Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 07/2013

Caucasus 2025: A Vision

Alain Guidetti, Ekaterina Palazzolo

June 2013

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Abstract

Over 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the South Caucasus region remains embroiled in both internal and international conflicts, with no end in sight in either case. Strikingly, even though South Caucasian societies have developed and opened up to the world, the political configuration of the region still reflects the stigma of the first years of post-Soviet independence – when ethnic and political divides emerged or re-emerged, creating a lasting pattern of insecurity and instability. The high hopes for the region that occasionally emerged from the intensive, multi-faceted diplomatic efforts deployed since the early 1990s ultimately failed to produce any clear outcomes. Negotiation processes remain stymied and prospects for new developments are currently limited, while suspicion and distrust continue to undermine relations between states and entities in the region. This complicated situation has a direct negative impact on local populations, who are often constrained by closed borders and front lines that prevent necessary communication and interaction. It also hampers the prosperous development of the region and its capacity to find its proper place at the crossroads of Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East. In this context, it is important to move away from the current political developments in the region and to examine the basic factors that underpin the divides, as well as the essential conditions that would help to create a better environment and pave the way towards a more cooperative, and possibly integrated, region. This can be illustrated by putting forward a vision of the South Caucasus in 2025 that could help shape a possible horizon for the region.