This article aims to discuss and analyse the major factors behind the emergence and evolution of "Eurasia" as a geopolitical concept in Turkey in the post-Cold War period. For this purpose, special focus will be placed on Turkish political, academic and intellectual circles' redefinition of their geopolitical outlook towards Russia and the Turkic republics of Central Asia and Caucasus in the 1990s and 2000s. The major argument of the article in this regard is that while discourses such as Pan-Turkism, Eurasianism and Neo-Ottomanism have exercised a degree of influence over the conceptualisation of Eurasia in Turkish academic and intellectual circles, the concept has been generally treated as an instrument of pragmatism by Turkish policymakers. This pragmatism is not only reflected in their geo-economic calculations in the field of energy pipelines, but also the reasoning behind the striking improvement of political and economic relations between Turkey and Russia in the 2000s.
The emergence of new centres of power in Eurasia has entailed a re-reading of Zbigniew Brzezinski's book which drew an analogy between the Eurasian supercontinent and a grand chessboard. Following the global financial crisis of the last few years, countries like China, Russia and India have started to project greater global political and economic influence. Eventually, Eurasia has become a geopolitical symbol signifying a multipolar world order unlike fifteen years ago when Brzezinski wrote his book in a world dominated by the US superpower. The changes in the geopolitical meaning of Eurasia have also been very important for Turkey for a number of reasons. First, it is a country that is strategically located at the meeting point of Europe and Asia. Second, its economy has grown at an impressive rate throughout the 2000s turning it into a rising Eurasian power. Third, its multi-dimensional foreign policy approach in the last decade has enabled it to develop closer relations with the Eurasian states.
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