This collaborative effort by Russian and American scholars documents Russian policy toward ethno-national conflict in its "near abroad," American policy toward these conflicts, and the attempts of international organizations to prevent and resolve them. Case studies consider the causes, dynamics, and prospects of conflicts in Latvia, the Crimea, the Transdniester region of Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the region of North Ossetia and Ingushetia.
Religion has become increasingly important in the sociopolitical life of countries in the former Soviet Union. This volume of essays examines how religion affects conflict and stability in the region and provides recommendations to policymakers.
This book is the first historical work to study the creation of ethnic autonomies in the Caucasus in the 1920s – the transitional period from Russian Empire to Soviet Union. Seventy years later these ethnic autonomies were to become the loci of violent ethno-political conflicts which have consistently been blamed on the policies of the Bolsheviks and Stalin. According to this view, the Soviet leadership deliberately set up ethnic autonomies within the republics, thereby giving Moscow unprecedented leverage against each republic. From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus questions this assumption by examining three case studies: Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are placed within the larger socio-political context of transformations taking place in this borderland region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines demographic, social and economic consequences of the Russian colonization and resulting replacement of traditional societies and identities with modern ones. Based on original Russian language sources and archival materials, the book brings together two periods that are usually studied separately – the period of the Russian Civil War 1917–20 and the early Soviet period – in order to understand the roots of the Bolshevik decision-making policy when granting autonomies. It argues that rather than being the product of blatant political manipulation this was an attempt at conflict resolution. The institution of political autonomy, however, became a powerful tool for national mobilization during the Soviet era. Contributing both to the general understanding of the early Soviet nationality policy and to our understanding of the conflicts that have engulfed the Caucasus region since the 1990s, this book will be of interest to scholars of Central Asian studies, Russian/Soviet history, ethnic conflict, security studies and International Relations.
This deeply informed book traces the dramatic history of early Soviet-western relations after World War I. Michael Jabara Carley provides a lively exploration of the formative years of Soviet foreign policy making after the Bolshevik Revolution, especially focusing on Soviet relations with the West during the 1920s. Carley demonstrates beyond doubt that this seminal period—termed the “silent conflict” by one Soviet diplomat—launched the Cold War. He shows that Soviet-western relations, at best grudging and mistrustful, were almost always hostile. Concentrating on the major western powers—Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States—the author also examines the ongoing political upheaval in China that began with the May Fourth Movement in 1919 as a critical influence on western-Soviet relations. Carley draws on twenty-five years of research in recently declassified Soviet and western archives to present an authoritative history of the foreign policy of the Soviet state. From the earliest days of the Bolshevik Revolution, deeply anti-communist western powers attempted to overthrow the newly formed Soviet government. As the weaker party, Soviet Russia waged war when it had to, but it preferred negotiations and agreements with the West rather than armed confrontation. Equally embattled by internal struggles for power after the death of V. I. Lenin, the Soviet government was torn between its revolutionary ideals and the pragmatic need to come to terms with its capitalist adversaries. The West too had its ideologues and pragmatists. This illuminating window into the overt and covert struggle and ultimate standoff between the USSR and the West during the 1920s will be invaluable for all readers interested in the formative years of the Cold War.
Instead of resurrecting old images and nourishing new narratives about a ‘New Cold War’, Post-Soviet Conflict Potentials features politically and legally oriented critical investigations into conflict potentials and dynamics in the post-Soviet region and beyond. Contributions coming from the disciplinary perspectives of international relations, international law, and comparative political science are linked to investigations dealing with international, transnational, regional and local levels of the dynamics between conflict and cooperation in the region. Despite the diversity of perspectives, the authors of this volume take a shared critical view on an alleged ‘New Cold War’ as their point of departure, observing that contemporary post-Soviet conflict potentials are produced through various discursive practices ranging from intentional choices of belligerent language to unintentional misinterpretations. The chapters in this volume seek to shed light on conflict potentials from different angles as well as on processes that increase or decrease the probability of political and violent conflicts in the post-Soviet region. Together, the authors offer individual and shared outside-the-box approaches to the study of conflict dynamics and potentials in the post-Soviet space. The book draws connections to conflict potentials on the cross-regional and global levels, providing varied perspectives on what can be learned in and from the post-Soviet region. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.
In the 30 years since the emergence of the post-Soviet conflicts things have both changed and remained the same – continuities and changes in post-Soviet conflicts are the primary themes of this volume – it addresses all major wars, civil wars, and rebellions in the former Soviet Union. The volume focuses on factors that have contributed or may contribute to the resolution of the post-Soviet conflicts, most of which have represented rather long and damaging crises. In all conflict cases Moscow has been guided by Russian state interests – some have been instigated or fueled, others driven to a frozen state, and still a couple of others have been constructively resolved due to Moscow’s intervention. Russia has used a long-term strategy for the resolution of those conflicts that have taken place on its soil, but in regards to the conflicts in other post-Soviet states, there is no long-term solution in sight. As such, the conflicts in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Nagorniy Karabakh, remain unresolved involving not only the named states, but Russia as well. They may represent localized national or regional crisis impacting only the states involved, but for the Russian Federation they epitomize one huge post-Soviet crisis with no obvious end.
Thirty years have passed since the emergence of the first conflicts in the Soviet Union. Some of them have been successfully resolved, but those that persist promise no peace for Russia and its neighbors.
