynamics that made them protracted disputes. Furthermore, the coup d’états, for instance, in African countries, sustained their momentum. On the other hand, the significant escalation was the Russian aggression on Ukraine that the traditional and post-modern reading of peace and conflict confused the scholars.

Russian declaration of ‘special operations’ in Ukraine, which was a ‘not-declared’ war to another state, mixed the old and new, regular and irregular, symmetric and asymmetric, conventional and unconventional modes of conduct. The imperial and nationalist interpretation of challenging the order has been revisited by Putin while proxy and hybrid warfare persisted to repel the Russian forces.

As the war has become a protracted one, two sorts of concerns spared the efforts of states and international organizations. The lessons learnt from the conflict reminded that a Euro-Atlantic war is still a probability that has the potential to cover the whole globe. Weapons of mass destruction, the primary strategic capacity of Russia, alarmed the bells in the western capitals, while the impacts of the war affected the lives of individuals and societies other than the politico-military calculations of the state actors.

In this sense, the agenda for the leaders are not only the military proceeding of the war but the collateral issues in question. In this context, energy has been the top priority in the circulations of media. But food security became a concern, especially for underdeveloped and developing countries. Furthermore, the global economy and countries’ economic performance, which is already strained by the impacts of the pandemics, negatively escalated due to increasing inflations and the risk of recession despite the pandemics and natural disaster still expand its impact on the healthy continuity of societal order and economy.

Russia’s strategy of ‘burning all, if Russia burns’ posed a multiplying effect on poverty, famine, shrinking in living standards. If a 1929-like economic crisis erupts, which is still a probability, another great war will be a likely course to build a new order reminding the repetition of war history. All in all, the epistemic community need to portray and interpret what is proceeding globally and regionally at least to increase the consciousness of the global community to prevent a destructive wide-scale war.

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT OF THE CONFERENCE

This Conference is designed to delving the comprehensive reading of international politics, newly emerging sort of (in) stability, and mainly the economic outcomes of post-pandemic era and consequences under the clout of natural disasters, revisited by the Cold War-sort of conflicts with its (post)modern modus operandi of it. In this sense the question “Where does the globe travelling after the impacts of environmental degradation, (affiliated or not) natural disasters, and conflicts?” will be discussed. The Conference will also cover what/how ‘must’ be done to prevent further grievances if the negative impacts of these inputs are concerned.

3. MODUS OPERANDI

The Conference will have two-panel sessions; either being physically attended in each venue of the participating organizations or through virtual meetings. Each panel will have a moderator and panellists will present their proceedings for distinguished scholars' critiques, comments, or contributions. The language of the Conference is English. The partnering organizations will arrange their attendance and administrative issues in coordination with the Conference Committee.

The speakers are kindly requested to send the summary or main points of their remarks as a proceeding. The Coordinating Committee will draft a booklet (with ISBN) prior to the Conference and inform the audience to be prepared for the discussion.

4. THE THEMES OF THE CONFERENCE

(Turkish time zone applies for the panels.)
Keynote Speech: Prof. Türkay Dereli, Rector of Hasan Kalyoncu University
13.00 hrs (Turkish Time)

Panel I. The Impacts of Ukraine War: Economy, Security and Global Governance

TIME	SPEAKER	TOPIC
13.10	Moderator	Opening Remarks
13.15	H.E. Amb. Andreas Reinicke
13.30	Mr. Astrit Istrefi
13.45	Prof. Ahmet Keser	Narratives of the Leaders on the Eve of Conflicts: Comparative Discourse of Putin and Zelensky
14.00	New Strategy Center
14.15 – 14.45	Discussion

Panel II. Collective Response and Security Environment in Future
Moderator:

TIME	SPEAKER	TOPIC
15.00	Moderator	Opening Remarks
15.15	Prof. Heinrich Kreft
15.30	H.E. Jordan Bozhilov	Global World Order and Managing the Current Risks and Threat
15.45	Mr. Vlade Radulovic
16.00	Dr. Murat Aslan	Visualization of Conflicts of the Modern Times
16.00 – 16.30	Discussion

Panel III. Proceedings
Moderator:

TIME	SPEAKER	TOPIC
17.00	Moderator	Opening Remarks
	Assoc. Prof. Ercan Seyhan	Improvised Explosive Devices: Threat Evaluations and Countermeasures in Future Conflicts
	Dr. Pelin Aliyev	The Impact of Ukraine – Russian War on Africa: Food Security
	Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cenker Korhan Demir and Asst. Prof. Dr. Burçin Uluğ	The Clash of Theories in the Context of War in Ukraine: How to Account for Competing Policies of Major Actors?

5. ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES

The Conference will be a hybrid of physical participation with required COVID preventive measures in the venue of each partnered institution and virtual presentation among the capitals. The virtual attendance needs special care for the functionality of their connection, software (ZOOM), and sound checks. The participants must display themselves on the screen during presentations. Technical control may be confirmed one day before the Conference to prevent any possible deficiency.

6. IMPORTANT DATES

Concept Submission to Partners	4 October 2022
Paper Submission	25 October 2022
Peer Review Deadline	30 October 2022
Technical Control of the Conference Conduit	10 November 2022
The Conference	11 November 2022

7. The Conference Board

Prof. Burhaneddin Duran
Prof. Murat Yeşiltaş
Prof. Heinrich Kreft
Amb. Gheorghe Magheru
Assist. Prof. Murat Aslan (Coordinator)
Ms. Helene Rang
Ms. Izel Selim Mr. Benedikt van den Woldenberg

8. Peer Review Committee

Prof. Burhanettin Duran
Prof. Murat Yeşiltaş
Prof. Heinrich Kreft
Prof. Ahmet Keser
Prof. Mazlum Çelik
H.E. Jordan Bozhilov
Amb. Gheorghe Magheru
Assist. Prof. Murat Aslan

9. CONFERENCE COORDINATOR

Assist. Prof. Murat Aslan

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