Potential Conflict Zones in Eurasia: The End of a Historical Intermission

Raiding shepherd tribes is like a bear who destroys the bee hive while trying to steal from it. Oppenheimer uses this analogy while describing how people submit during state formation as transformation from bear to bee-master. No doubt, since Oppenheimer many new ideas have been added to theories of the state. However, none of them have described the contemporary age with such aptitude while presenting the birth of state.

At the end of the Cold War, contemporary models of the state were reduced to a single option. The state was proclaimed an endless ‘civitas diaboli.’ Society, on the other hand, was the eternal ‘civitas dei.’ However, the historical intermission that began with the end of the Cold War has come to an end. As the twentieth century began with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, September 11 was the starting point of the twenty-first century, and it points to three fundamental changes that will determine the age’s ideological identity:

With the political activation of the Third World, the entire human race has become politically active for the first time.
The Far East is winning for itself the hegemony of the Atlantic World.
Global problems (climate change, hunger, poverty, insufficient resources, etc.) will trigger new polarizations.

Eurasia is the primary region where all of these things will be experienced, since this is the region where the powers that threaten US dominance over the oceans are rising. Low intensity and short term conflicts, the aftershocks of the New World Order, have been occurring in Eurasia. The pressure of Western bloc is causing an accumulation of energy in Central Asia and the Pacific. In these regions, low intensity and short term tremors will be experienced, but this time they will be forerunners.

We see that the work of Western strategists and scientists in particular focuses on Third World countries as potential conflict and war zones. However, it would be incorrect to say that Third World countries are the only communities at risk, with the potential transformation of this risk into crisis. Thus, warnings of some potential risk are to be found in every region and nation, and in certain regions these warnings have been intensifying as a function of regional and national economic, political, social and cultural indicators.

The shift of economic development to the East is a plain reality. The emergence of new markets implies new alliances and conflicts. The natural resource needs of the rapidly growing East have the potential to cause conflict between old and new powers. Competition for the control new markets has the potential to cause conflict between old powers. We may include ethnic problems and disagreements, some more than a hundred years old. Furthermore, the weaponization of space brings dangers that may mark the next ten years.

Beyond this general view, there are ten regions that have the potential for conflict due to their special structures.

Central Asia, Ten Years into the Future

Since 2002, geopolitical struggle in Central Asia has become a multifaceted affair. Alongside the formerly hegemonic Russia, China has become a regional economic force, and the United States is trying to balance the game with its military supremacy. The struggle for influence that determines Asia today will become more concrete over the next 10 years.

Apart from these two nations, the presence of second tier powers pursuing their own strategic interests in the region both demonstrates the region’s strategic significance and suggests that the future will see Central Asia become the arena for even larger struggles, since interests to be achieved in dynamic multiple interactions include geopolitical power, national and religious influence, security and economic opportunities. Currently, the struggle in this region, which can be seen as the heart of the world, focuses on the factors that connect the region to the outside world: roads, pipelines and the management of natural resources, as well as political issues. Whoever can control these factors will be the region’s geopolitical and economic conqueror.

For political and economic reasons, the Russian Federation still has imperial designs on its former territories, and it is seriously concerned about the United States’ goals in the region since the occupation of Afghanistan made that nation the second force in the region. For this reason, Russia established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with China and the four nations of Turkestan in 1996. In 2001, Uzbekistan joined the organization.

This organization has made successful moves in recent years, proving its ability to maintain security in Central Asia and to resolve border disputes, and increasing its political significance during the process. Major Asian powers such as India, Pakistan and Iran felt a need to join the organization as observers, and this significant fact is proof of the SCO’s increasing power.

However, the organization, which came on the international scene with the slogan of “Eurasia for Eurasians,” has as a primary deficiency for becoming a balancing mechanism against the US and NATO superpowers, and it has have always been known: its lack of a joint military force.