Politics of Conflict and Cooperation in Eurasia

The dissertation has four main chapters. I begin with the discussion of the philosophical and historical concept of Eurasia (Chapter No 2.). This contains an overview on contemporary political and security concerns of the great powers in Eurasia and a deep analytical study of philosophy and history of the terms Eurasianism(s), followed by subchapters such as: the standpoint of the United States in Eurasia, the strategic path of Russia in Eurasia, the strategic view of Turkey to Eurasia, China’s standpoint on Eurasia and India from Indo-Pacific to Eurasia. I found that Eurasian powers are capable to develop a global partnership model at the inter-regional and international level by challenging post-Soviet unipolar world order. I argue that this step generates conflicts and misunderstandings in high-level politics between Eurasian powers and the West, represented by organizations like NATO and the European Union. I believe that the era of misunderstanding will concede its place to “ge...

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2022

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2022

The international politics of Eurasia draws attention to energy geopolitics, great power competition, intra-state and inter-state conflicts, and small state survival strategies. Sotiriou’s book, Politics and International Relations in Eurasia, addresses rivalries and survival strategies in Eurasia at the national and international levels. The main argument of the book is that with the collapse of the USSR, a new state of nature – a power vacuum- emerged, and Eurasian nations and states behaved as rational actors to survive to guarantee their security.

2017

This article attempts to offer conceptual insights into the modes and utility of negotiation in resolving conflicts in Eurasia, a region that has its own unique political, cultural and economic characteristics and an evolving security dynamic in interstate relations following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For the purposes of our study, we understand Eurasia to be the vast geographic space stretching from the western borders of the former Soviet Union to East Asia and encompassing the sub-regions of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus as well as Central, South, and North-East Asia.

Central Asia and the Caucasus, 2011

Great power politics is a practical reality of world politics and it happens on a daily basis, regardless of which international system we witness. This book seeks to emphasize the ways s these great power politics emerge within greater Eurasia. Most researchers consider China becoming powerful enough to counterbalance the US, and possible power dynamics among the rising powers such as China-India, China-Russia, and China-Japan. In this sense, the book categorizes the battlegrounds in their power politics with three aspects: national/regional/international conflicts, institutions-alliances, and projects.

The Return of Eurasia

Eastern Partnership: Self-Determination and Geopolitics / Geoculture (II), 2017

The paper analyzes the geopolitical dimension of the Eastern Partnership area through the prism of the competing models of the Eurasian geopolitics. The geopolitical and geo-economic interests of the European Union, the United States, Russia, Iran and China are all engaged in Eurasia. The paper utilizes geopolitical theories of Mackinder and Brzezinski. From this perspective the strategic fulcrum lies in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Here it is where the vital interests of the EU, Russia and China intersect. Hence, the two largest competing alternatives of the geopolitics of Central Eurasia are the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, which is supposed to become “a model designed to serve as an effective link between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region,” and the Chinese “Silk Road economic zone,” which is supposed to become an economic belt linking economically the most advanced regions of Eurasia – Western Europe with Eastern Asia – through Iran. The paper outlines an alternative geopolitical path for an effective reset of the EU’s EaP initiative. Remarkably, Iran’s potential role – both geopolitical and (geo-) economic – in resetting the EaP is underestimated. While a variety of international issues such as the Iranian nuclear program have been much discussed by the scholars from various disciplines, little attention has been paid to the multidimensional analysis of EU-Iran-Russia relations and their implications on the geopolitical conjuncture of the EaP area. Clearly, the potential of Armenia-Iran relations can be indicative of broader and stable Europe-Iran relations.