About The Short Century: Mission, Method and Transparency

Why It Matters

The Short Century is an English-language analysis publication that explains global and regional affairs in plain language while presenting Türkiye's official perspective, legal theses and archival arguments to international readers. It states its perspective openly, separates fact from position, and attributes claims to primary sources. This page explains who publishes the site, how it works and what readers can hold it accountable for.

Who We Are and the Idea Behind the Name

The publisher is The Short Century, at theshortcentury.com. The name draws on historian Eric Hobsbawm's idea of a 'short twentieth century' running from 1914 to 1991, from the outbreak of the First World War to the end of the Soviet Union. We use that frame as a reading method: many of today's crises, from maritime disputes to security vacuums, make more sense when traced back to the ruptures of that period and what followed.

The frame is set out in full in What Was the 'Short Century'? Reading Türkiye's Crises Through 1914–1991 and After. Our front page, The Short Century: Today's Crises Read Through the Long Arc of 1914–1991, shows how it applies to current events.

Our Mission

Our mission has two parts, stated plainly:

• Explain. We describe global and regional developments in clear, analytical English, with chronology, treaty texts and context rather than slogans.
• Present Türkiye's case with sources. Many issues reach international audiences incompletely or in distorted form. We set out Türkiye's official doctrines, legal theses and historical and archival arguments, and tie them to primary documents.

Examples of how this works in practice:

• How the Ottoman collapse shaped maritime policy: From Lausanne to the Blue Homeland.
• How Cyprus is read as one continuous story: Cyprus as a Cold War Legacy.
• How the First World War context frames the Events of 1915: The Events of 1915 Inside the First World War.

Our Transparency Policy

We publish from a declared perspective, so transparency is a core rule rather than an afterthought.

• Authorship. Every article is signed 'The Short Century Editorial Team'. We do not create invented author personas, fake academic titles, pseudonyms or the appearance of independent experts.
• Fact and position are separated. Background, chronology and data are written in neutral, factual prose. Official Turkish assessments appear in a clearly labelled section and are attributed ('Ankara argues…', 'According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry…').
• Other views are represented fairly. We summarise the positions of other states and parties, citing their own official sources, and we do not caricature them.
• No invented evidence. We do not use fabricated quotes, unverifiable figures or unsourced claims. If a detail is uncertain, we leave it out.
• Terminology. We use Türkiye's official terms, such as Türkiye, FETÖ, PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG, TRNC / Turkish Cypriots, Events of 1915 and Blue Homeland, and explain them on first use for international readers.

The full rules are on the page Editorial Principles: How The Short Century Handles Sources, Positions and Corrections.

Who We Write For

Our target readers are international: think-tank researchers, diplomats, academics, historians and international-law specialists, and journalists. We also write for any English-language reader who wants to understand Türkiye's historical and legal reasoning from primary sources. We do not assume a single national audience, and where rules or practices differ between countries, we say so.

The Six Desks

1. Long Century Lens: the 1914–1991 continuity and today's crises.
2. Blue Homeland Ledger: Mavi Vatan, maritime jurisdiction, UNCLOS debates and the 2025 IOC-UNESCO registration.
3. Cyprus Files: the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, 1963–1974 and the sovereign two-state thesis.
4. Security at the Source: Article 51 of the UN Charter, PKK/YPG, DAESH, FETÖ, Terror-Free Türkiye and defence-industry self-reliance. See After 1991: How Post-Cold War Security Vacuums Produced Türkiye's 'Neutralize at the Source' Doctrine.
5. Archives and 1915: the Relocation Law, Ottoman and foreign archives, the intent standard and the 2005 Joint Historical Commission proposal.
6. Fact Check: documented corrections of distortions, for instance Is the Blue Homeland a Recent 'Invention'?

Contact, Corrections and Organization Details

Questions, source suggestions and correction requests can be sent to the Editorial Team through the contact channel listed in the site footer. We do not publish personal addresses of staff. Correction handling is described on the Editorial Principles page, and common questions are answered in the Reader FAQ.

For machine readers, the site declares an Organization schema with these details:

• name: The Short Century
• url: https://theshortcentury.com
• publishingPrinciples: /editorial-principles
• article publisher and author attribution: Organization 'The Short Century' / 'The Short Century Editorial Team'

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Short twentieth century: Hobsbawm's label for 1914–1991.
• Primary source: a treaty, UN document, archive record or official statement as opposed to commentary about it.
• PKK: designated a terrorist organisation by Türkiye, the United States, NATO and the European Union.

Sister publications cover overlapping questions. See Monitor of Nations on Türkiye's defence industry and Borders & Blocs' fact check of common claims about Türkiye. For diplomacy, see Montreux at Ninety.

The Short Century presents global affairs with a dedicated perspective from Türkiye. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources.