Unresolved Conflicts in the Regional Security System: The Case of the South Caucasus

Transition Studies Review
Verlag Springer Wien
ISSN 1614-4007 (Print)
1614-4015 (Online)
Heft Volume 11, Number 3 / Dezember 2004
Kategorie Transatlantic Relations, Strategic Studies, International Order

Seiten 213-223

Gayane Novikova, Email: gnovikova@netsys.am, gnovikova@spectrum.am

Center for Strategic Analyses “Spectrum”, Yerevan, Armenia
Abstract. The collapse of the USSR was accompanied by transformation of the South Caucasian latent ethnopolitical conflicts into local wars. Today the situation in the area of the conflicts is “neither war, nor peace”. Three unresolved conflicts of the South Caucasus can be considered as one of the most serious obstacles for establishing a regional security system.
The article gives the general characteristics of these conflicts, the trends of their development, taking into account the time factor, and analyzes the behavioral models of the main players – de jure recognized and unrecognized de facto states of the South Caucasus. The basic objective of the main players should be to keep the situation on a level preventing the resumption of the armed conflicts. The attempts of forced resolution of the conflicts are fraught with destabilization of the situation not only in the area of any of these conflicts but in the whole region.