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1. Uncertain Ground: Engaging With Europe’s De Facto States and Breakaway Territories

Author:
Thomas de Waal
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Abkhazia, Transdniestria, and northern Cyprus, three unrecognized statelets in Europe that arose during conflicts in the twentieth century, have endured for decades. Despite many problems, they are self-governing and stable, and they show no signs of collapsing. They exercise internal sovereignty, even as they have no prospect of getting international recognition. This qualifies them as de facto states. While these territories still have problems of poor regulation and impunity from international justice, in many other regards, they seek respectability and try to cleave to European norms. This distinguishes them from the breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine. Concerns in the recognized states that greater engagement will lead to “creeping recognition” of the territories is not borne out by legal opinion, which concludes that recognition is a conscious act and cannot be conferred by accident.Better engagement with breakaway territories such as these is an overlooked resource in conflict resolution. If carried out in a clear-sighted and intelligent manner, it should benefit all sides. It should give citizens of the de facto states greater opportunities to be integrated into the world. It should benefit the recognized states who generally have a de jure claim over the territories (the “parent states”) by building bridges across the conflict divide. It should have a wider benefit by ensuring that these places are more compliant with international norms.
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes, and Norms
Political Geography:
Europe, Abkhazia, Cyprus, and Transdniestria

2. Central Asia and the Caucasus: A Vulnerable Crescent

Author:
Anna Matveeva and Thomas de Waal
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
The Caucasus and Central Asia – eight countries of the former Soviet Union stretching to the south of Russia and to the west of China – form a chain of weak states, vulnerable to conflict, extremism, and spillover from potential instability in the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan. Once on the path of the Silk Road, these countries are still transit routes in the world economy rather than major economic players. The overarching problem for the Caucasus countries situated on the eastern fringe of Europe – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as well as the Russian North Caucasus – is unresolved conflicts that hamper development and poison politics. The Caucasus has become a field for latter-day Great Power battles of influence, in which competing policy agendas, sometimes even from within the same state, make for a fragmented international response that hampers regional integration and development. The autocratic states of Central Asia by contrast risk isolating themselves from the wider world, becoming a source of danger because of their deliberate remoteness. Here the globalized threats of drug trafficking and militant Islam are the biggest potential source of instability. Multilateral organizations such as the UN are still struggling to articulate a coherent response to the two regions as a whole, tending to make more narrow interventions that have limited impact.
Topic:
Security and Development
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, China, Europe, Iran, Central Asia, Asia, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

3. A Spreading Danger: Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya

Author:
Anatol Lieven, Fiona Hill, and Thomas de Waal
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The ongoing conflict in and around Chechnya is helping to feed the wider international jihadi movement, and is endangering the West as well as Russia. The next “soft target” of North Caucasian terrorism could be a Western one. Mutual recriminations over the conflict have badly damaged relations between Russia and the West. While most of the blame for this lies with Russian policies, the Western approach to the issue has often been unhelpful and irresponsible. Denunciations of Russian behavior have not been matched by a real understanding of the Chechen conflict or a real commitment to help.
Topic:
Diplomacy and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and North Caucasus