International studies, Vol. V No. 2, 2005.
Review article
The Southern Caucasus - The EU's Neighbourhood "The Day After Tommorow"
Siniša Kuko
; Master of Political Science, field of International Relations
Abstract
When the Cold war came to its end and the Soviet Union was disintegrated, the Caucasus was placed at the margins of the interest of the West. At the beginning and during 90s the international community directed its attention and energy mainly on the other conflicts in the world, so it couldn't and didn't find necessary to react promptly in the conflicts on, how it looked then, limited area in the Russia's backyard. From the end of the Second World War the European allies find security indivisible, but even so the USA and EU did not exactly define the importance of the South Caucasus and did not answer the question does it need to be considerate as the part of Euro Atlantic area or is it just of the small importance for security and stability of the EU and Europe as a continent.
As the Caucasus region connects transitional Eastern Europe with turbulent Middle East and Middle Asia, and two sometimes unacceptable states in the region Iran and Turkey, the vita! interests of somehow recovered neighbour and past sovereign Russia are being intertwine with the one of the only global superpower USA regarding still present post Cold war positioning.
Many interests intertwining in such a small and unstable area cause huge risk for future borders of the EU in the case if it is still going to
treat Caucasus area occasionally.
Keywords
Caucasus; European union; USA; Russia; oil; security
Hrčak ID:
289846
URI
Publication date:
15.4.2005.
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