CAUCASUS
AP Photo
April-June 2006
"Turkey's Energy Policies in a Tight Global Energy Market"
Journal Article, Insight Turkey, issue 2, volume 8
By Brenda Shaffer, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1999-2000; Former Research Director, Caspian Studies Project, 2004-2007
Despite this extensive activity in the energy sphere, it seems, however, that Ankara's energy policy has been undertaken without a strategic plan and with little integration of energy issues into Turkey's overall foreign and security policies.
March 2006
"What Washington Can Do About Iran"
Journal Article, Heartland: Eurasian Review of Geopolitics, (Defusing Tehran Issue), issue 2
By Abbas Maleki, Former Senior Research Associate, International Security Program
With Saddam and the Talibans out of the scene and US troops entangled in Iraq, Teheran's aspiration for a new regional centrality skyrockets, together with its nuclear ambitions. Is Ahmadinejad to lead the game in the Middle East? America's options and Iran's constraints.
AP Photo
January-March 2006
"Issue Indivisibility and Time Horizons as Rationalist Explanations for War"
Journal Article, Security Studies, issue 1, volume 15
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This paper focuses on two rationalist explanations for war: issue indivisibility and time horizons. It argues that both types of bargaining problems have not only been undertheorized in the international relations literature, but that a non-trivial proportion of the violence witnessed since the end of the Cold War may be explained by these obstacles to non-violent conflict resolution. It uses the case of Russia's two most recent wars in Chechnya.
December 2005
How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict
Book
By Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2002-2009
"In How the Weak Win Wars, Arreguin-Toft means to convince the reader that when the very strong meet the weak in asymmetric armed conflict, strategy matters more than power. Despite minor excursions in his conclusions, he achieves this goal through expert scholarly analysis and a writing style that elucidates complex topics with facility. His work is extremely relevant in the current geopolitical context and serves as a warning to US policy makers to get military strategy right, regardless of relative power. Arreguin-Toft's argument makes perfectly clear the perilous consequences of neglecting the importance of strategic interaction."
— Edward Bradfield, Harvard International Review (Summer 2005)
Read the entire review.
November 11, 2005
Origins of the Nunn-Lugar Program
Presentation
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project (on leave), Harvard & Stanford Universities
Dr. Ashton B. Carter delivers remarks on the Origins of the Nunn-Lugar Program at the Presidential Conference on William Jefferson Clinton: The “New Democrat” from Hope, hosted by Hofstra University, November 10-12, 2005.
October 2005
"From Pipedream to Pipeline: A Caspian Success Story"
Journal Article, Current History, issue 684, volume 104
By Brenda Shaffer, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1999-2000; Former Research Director, Caspian Studies Project, 2004-2007
“The goal of winning the pipeline battle was less to gain the moderate volumes of oil and gas in the Caspian than to maintain (in the case of Russia) or attain (in the case of the United States and Iran) significant presence in the region.”
August 7, 2004
Ban Their Bomb
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
As the nuclear mushroom cloud became the spectre that menaced the second half of the 20th century, the prospect of a nuclear terrorist attack emerges as the gravest danger in the 21st.
January 2004
The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy
Book
By Lenore G. Martin and Dimitris Keridis
Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey has moved from the periphery to occupy the very center of Eurasian security. It is a critical participant in NATO and aspires to become a member of the European Union. The pivotal role that Turkey plays in Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Caucasus has profound implications for the international arena and spawns vital debates over the directions of Turkish foreign policy.
October 2003
"Federalization of Foreign Relations: Discussing Alternatives for the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict"
Working Paper
By Bruno Coppieters, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, Caspian Studies Program and Intrastate Conflict Program, 2003-2004, Tamara Kovziridze and Uwe Leonardy
"...Leaders of the Georgian, Abkhaz, and Ossetian national movements even consider Soviet federalism to be one of the main causes of the exacerbation of ethnic conflicts in Georgia and are not eager to reinstitute a federal structure. From the Georgian perspective, the Moscow leadership used federalism as an instrument to divide and rule and weaken the Georgian movement for national independence. From the Abkhaz and South Ossetian perspectives, Soviet federalism has put the various national communities in a hierarchical relation toward each other. This kind of ethnic stratification runs contrary to the principle of national self-determination, which pre-supposes the equality of all national communities. The exacerbation of ethnic conflicts in Georgia during the first half of the 1990s and the failure of existing federal arrangements to address these problems led to war in South Ossetia and then in Abkhazia. These wars resulted in the creation of two de facto states in these regions...."
July 2003
"Iran's Role in the South Caucasus and Caspian Region: Diverging Views of the U.S. and Europe"
Book Chapter
By Brenda Shaffer, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1999-2000; Former Research Director, Caspian Studies Project, 2004-2007
This paper is part of a larger project that examined how different stances on regional issues can impact bilateral U.S.-European relations.
Since the Soviet breakup and the subsequent independence of the states of the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), Europe and the United States have conducted very different policies toward the new states in the greater Caspian region. Moreover, Europe and the United States view Iran's policies and the desired role that Tehran should play in the region in diverging ways.
