Eurasia's Shifting Geopolitical Tectonic Plates: Global Perspective, Local Theaters

by Alexandros Petersen, S. Frederick Starr (Foreword by)

Overview

This anthology of articles, short studies, and interviews by Alexandros Petersen was written over the span of ten years, starting in 2004. Yet they are even more relevant today in their prescient analysis. Petersen insightfully addressed the implications of the West withdrawing its engagement from the Caucasus and Central Asia, the expansion of the Chinese influence, and Russia’s strategic interests.

The collection is organized along four main topics: (1) Eurasia and a changing transatlantic world: the world politics of shifting frontiers in the post-Soviet world; (2) Energy geopolitics in the Caspian and beyond, with its crucial implications for European energy security; (3) the Black Sea world, covering the dynamics of Russia, Turkey, and the South Caucasus, including the role of NATO and frozen conflicts in the region; (4) the new silk roads: China’s inroads in Central Asia, which is often overlooked in the West but will be critical for the geopolitical balance of powers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498525503
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/18/2017
Series:	Contemporary Central Asia: Societies, Politics, and Cultures
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Alexandros Petersen (1984–2014) was an American academic, writer, and geopolitical energy specialist.

Table of Contents

Foreword, S. Frederick Starr
Part I: Eurasia and a Changing Transatlantic World
Chapter 1: The Geopolitical Consequences of Transatlantic Energy Disunity
Chapter 2: Regions in Between: Europe, NATO and the Geopolitics of Shifting Frontiers
Chapter 3: Reimagining Eurasia (with Samuel Charap)
Chapter 4: Getting the EU back into Eurasia (with Raffaello Pantucci)
Part II: Energy Geopolitics: The Caspian and Beyond
Chapter 5: The Final Leg in the Race for Caspian Gas
Chapter 6: The Nabucco Pipeline project is dead
Chapter 7: Alexandros Petersen: Interview on Nabucco
Chapter 8: Turkey's Multivector Energy Hub: Ignore At Your Own Peril
Chapter 9: Integrating Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey with the West: The Case of the East–West Transport Corridor
Chapter 10: Turkey: The Transatlantic Energy Hub
Chapter 11: BTC Security Questions Persist
Chapter 12: Russia’s Energy Bully Takes a Fall
Chapter 13: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pipeline
Part III: The Black Sea World: South Caucasus, Russia, and Turkey
Chapter 14: Turkey: Abandoning the EU for the SCO (with Raffaello Pantucci)
Chapter 15: Russia’s Eastern Anxieties (with Raffaello Pantucci)
Chapter 16: The 1992–93 Georgia-Abkhazia War: A Forgotten Conflict
Chapter 17: Russia Invaded Georgia to Teach the West a Lesson
Chapter 18: Russia’s Resurgence: Risks and Rewards
Chapter 19: Azerbaijan and Georgia: Playing Russian Roulette with Moscow (with Taleh Ziyadov)
Chapter 20: Security and Western Integration in the Caucasus
Chapter 21: Black Sea Security: The NATO Imperative
Part IV: The New Silk Roads: China’s Inroads in Central Asia
Chapter 22: China's Latest Piece of the New Silk Road
Chapter 23: Central Asia's New Energy Giant: China
Chapter 24: Central Asia's Most Important City Is….Not in Central Asia
Chapter 25: China’s Strategy in Afghanistan
Chapter 26: How the West Is Totally Missing China's Geopolitical Focus
Chapter 27: China’s Inadvertent Empire (with Raffaello Pantucci)
Chapter 28: Russia, China, and the Geopolitics of Energy in Central Asia (with Katinka Barysch)
Chapter 29: Did China Just Win the Caspian Gas War?

Editorial Reviews

This is a magnificent collection of works by Alexandros Petersen, a gifted and precociously experienced expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia. I am grateful to the fate that I came across this remarkable person and managed to become friends with him. It is a pity that our friendship was cut short as his life ended tragically.

Archil Gegeshidze

Alexandros Petersen was a truly original thinker, and a truly unique person. This volume captures the breadth of his interest and expertise and serves as a poignant reminder of a life cut tragically short.

