Search results

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Table -- Chapter 1: The Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict and European Security -- Introduction -- Background to the Conflict -- The Conflict and Foreign Policy-Making in Armenia and Azerbaijan -- Geopolitics of the South Caucasus -- The South Caucasus and "Frozen Conflicts" in European Security -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Chapter 2: International Law and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict -- Nagorno-Karabakh's Right to Self-Determination? -- The Right to Form a State -- The Case of Kosovo -- Comparing International Legal Rhetoric: The Crimea Case -- The Question of Occupation -- Soviet Legislation -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Chapter 3: Nagorno-Karabakh Between Old and New Geopolitics -- The Illusory Geopolitics of Partnership: 1991-99 -- The Geopolitics of Tension: 2000-13 -- The New Geopolitics -- Notes -- Chapter 4: Russia: A Declining Counter-Change Force -- A Small "Black Hole" in the Big Geopolitical Picture -- Turning Back the Tide of "Color Revolutions" -- Military Buildup and the Transformation of Secessionist Conflicts -- The Oil Factor in Conflict Dynamics -- Conclusion: Can Russia Control the Conflict Dynamics? -- Notes -- Chapter 5: Turkey's Role: Balancing the Armenia-­Azerbaijan Conflict and Turkish-Armenian Relations -- The Caucasus in Turkish Foreign Policy -- Nagorno-Karabakh and Turkish-Armenian Relations -- Turkish-Azerbaijani Relations and the East-West Axis -- The Turkish-Armenian Protocols -- Explaining Failure: Faulty Assumptions -- Dangers for Regional Security -- Implications for Policy -- Notes -- Chapter 6: The Islamic Republic of Iran's Policy Toward the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict -- Iran's Policy During the Soviet Breakup and War over Nagorno-Karabakh -- Iran's Interests in the Conflict -- Iran's Security and Threat Perception from Azerbaijan.

In the post-Soviet space as well as the Middle East, Western leaders have largely failed to heed ample evidence that the goals of the Russian leadership are fundamentally opposed to those of the EU and the US. Whereas Moscow seeks to counter Western influence and roll back the US's role in the world, the West has proposed a win–win approach, seeking to convince Moscow that its 'true' interests should lead it to cooperate with the West. When this has not worked, Western leaders have 'compartmentalised', isolating areas of agreement from areas of disagreement. This approach has come to the end of the road because the assumptions that undergird it are false. So long as Western powers fail to understand the fundamental incompatibility of their interests with the deeply anti-Western interests of the current power brokers in the Kremlin, they are unlikely to develop policies that achieve success.

European leaders were taken by surprise by the Ukraine crisis and Russia's response to the Eastern Partnership. They should not have been: all questions raised by the Ukraine crisis first emerged with the 2008 war in Georgia. European leaders appear not to have grasped the fundamentally different forms of integration that the EU and Russia have proposed–-and especially the fact that voluntary European integration in the Eastern Partnership effectively negates Russia's need for weak, authoritarian states to form part of its restored empire. In responding to the crisis, EU leaders face a challenge from Russia that is asymmetric: Russia uses direct threats to the sovereignty of the EU's eastern neighbours, especially through unresolved conflicts, matters the EU is ill-equipped to handle. Finding ways to remedy this gap will be an important task for the EU in the immediate future.

The fallout of Russia's invasion of Georgia has yet to be seriously addressed; Armenia and Azerbaijan are edging toward a new war; and the situation in the North Caucasus is going from bad to worse.

Moscow's ambitions… directly undermine the entire European project of peace, freedom, and prosperity.