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Guler Kalay,
Postgraduate student of the Chair of Russian Politics, Department of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University GEOPOLITICAL PROCESSES IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION IN KARACHAYEVO-CIRCASSIAN REPUBLIC
Geopolitics, as defined by K. Gajiyev, is "a concept characterizing the theory and practice of international relations based on considering and connecting geographic, geostrategic, socio-cultural, socio-political, ethnological, demographic, economic, and other factors. In this connection the Caucasus is a region which, having been part of the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union, and now being part of the Russian Federation, has always been a zone of junction of geopolitical interests of various countries. The North Caucasus is a geostrategic region, which has been a kind of a corridor between Europe and Asia. In this context it was a crossroads of trade routes, and the Great Silk Road passed through it.
It is not possible to separate the national interests of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus from the historical development and geopolitical characteristic of the region. The geopolitical significance of the North Caucasus is a major factor in the development of the peoples and states of this region and Russia as a whole, as well as a whole number of countries whose historical destiny is connected with the North Caucasian political and cultural area. Being a region of junction of the two worlds - Christian and Muslims - the North Caucasus, by its role in the world, is comparable with the Balkan region in Europe. All these factors have predetermined the fact that the North Caucasus has
always been a region of geopolitical interests of different countries of Europe and Asia.
In the 1970s the geopolitical situation in the world, and also in the Caucasus, exacerbated noticeably. The United States and its allies with the help of old and new means and methods (war and humanitarian aid, bribes and corruption, etc.) contributed a great deal to the fanning of hatred between peoples. Hence, the wars in the Balkans, in the Middle East, and in the post-Soviet area, which were accompanied by the emergence of new sovereign states in this region (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). This has been regarded by certain countries of the West, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia as a historical chance for spreading their influence on the region.
The geopolitical significance of the North Caucasus is determined by its geographical position bordering on the zones adjacent to the Caspian and Black seas.
In the conditions of the present world order, the geopolitical importance of the North Caucasian region has greatly increased.
Turkey, Pakistan, and in certain cases Saudi Arabia are the conductors of the U.S. policy toward the Muslim regions of Russia. Turkey is a NATO member and greatly depends on the United States in the military-political sphere.
Zbigniew Brzezinski has called the North Caucasus the "Eurasian Balkans" due to its conflict character, presupposing a possibility of interreligious and interethnic conflicts and the historical precedent with Yugoslavia.
The geopolitical characteristics of the North Caucasus contain definite conflictogenic factors of interethnic actions in the ethnopolitical process in the republics of the North Caucasian region. There have been contradictions concerning the rule in their republics between Kabardians and Circassians, and between Balkars and
Karachays. The latter have come out for the creation of independent Balkarian and Karachay republics. For instance, a congress of representatives of the Karachay people held in 1990 proclaimed the creation of the Karachay autonomous region. Despite this, at a referendum in 1992 a majority of the republican population voiced their desire to preserve unity of the Karachayevo-Circassia.
In the 1990s the power-thirsty Islamic extremist groupings stepped up their attempts to establish the political and socio-cultural domination of the titular nations, fanned separatist sentiments, and put forward special territorial claims. More and more facts of discrimination based on the national-confessional characteristic were registered. The constant growth of the number of such manifestations and the level of their tension is fraught with paralysis of political and public life not only in the North Caucasus, but also far beyond its boundaries.
Even where the conflict has been regarded until now as national or religious, its true nature is revealed clearly enough. For examples, in certain villages of Karachayevo-Circassia confrontation between the Russian and Karachay population acquires a violent character and can be regarded as an ethnic conflict or a confrontation between Orthodox Christianity and Islam. The significance of the Circassian diaspora is expressed in the words "There are few of us here, but behind us there is a great diaspora."
At the same time, the Islamic factor is very strong among the Karachays, which is more balanced among the Circassians due to their religious history.
Parallel with the flare-up of the Karachay national movement, Islam has actively been developed in the Karachay medium. However, during the conflict of the late-1990s there were hardly any radical
currents, all the more terrorist groups in that movement. They emerged in the republic some time later.
