The ties that bind? Russia’s evolving relations with its neighbors

Abstract

As the kick-off to his presidential campaign, newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article calling for a Eurasian Union among the states of the former Soviet Union. Using this as a jumping off point, this article evaluates the several overlapping organizations promoted by Moscow to bring the ex-Soviet republics closer together. It looks specifically at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, and finally the hopes for a Eurasian Union. The article analyzes the multipronged approach, combining military cooperation through the CSTO and the hoped-for Customs Union and broader Eurasian Union. Using energy politics as a case study to explore the extent and limitations of Russia’s influence over the policies of the other states, the article illustrates how resources and domestic politics create either strengths or vulnerabilities for them. Finally, the author argues that despite Moscow’s wishes, each of the states is more or less able to defend its sovereignty and independence, thus limiting Russia’s sway over the territory of the “former Soviet space.”

Cambios de poder y organizaciones regionales en el espacio postsoviético y América Latina

“…60 El Proceso de Corfú, introducido en 2008 en el contexto de la guerra ruso-georgiana, ilustró que la OSCE ya no podía cerrar la brecha entre Oriente y Occidente. 61 Más tarde, en 2010, el Marco de Acción de Astana no pudo adoptarse debido al disenso entre los estados miembros de la OSCE 62 . A pesar de las contribuciones de la OSCE a la seguridad cooperativa entre las potencias orientales y occidentales, ya no era adecuado para abordar adecuadamente problema de equilibrio de poder subyacente.…”

The logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia, Ukraine, and the conflict in Donbas

“…1 Drawing on the existing literature on Russian policy in the near abroad (e.g. Saivetz 2012;Saltzman 2012;Fedorov 2013;Orenstein 2015;Tolstrup 2015;Averre 2016) and the growing literature on the conflict in Ukraine (e.g. Tsygankov 2015;Yost 2015;Yurgens 2015;Strasheim 2016), complemented by data gained from interviews with members of the social, political, and economic elites in Kyiv and Donbas, as well as with Western and Russian experts and officials, we argue that Russia has instrumentally used societal destabilization as a set of tools in the framework of its military and security doctrine of managed escalation-de-escalation in order to avoid the consolidation of a stable, pro-Western regime in Kyiv as a second-best option short of achieving a stable pro-Russian regime.…”