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This paper, although original in its organisation and presentation, is consciously built upon and grew out of many published and unpublished works I have done over the last three years.* It is only befitting that due acknowledgement should be given from the outset. Many of the ideas presented here were developed during my seminar/lecture series at the NATO Defence College, Rome, on" Regions of Geostrategic Importance to NATO". A fellowship grant from the UNESCO made the final production of this paper possible. I am indebted to Dr. Hugh Mail of the Richardson Institute both for his invitation to visit the Institute, and for his encouragement to prepare this paper. My thanks also go to professors Celal Göle, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University, and Füsun Arsava, Head of the International Relations Department at the same Faculty, for allowing me to take up the Fellowship that necessitated my prolonged absence from the Faculty. Finally, Ambassador Ünal Maraşlı was kind enough to support publication of this study as SAM Papers.

A shorter and raw version of this paper was printed as The Richardson Institute Discussion Paper, No. 1999/2, titled Central Asia and the Caucasus: Conflict and Security in the Post-Soviet Space. The main part of this paper was prepared in late June 1999. Since then, changes necessitated by the rapid developments in the region such as turmoil in Dagestan and the second Russian armed intervention into Chechnya, were made to incorporate them into the following analysis.