The organization "Imamat Karachaya" set up by nationalists in the republic was not the main driving force in the struggle of the Karachays for autonomy. This function was taken by the secular public movement "Jamag'at." And conflicts around "Imamat Karachaya" and its leaders had no interethnic character.
The emergence of the Circassian movement in Karachayevo-Circassia was closely connected with the creation of the International Circassian Association in May 1991 at an inaugural congress in Nalchik. Its main aim was the consolidation of Circassian organizations in Russia and beyond its borders and the interaction of Circassians living in Russia with the world Circassian diaspora.
The global geopolitical conflict has greatly exacerbated during the 1990s after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the formation of the CIS in the post-Soviet area.
The declaration of the Caucasian region a zone of its strategic interests by the United States and the return of Turkey and Iran to the Caucasian political field has evoked a growing interest of western powers in the great oil riches of the Caspian basin. According to N.J. Spykman, the Eurasian rimland stretches from the western fringe of the Eurasian continent to its eastern fringe. Thus, he divided the world into two parts - heartland and rimland. In contrast to Mackinder and other well-known geopolitical figures, he rejected the idea of the preponderance of the continental powers of the heartland and put forward his own formula: "He who controls the rimland controls Eurasia; and he who controls Eurasia controls the destiny of the world."
Within the framework of the "new world order" the world is regarded unipolar, with the United States as the only superpower. The
Pentagon has published a strategic review. Paul Wolfowitz, former Pentagon chief, has stated that the main aim of the United States is to prevent the emergence of a new American rival in the post-Soviet area, and also in any other place on the globe, which will be a threat to the United States similar to that presented by the U.S.S.R. This premise should be the main one in the new defense strategy. "We should try to prevent the emergence of hostile regional powers which could gain global control over international relations with the help of their resources," he declared.
Paul Wolfowitz also agrees with the heartland doctrine, asserting that Russia will remain a strong military power in Eurasia and the only force in the world capable to destroy the United States.
Zbigniew Brzezinsky, national security adviser to President Carter in 1977-1981, is one of the most ardent supporters of the imperial geopolitics of the United Sates. In his words, America is now the only superpower and Eurasia is the central arena of the world. Geopolitics has now acquired global dimension on the territory of the Eurasian continent.
The geopolitical consequences of the disintegration of the Soviet Union continue to exert a negative influence on the modern interethnic relations in Russia.
More than eighty international extremist organizations of the Wahhabi trend are carrying on their illegal activity on Russian territory. The five countries of the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain) are the most active sponsors of the Islamists. Many pro-Islamist public non-commercial organizations rendering voluntary financial assistance to "insurgents" have been registered in the United States.
The "United Caucasus" conference took place in Istanbul in 2012, which was organized by the civil society "Imkander." Its results
showed that this society, which is under the strong influence of the Caucasian diaspora and radical Islamic groupings, as well as the foreign policy of Turkey as one of the NATO members, has been playing a no small role in the North Caucasus. The geostrategic importance of the North Caucasus has become much greater due to the changes of the world political balance in the conditions of the "new world order."
A multipolar geopolitical structure is emerging on the borders of the post-Soviet area, which has a major impact on the ethnopolitical processes going on in some countries of the former U.S.S.R. Thus the geopolitical importance of the North Caucasus contributes to the emergence and development of ethnopolitical conflict in the republics of the region, including the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic. In the early 1990s a conflict flared up there, which resulted in disturbances close to its disintegration and formation of several national units on its territory. The numerous public meetings calling for the division of the republic and violations of the electoral law of the Russian Federation and the republic in the mid-1990s caused destabilization of the sociopolitical situation in the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic. The Federal Center took the necessary measures only in 2000 for regulating the conflict in the republic.
In our view, the lack of proper understanding of the consequences of confrontation with the authorities among political figures and representatives of the different sections of society is fraught with serious political risks.
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