Geopolitics of Central Asia and the caucasus| continuity and change since the end of the Cold War

The tremors experienced in international relations since 1989 have significantly altered political geography of Eurasia, sweeping away the international system that had been built up over may years. The sudden emergence of Central Asian and Caucasian states caught both the local populations and the world at large unprepared for the event. The fact that no major empire has dissolved in this century without their successor states undergoing CIvil wars or regional conflicts made the occasion more dramatic. Even in those newly independent states, which so far avoided unrest and conflicts, the competition between various outside powers for influence, threatened widespread disagreements, hostility, and possible armed interventions, There is a need for a new broader and more flexible analytical model for the form er Soviet Central Asia and the Cacasus. This paper, in addition to suggesting an alternative geopolitical framework for analysis, will also try to identify the sources of unrest and possible threats to the stability of the region. And finally, mechanisms for diffusing at least some of the controversies and threats will be discussed within the context of the prospects awaiting the region in the mid-Iong term.