Publication details
Russian Grand Strategy? Russia’s Promotion of Armed Conflicts in the South Caucasus
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | SGEM: Political Sciences Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2016HB21 |
| Field | Political sciences |
| Keywords | Grand strategy armed conflicts Russia South Caucasus |
| Description | One of the long-term grand strategic goals of Russia in the South Caucasus region is to keep Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in its zone of “privileged interest” as a satellite states and restrict the penetration of Western power. The implication for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia is the biggest challenge to their security and unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia is reluctant to lose its dominance in the South Caucasus and its military presence in the region is the highest in the last twenty years. Russia’s operationalization of the New-Generation Warfare has demonstrated that the ancient Soviet art of reflexive control can set a dangerous pattern for security architecture in the whole post-Soviet region. The study sheds a light on Russia´s power-projection tools and practices in the armed conflicts of the South Caucasus region after the Russian-Georgian armed conflict in 2008. The finding of this research draws some tentative conclusions about Russian strategy in “frozen” conflicts in the Post-Soviet space, as a tool to keep these states from the NATO and EU membership in future. |