Eurasianism and the Concept of Central Caucaso-Asia

Rethinking Central Eurasia 25
pursues a balanced foreign and domestic policy. 27 It is also important to note
that Nursultan Nazarbaev’s foreign policy involves steps that are not
exclusively pro-Eurasian. This can be observed first in Kazakhstan’s support
for intensifying cooperation and improving coordinated military cooperation
among the Central Asian states; then in its encouragement of Azerbaijan’s
choice to transport oil through Turkey and not Russia and/or Iran, and,
furthermore, in its help for an agreement on the public and transparent
division of the continental shelf for the extraction of natural resources of the
Caspian Sea among the littoral states. 28
Although, as mentioned above, supporters of Eurasianism are not in power in
Russia, when compared to the Yeltsin period, Putin’s entourage has from the
very beginning been more complaisant toward contemporary Eurasianists. 29
As a result, the Russian political elite quickly began to elevate Eurasianism to
the level of a mainstream ideology. 30 Some believe that President Putin
limited himself to merely using the pseudo-philosophical rhetoric of the
Eurasianists 31 and that his government did not make use of the political
recommendations of the contemporary Eurasianists. 32 Yet, the events of
recent years, where Russia has demonstrated increasing aggressiveness in the
international arena, have raised some doubts about how true the above
27
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, p. 111.
28
Ibid., pp. 145-146.
29
Alan Ingram, “Alexander Dugin: Geopolitics and Neo-Fascism in Post-Soviet
Russia,” Political Geography, Vol. 20, Iss. 8 (2001), p. 1032.
30
Ilan Berman, “Slouching Toward Eurasia?” Perspective, Vol. XII, No. 1, 2001,
; Ilan Berman, “Putin’s Problem: The
War on Terrorism Gets in the Way of the Eurasian Dream,” National Review, January
8, 2002, .
31
The description of the fall of the U.S.S.R. by President Putin in 2005 as a
“geopolitical disaster” has almost become a classical reference (see, for example,
George Friedman, “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power,” Stratfor,
August 12, 2008, ; Dmitri Trenin, Integratsiia i identichnost: Rossiia kak “noviy Zapad” [Integration
and Identity: Russia as the ‘New West’] (Moscow: “Evropa” Publishers, 2006), p. 155,
).
32
Matthew Schmidt, “Is Putin Pursuing a Policy of Eurasianism?” Demokratizatsiya,
Vol. 13, No. 1, Winter, (2005), .