On-line journal no. 4 – July 2012 - Modelling the New Europe

On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe
Issue no. 4/2012
For this purpose, this interpretative study will utilize two qualitative research methods:
document and discourse analysis. The first section of this study will set the context for our
further analysis, briefly underlining the Russian foreign policy towards the Black Sea
region after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The next section will include an analysis for
each indicator allowing us to assess the level of Russian cooperation within the region for
the last 10 years and will show how this level fluctuated across time, pointing to essential
events that could determine a reformulation of national policies towards this region. The
study will emphasize which are the main areas that hamper the cooperation within the
region and will help creating a cooperation project adjusted to respond the main problems
identified.
1. Russian foreign policy and its role in the Black Sea regional deadlock
Russian foreign policy records across the time show that Russia never considered the Black
Sea region as being out of its sphere of influence and consequently formulated all her
actions in accordance with this belief, using interdependence constraints whenever NATO
or the EU have attempted to increase their influence in the region.
As argued by Kobrinskaya, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy
towards this region has gone through at least four stages and now we are witnessing the
fifth one, in which Russia has recovered its strength and confidence utilizing the energy
security threat in order to maintain its regional influence and control.
1. The “initial phase” took place between 1991 and 1994 and it was characterized by
the appearance of the armed ethnic conflict, their “freezing,” and the establishment
of a new post-Soviet status quo;
2. The “Chechen” phase took place between1995 and 2002, when Russia mainly
viewed the situation in the BSR through the prism of the Chechen war;
3. The “recovery” period took place between 2003 and 2008, when Russia began
acting along several dimensions. During this period the Russian president declared
the Black Sea region as a zone of Russia’s “strategic interests” considering the fact
that this region provides Russia with a direct exit to its most important transport
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