Regional Strategic Concept of the Caucasus Region

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Here is an analysis of the Caucasus region including its mission, issues, interests, objectives, activities, and assumptions. In addition, one strategic option for the US is to intervene in the region.

The Caucasus region is the border between Europe and Asia, separated in two parts by the Caucasus Mountain range. This six hundred mile range separates the Russian provinces from former Soviet Union countries and Turkey into two different regions, North and South. The region is also bordered by the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It has permanent snow in the mountains and fertile lands fed by rivers. It has been populated for thousands of years and is able to be self-supporting to the many ethnic populations found there.

In the north, as noted above, is an area of Russian provinces, including Southwest Russia, Chechnya, Dagestan, amongst others. The southern area includes Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. With all these different countries and provinces, the variety and number of ethnicities are large. During the time of Soviet control, the communist regime insisted on subjugating the history of the region it possessed on both sides of the mountain range. Only Turkey was not part of the Soviet Union.

As the southern area has become free with the fall of the Soviet system, the different groups are regaining their history and, despite former colonial ownership, establishing their lives back within their own cultures. This has led to some conflict, notably between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The ability to use the vast resources available to them means "the region is capable of feeding and clothing itself from its own resources. It has a well developed infrastructure but is not overpopulated" (Henze, 2012).

Ethnicity and language are major factors in the differences rediscovered by the different people in the region. The area has at least fifty different ethnic groups, all with their own languages in the Caucasus. The largest groups are the Azeris, who are the Turks, and they speak Turkish. The Armenians, Georgians, and Chechens are the other large groups. The Chechens and the Georgians are indigenous to the region and known as Paleo-Caucasians. The Armenians are Indo-Europeans. In the north, the Abkhaz and some Circassian groups are among the two dozen different ethnic groups of the Paleo-Caucasians. Additional groups with their own languages or dialects include the Ossets in the north, who speak Iranian, and include Greeks, Slavs, Assyrians, and several different groups of Jews. The Soviet system created the system of reliance on ethnicity and, since its collapse, the groups use their ethnicity "to counter feelings of insecurity" (Hezne, 2012).

Some groups use religion to cover for hostilities and interventions, while it is secondary to any other causes of ethnic strife in the reason. This misrepresentation leads ...