Abstract:

The tremors experienced in international relations since 1989 have significantly altered political geography of Eurasia, sweeping away the international system that had been built up över may years. The sudden emergence of Central Asian and Caucasian states caught both the local populations and the world at large unprepared for the event. The fact that no majör empire has dissolved in this century without their successor states undergoing civil wars or regional conflicts made the occasion more dramatic. Even in those newly independent states, which so far avoided unrest and conflicts, the competition between various outside povvers for influence, threatened widespread disagreements, hostility, and possible armed interventions, There is a need for a new broader and more flexible analytical model for the former Soviet Central Asia and the Cacasus. This paper, in addition to suggesting an alternative geopolitical framevvork for analysis, vvill also try to identify the sources of unrest and possible threats to the stability of the region. And finally, mechanisms for diffusing at least some of the controversies and threats vvill be discussed vvithin the context of the prospects avvaiting the region in the mid-long term.

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