Samuel Charap

EURASIA’S SHIFTING GEOPOLITICAL TECTONIC PLATES IS A COLLECTION of writings on geopolitics and energy politics in Eurasia by the American academic and writer Alexandros Petersen, who died tragically on 17 January 2014 in a Taliban attack in Kabul. The book, published in the ‘Contemporary Central Asia’ series at Lexington Books, conveys an impression of Petersen’s ability to combine perceptive analysis with empirical insight. Given the paucity of analyses on and lack of Western strategies towards Central Asia in particular, his writings represent a much needed and welcome contribution. Most chapters are very brief and written with a journalistic flair. Petersen’s explicit aim was to provide succinct policy analyses rather than lengthy academic treatises. The brevity of the chapters should therefore not come as a surprise, as this is a collection to celebrate his scholarship as a prolific writer and passionate traveller rather than a sustained book-length analysis of geopolitics in Eurasia.

Europe-Asia Studies

Alexandros Petersen possessed a wise mind for such a young man, reinforced by consistently strong issue analyses. Now that his work is available to all in this distinguished anthology, policy planners in Washington and worldwide will better know the prescient mind of this true analytical talent. He departed this life far too young, and his insightful policy work will long resonate with practitioners and scholars of geopolitical strategy in Eurasia and beyond.

John Sitilides

Alexandros Petersen was a singular intellect and an entrepreneurial thinker, unique in his generation of emerging geopolitical strategists. At an early stage, he combined a romantic reverence for an earlier era of great power realpolitik with perspicacious insight into the future of a region perilously overlooked. In this volume, which highlights his prolific contributions in a tragically short period, his voice emerges—relevant, scholarly, illuminating, mordant, and provocative—and offers readers a glimpse of extraordinary potential, not only as a visionary thinker, but as a captivating leader.

Joshua Marcuse

Alexandros Petersen was well on his way to being one of the leading scholars of twenty-first century international relations, not just as an academic but as someone who engaged with the world around him. He had that essential mix of drive, intelligence, and compassion that made him not only an impressive scholar but also a genuine friend. This volume is a fitting tribute to him, his scholarship, and his ideas.

Michael Sulmeyer

Alexandros Petersen understood the good things that could result when the United States is constructively engaged in the world, especially in seemingly distant lands. His work helped build the case for US interests in places many Americans would consider distant lands. He presented eloquently the negative consequences that result when the United States disengages, ceding influence to those who neither share our values nor our interests. Today more than ever we should heed his cautions and follow his advice on how to shape a better world by building stronger partnerships.

Damon Wilson

Alexandros Petersen made significant and lasting contributions to the Woodrow Wilson Center's European programming as a Public Policy Fellow, an alumnus of its Southeast Europe Project, an advisor to the Global Europe Program, and a driving force behind its European Energy Security Initiative. We miss his scholarship—celebrated in this remarkable book—his entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit, his humor, and his grace. They remain an inspiration to all of us.

Christian 'stermann

Alexandros Petersen's work combines the passion of youth with the wisdom of scholarship to give us hope for the future. His relentless curiosity and energy, his gift for geopolitics, and his love for the regions he wrote about will inspire a generation of young scholars.

Margarita Assenova

This is a wonderful collection of writings on energy geopolitics and Eurasia by a remarkably talented and well-traveled observer. Alexandros Petersen brought passion and keen insight to issues that demand far more attention from Western policymakers.

Theo Farrell

This collection of articles, essays, and interviews provides important insight into a part of the world that has been often misunderstood, with global consequences. Alexandros Petersen was a young scholar with knowledge and wisdom beyond his years. We are fortunate to have this body of work to inform us and to help shape future policy.

Minouche Shāfik

This is a powerful collection of writing from someone who exemplified the value of getting out into the world and coming to know it deeply, rather than being content to stay in a Western capital and claim to understand complex events observed from afar. I am sad that I never had a chance to get to know him, but I know I can still turn to his writings to help us understand this dark and dangerous age.

Ryan Evans

Alexandros Petersen can be counted among a unique group of scholars who not only sought to interpret the world but to change it. His dedication and passion for political freedom and the construction of a post-imperial world impregnated his work and his life.

Janusz Bugajski

Alexandros Petersen made significant and lasting contributions to the Woodrow Wilson Center's European programming as a Public Policy Fellow, an alumnus of its Southeast Europe Project, an advisor to the Global Europe Program, and a driving force behind its European Energy Security Initiative. We miss his scholarship—celebrated in this remarkable book—his entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit, his humor, and his grace. They remain an inspiration to all of us.

Christian Ostermann