What was absent from last Thursday’s televised debate between the two U.S. presidential candidates was the foreign policy discussion.

The references made to Russia, China, and Iran were made in the context of the influence that these countries have on the elections, and not in the context of foreign policy.

This is, in part, the result of the isolationism – ‘America first’ – that President Trump proclaimed regarding the United States’ role on the international stage, where its presence in international organizations is shrinking steadily.

There were only a few observers that noted the omission(s) and pointed out the 'hot' issues in the world that the two candidates should have addressed. One of these few was Roger Cohen, a leading New York Times commentator who usually writes from Europe. In his column a few days ago, he listed 25 areas of crisis around the world and some keywords that were not mentioned in the discussion, from Syria to the word ‘alliance.’

However, there was one critical point that was missing from Cohen’s list: the Greek-Turkish crisis – the almost daily provocation of the encroachment on the national sovereignty of one NATO member state by another, which can lead to a military clash between the two countries.

This is disturbing for us Greek-Americans.