JOURNAL OF CENTRAL EURASIA STUDIES
Year:2012 | Volume:4 | Issue:9|Papers Count:8

The theoretical frameworks of geopolitical knowledge have always been based on territorial realities, and the rational approaches been employed in geopolitical research. Clearly, the main concerns of the scholars in this field have been the identification of the key geographical regions of the world, and the effort for building models of competition between the world powers in these geographical spheres. Undoubtedly, the geopolitical rivalries of the global powers have revolved around gaining access to the existing assets and resources in different geopolitical regions. In order to understand the patterns of the world power competition, and to make predictions about these rivalries, there is a need for identifying the world strategic regions, their attributes and the geographical passages to these regions. The understanding of the important characteristics of the vital strategic regions of the world will facilitate the task of predicting events and incidences in the interstate relations and at the system level. Using an analytical approach, the authors have brought together the historical post-Cold War events and the realities of the geographical space of Eurasia, in an attempt to explain the theoretical models and the vital attributes of strategic regions in this supercontinent.

While the relations of Iran and Russia with the Central Asian states have been analyzed separately in previous studies, the regional foreign policies of these two countries have not been compared in detail. As a result, it would be difficult to comprehend the extent of the similarities and differences inherent in the foreign policy behaviors of these two key players in the Central Asian region. Understanding the causes of the existing differences in the Central Asian policies of Iran and Russia is also challenging. Comparing the foreign policy goals and actions of Iran and Russia in Central Asia, the authors conclude that maintaining regional security and stability is one of the main foreign policy goals of Iran in this region, and that the Iranian foreign policy makers have preferred bilateral and multilateral cooperation within the framework of regional organizations. In contrast, security dimension of Russian foreign policy toward Central Asia is extremely crucial for the Russians. In Central Asian region, Iran and Russia are different in foreign policy goals, national interest, identity and patterns of decision-making.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the transformation of the old security arrangement created a new geopolitical environment in the Caucasus region. In fact, the unique geographical conditions, ethnic-racial and religious diversity, the heritage of socialism in the cultural, political, economic and social structures, strategic position, competitions between regional and extra-regional powers have caused dramatic changes in the Caucasus region. The war between Russia and Georgia was seemingly over South Ossetia because of Georgia's claim of restoring its territorial integrity and Russia's declaration of protecting a minority group and supporting their self-determination rights. However, the authors argue that the causes of the conflict between Russia and Georgia are deeply rooted and go beyond the issue of separatism.

The main goal of the authors is to analyze the objectives, extent and outlook of Russia-Turkey cooperation, with an emphasis on the Russian perspective. Historically, Turkish-Russian relations have been cold and distant. During the Cold war, the two former rivals viewed each other with hostility. After the fall of the USSR and in the early 1990s, the grounds were paved for the improvement in the bilateral ties. Even though the two states have different military and security concerns, they have established closer relations in economic and trade fields. The issue of energy plays a major role in their bilateral relations, given the fact that Turkey is one of the major importers of energy and Russia is a key exporter of this strategic commodity. The volume of their bilateral trade reached 42 billion dollars in 2011, more than three million Russian tourists visit Turkey annually, and the two countries recently signed a visa exemption agreement for traveling between Turkey and Russia. Economic incentives have caused Ankara and Moscow to choose cooperation over conflict.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States sought cooperative partnership with Russia. However, with the exception of a short period, the improvement of the bilateral relations were suspended due to the increasing tension caused by certain issues like NATO eastward expansion, the deployment of the U.S. Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) in Europe, and Russia's war with Georgia in 2008. The Obama administration made an attempt to improve the U.S.-Russia ties by means of introducing "Reset" policy. It has been some years since a box that read "Reset" next to its Russian translation was unveiled and exchanged by Hilary Clinton and Sergei Lavrov. Since then several agreements have been concluded during the visits of government officials of the two states. This article tries to examine the consequences of Obama's "Reset" policy for US-Russia cooperation. The authors discuss the crucial and significant issues in Russia-US relations including mutual ties, Iran's nuclear issue, Afghanistan's war, Arms Control and Aegis BMD. The study concludes that Obama's "Reset" policy has not generated significant benefits for Russia.

This article investigates the role played by ethnic structures in Russia and in particular Tatarstan (bi-ethnicity) and Dagestan (multi-ethnicity) in determining ethnic identity of these two republics. Islam has either strengthened ethnic distinction (in Tatarstan) or led to extreme prejudice (in Dagestan). The article raises the following question: how could ethnic and religious identities be mobilized to construct modern civil identities at political level? This is while Islam is generally considered as a force that could revive traditions. The other research questions include: Has unifying capacity of Islam in Dagestan helped the formation of an integrated kind of republic in a multi-ethnic society? Have the elites succeeded in creating a sense of belonging to Tatarstan among the Russian minorities? The study also examines the role played by the Russian population in each of these Republics.

Political changes due to the occurrence of revolutions, coups and wars as well as elections have always been closely watched by political observers at national and international levels. This study seeks to explain the theory of the color revolutions by the use of democratization theory and soft power literature. It also attempts to explain the apparent contradiction of the term "color revolution" in the globalization era in line with changes witnessed in international relations. The authors then discuss the characteristics of two color revolutions, i.e. the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. The study concludes that the color revolutions occur as a result of the internal problems such as unbalanced national development, and an active civil society on the one hand, and foreign provocation and manipulation on the other hand.