The collapse of the Soviet Union provided a good opportunity for the United States to expand its influence in the newly established countries ...
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The collapse of the Soviet Union provided a good opportunity for the United States to expand its influence in the newly established countries in the region. This was specially the case for the countries in the caucuses namely Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan due to their geo-economic and geo-strategic significance. This paper is an attempt to explore the perception of the United States of this region and then to evaluate and examine the US foreign policy towards this region. It is also the aim of this article to analyses the response of other regional players such as Iran and Russia in this regard.
Nation-State Building is one of the very important new researching and studying subjects in discipline of International Relations. With the ...
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Nation-State Building is one of the very important new researching and studying subjects in discipline of International Relations. With the entrance of new members to system of states in Post Cold War, this subject achieved more attentions and absorbed a lot of Scholars to spread and deep studying the Nation-State Building process in theoretical framework and case studies in across the World.
Nation-State Building in Post Soviet countries is one of the very new studying areas in this subject. In the majority of these countries because of different internal and external challenges, Process of Nation-state building have confronted with some crisis's and stagnancies and so they not showing a good image from self theme in system of states. Of course positions of these Republics in progress of Nation-State Building Process are very different and where some of them have neared to lines of Failed State (like Georgia) others have achieved to suitable positions (like Baltic States).
Armenia as one of the post soviet countries that located in strategic region of South Caucasus despite of involving in some problems, relatively can achieved to a good position especially in comparison with two other Republics of this region. This article focusing on some key parameters of Nation-State Building Process tries to studying an analyzing of this important process in Republic of Armenia.
Priorities & objects of foreign policy are functions of geopolitical conditions, internal needs & national power of countries as well as threats to their national interests ...
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Priorities & objects of foreign policy are functions of geopolitical conditions, internal needs & national power of countries as well as threats to their national interests and security.
As to the newly established sates, such as republic of Azerbaijan, national security could be of more importance. Both internal disputes and foreign interventions are causes for their instability and, therefore, anxiety.
Republic of Azerbaijan since her very existence has suffered from land dispute with her neighbor Armenia. This study examines impact of the mention factors as well as effects of the attitude of regional and international powers on foreign policy of Azerbaijan.
This work indicates that the principals and formation of her foreign policy has been affected by the boundary dispute with Armenia, positions of regional & international powers towards the claims of Armenia.
The geo-strategic situation of the Caspian region and exploration of its huge energy resources, are the main reasons for transforming the region into a center of political, military ...
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The geo-strategic situation of the Caspian region and exploration of its huge energy resources, are the main reasons for transforming the region into a center of political, military and economic rivalries and tensions in the last two decades. There are many questions to be answered regarding the Caspian energy resources. The main question is the actual share of such resources in the global energy security, and whether Caspian region could meet the concerns for energy security at national, regional and global levels. There are also other questions such as: the nature of the new great game emerged on the energy issue in the region, the main players of such game and the role of Islamic Republic of Iran, as a main transit route and a buyer and consumer of energy products in the Caspian region.
In response to these questions, this article argues that the Caspian region, as a complementary source of energy, could play an important role in securing global energy demand and diversification of production sources, but it could not be considered as an alternative to the Persian Gulf region which still provides more than 60 percent of world demand to hydrocarbon energy resources. In this connection, Iran provides the shortest, safest and cheapest route for absorbing and transferring of Caspian energy resources to the world markets, or consuming them in its local market through the swap program. In this article, issues such as: the Caspian oil and gas reserves, programs for production and export, the challenges for transferring the products to the world markets, the role of the region in the global energy security and finally, the Iranian perspective vis-à-vis Caspian energy security will be discussed.
Volume 14, Issue 62 , November 2009, Pages 103-127
Abstract
Economic cooperation organization (ECO), in spite of its considerable capabilities, could not represent itself as a powerful regional organization ...
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Economic cooperation organization (ECO), in spite of its considerable capabilities, could not represent itself as a powerful regional organization in the global economic sphere yet. Thus ECO faced many criticisms by scholars in recent years. For its more adaptation with new transformations in the global economic spheres, promotion of economic cooperation among members and implementation of perceived aims and decreasing the pressures from its critiques, this organization approved ECO Trade Agreement entitled ECOTA in 2002 and document of ECO Vision 2015 in 2005.
This article on the basis of these two transformations, and in order to understand the ECO contemporary situation better, concentrates on the most important opportunities and challenges facing ECO on the shadow of theories of functionalism and neo-functionalism , new regionalization and globalization and the theory of Cantori and Shpigel . At the end the article proposes some applied solutions and initiations for making new changes in ECO to achieve its ends.
Volume 14, Issue 62 , November 2009, Pages 129-154
Abstract
This article analyses the emergence of the Russo-Chinese cooperation within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the security implications for the Eurasian security ...
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This article analyses the emergence of the Russo-Chinese cooperation within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the security implications for the Eurasian security landscape. By conducting a systematic and theoretically informed analysis the article contributes to the sofa sparse body of literature on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. By employing a balance of power model we investigate to what extent the Russo-Chinese Shanghai Cooperation Organization has elements of so-called soft balancing against the United States in the post-cold War period. By doing so, we generate insights into the contemporary and intertwined academic debates on the durability of the American soft balancing. We reach the tentative conclusion that the Russo-Chinese dominated organization seems to be a reaction to advances in American power and influence generally, and on the Eurasian land-mass in particular but that soft balancing activities as such are so far modest. If the organization progresses further to form a genuine counter-American block, the implications of the SCO-cooperation for European security could be profound. On the one hand the European major powers could benefit from the flexibility of having an alternative alignment option at its disposal. However, a new Russo-Chinese alliance could also produce a new hostile block on Europe’s Eastern flank detrimental to its security.
Volume 14, Issue 62 , November 2009, Pages 155-171
Abstract
This article studies recent differences and competitions between the US and Russia in Eurasia. Russia and the US have completely different attitudes and ...
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This article studies recent differences and competitions between the US and Russia in Eurasia. Russia and the US have completely different attitudes and interest in the region. Where is the scene of rivalry between the two countries. Russia has felt the threat of the West in its borders.
It seems that the beginning of a new cold war as understood from the traditional definition of this term is very unlikely. This article will discuss the new competitions between two rivals in the region.
Volume 14, Issue 62 , November 2009, Pages 173-203
Abstract
Given the current circumstances, the main problem faced by the Central Asian countries is that they do not have an identity independent from Russia and although they are seeking for ...
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Given the current circumstances, the main problem faced by the Central Asian countries is that they do not have an identity independent from Russia and although they are seeking for one’s own identity, the authoritarian and repressive attitude of the officials and the conflict between their mentality and western values and standards have contributed to the strengthening of these countries’ dependency on Russia.
At present, Central Asia is the focal point of two divergent forces; one from the East represented by Russia, in cooperation with China and the other one from the West represented by European Union and US. Although the clash of these forces’ interest in the region has tipped the balance in Russia’s favor, the western influence over Central Asian countries should not be ignored.
Having in view the region’s current situation and the growth of organized cooperation in this region, under the control and supervision of Russia in cooperation with China, the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Central Asia require the involvement in the process of regional organization by acquiring the membership status in Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Euro-Asia Economic Society and even ECO only if this not construed as a threat to Russia’s interests.
