US-Russian Interventions in the Caspian-Caucasus Basin Countries after 2001: (Strategies to Re-Impose Control and Influence as a Model)

Abstract

Today, the five Caspian riparian states on the shores of the Caspian Sea (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Iran) have become a front for ambitions and international and regional competition, especially in light of the features and characteristics that natural geography has endowed them with and their enjoyment of a group of economic and mineral wealth that are not optimally exploited so far which made it a strategic attraction area for international trends and interventions, especially Western ones. It is a battleground for major international companies aiming to monopolize promising industrial investments in order to impose control and influence on the region’s resources and economic wealth and thus impose their foreign policies and military and security arrangements on the countries of the Caspian Sea region – the Caucasus and the countries of the Basin region. more broadly.

Accordingly, this region occupy a distinguished position on the agenda of major international policy planners, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the intensification of international and regional competition in the region, not only for the sake of controlling the rich energy resources (such as oil and natural gas), but to achieve long-term geopolitical and strategic gains. The United States of America is not able to see the region away from its political orientations that coincides with its announcement of the establishment of the (New World Order), and the Russian Federation has been seeking to restore its international position again since President Vladimir Putin came to power in early 2000. This forced Russia to restore its geopolitical position and influence on the countries of the near abroad (Central Asia and the Caucasus), as well as the international competition of the emerging powers shown by China, India, Iran and Turkey, which formed a heated international competition and conflict in the region. As the confined geographical location for the republics of the region, it generated a double political-economic problem, represented by the inability of the countries of the region to benefit directly from their mineral and hydrocarbon resources unless they resort to using the lands and ports of the neighboring countries, most of which suffer from the phenomenon of political and social instability. This imposes the emergence of a set of challenges based on the specificity of the US-Russian interventions in the Caspian-Caucasus Basin countries after 2001 within the framework of conglomeration and enhancing the sustainability of strategies for imposing control and influence by each of the states The United States of America and the Russian Federation regarding this region.

  _{Receipt date: 6/12/2020}  

_{accepted date: 3/2/2021}