This collaborative effort by Russian and American scholars documents Russian policy toward ethno-national conflict in its "near abroad," American policy toward these conflicts, and the attempts of international organizations to prevent and resolve them. Case studies consider the causes, dynamics, and prospects of conflicts in Latvia, the Crimea, the Transdniester region of Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the region of North Ossetia and Ingushetia.

This book examines a major concern in international security: the nature and causes of conflict in the former Soviet Union.

Religion has become increasingly important in the sociopolitical life of countries in the former Soviet Union. This volume of essays examines how religion affects conflict and stability in the region and provides recommendations to policymakers.

A study of superpower co-operation since World War II, this book examines the regulation of USA/USSR rivalry, and outlines the power of regional states to constrain and manipulate them for their own interests.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1991 shed entirely new light on the character of their political systems. There is now a need to re-examine many of the standard interpretations of Soviet and Yugoslav politics. This book is a comparative study of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union - as multinational, federal communist states - and the reaction of European and US foreign policy to the parallel collapses of these nations. The authors describe the structural similarities in the destabilization of the two countries, providing great insight into the demise of both.

Western politicians, pundits, and the public were wholly unprepared for the violent conflicts erupting in eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet Union after the end of the Cold War. The governments emerging from communism lack both the authoritarian control to suppress domestic differences and the democratic power to manage them. Old conflicts resurfaced and new ones were kindled in virulent form from Bosnia to Chechnya. The stability of governments and the status quo of borders have been thrown into question. Actual and threatened disintegration of states in the area is widespread. No reference points have emerged to replace the cold war paradigm. Nor is there a way of knowing which conflicts can be contained within accepted borders and which may spill over. The prospect not only of widening conflict, but also of new precedents challenging old certainties of international life, causes deep concern in western Europe and the United States. Europe has many experienced international organizations under whose umbrella states organize to achieve common purposes. This book asks how they have performed that function. How are these organizations attempting to deal with the many forms of internal conflict that are both the cause and the result of the end of communism and the East-West confrontation? Despite significant organizational and financial resources, the results have been meager. The authors show how difficult it is to achieve effective joint action on a sustained basis. They contend that a concerted effort to discover how to achieve joint action is the necessary next step in mobilizing international organizations for preventing ethno-national conflict. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Diana Chigas, Jarat Chopra, Michael W. Doyle, Keitha Sapsin Fine, David S. Huntington, Christophe Kamp, Jean E. Manas, Elizabeth McClintock, John Pinder, Wolfgang H. Reinicke, Reinhardt Rummel, Melanie H. Stein, Shashi Tharoor, Thomas G. Weiss, Richard Weitz, and Mario Zucconi. A Brookings Occasional Paper

Title first published in 2003. Conflict and Security in the Former Soviet Union examines the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)'s approach to post-Cold War tensions and conflicts in the former Soviet area, the extent to which the new procedures, mechanisms and instruments developed by the organization are useful, and how the OSCE's activities may reveal innovative contributions to conflict studies.

The collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 removed a decades-long system of successful control of potential ethnic and regional conflict . The result was the eruption of numerous conflicts over state-building, some of which degenerated into violence and some of which were resolved or prevented by strategies of accommodation. This volume explores the common trends and differences in the responses of the new post-Soviet states to the problems of state-building in ethnically and regionally divided societies, focusing on the impact of ethnic and regional conflicts on post-communist transition and institutional development. The book will be essential reading for specialists and students alike who are interested in conflict regulation and post-Soviet politics.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, conflict in the former USSR has been a key concern in international security. This book fills a gap in the literature on violent conflict, evaluating a region that contains all the modern ingredients for instability and aggression. Bringing together leading experts on war and security, the book addresses current debates in international relations about power, interests, globalisation and the politics of identity as major drivers of contemporary war. Incidents such as the 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict, the wars in Chechnya, and Russia's struggles over national identity and resources with former communist states are all thoroughly examined. With new issues like energy security, terrorism and transnational crime, and older tensions between East and West threatening to deepen once more, this is an important contribution to the international security literature.