Turkish referendum among the Top 10 risks

The official report of this year's 53th Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17-19 was titled "Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?"

That in itself explains a lot about explorations in the field of security and diplomacy under the new global circumstances symbolized by the election of Donald Trump as the president of the U.S.

The report includes a list of risks facing the world in 2017 published by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk analysis foundation. The list does not include crises that have already broken like the Syrian civil war, the NATO-Russia confrontation over Ukraine and the Baltics, or the threat posed by terrorism. But it does list the factors that have the potential to further destabilize global balances, including special mention for Turkey:

1- Independent America: Trump will use U.S. power overwhelmingly to advance U.S. interests with little concern for the broader impact. He is a unilateralist rather than an isolationist, and there will likely be a hawkish U.S. policy regarding China, while allies in Europe and Asia hedge their bets.

2-China Overreacts: Faced with the risk of being criticized at the Communist Party congress in the fall, Chinese President Xi Jinping might want to try to look stronger, which might strain ties with the U.S.

3- A Weaker Merkel: Strong leadership from Germany's Angela Merkel will face more challenges in 2017 from the French elections, Greece's financial trouble, Brexit negotiations, and thorny relations with Russia and Turkey. Merkel is likely to win the German election in the fall but will still emerge as a weakened leader.

4- No Reform: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accomplished as much...