Russia and the United States in the Caucasus: cooperation and competition

ABSTRACT Today, the Caucasus region receives much less attention among scholars and decision-makers than a few years ago. Eurasian security studies are currently dominated by the coverage of the armed conflict in east Ukraine and the turbulence in the Middle East. The South Caucasus, however, remains rather unstable due to its geopolitical fragility. As Russia and the United States (US) find themselves in the midst of the most severe crisis in their relations since the end of the Cold War, their relationship in this sensitive part of Eurasia deserves every attention. While looking in this paper at the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington in the Caucasus region, the authors seek to avoid framing the present state of the relationship as a second edition of the Cold War. Instead, the basic reasons for disagreements between Russia and the US in the Caucasus since the dissolution of the USSR are critically examined. The authors also aim to explain specific reasons driving Russia's and the US' respective engagements in regional security issues. They also focus on similarities and specifics of the US and Russian policies vis-à-vis regional ethno-political conflict resolution processes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh.