The New Geopolitics of the North Caucasus: Old Players and New?

The New Geopolitics of the North Caucasus:
Old Players and New?

Wednesday
May 11, 2011

12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
(A light luncheon will be served at 11:45)

The Jamestown Foundation
1111 16th Street NW
7th Floor
Washington DC, 20036

*To View The Event Video Click Here*

 “The Moscow Duumvirate and the Evolving Insurgency in the North Caucasus:
Wavering Between Neglect and Over-Reaction”
Dr. Pavel Baev
Research Professor, Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)

 “Turkish Policy Toward the North Caucasus and Abkhazia”
Dr. Mitat Çelikpala
Associate Professor of International Relations, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

Commentator:
Paul Goble
Blogger, Windows on Eurasia

Dr. Pavel Baev

Dr. Pavel K. Baev is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO); he is also affiliated with the Centre for the Study of Civil War at PRIO. After graduating from the Moscow State University (MA in Political Geography, 1979), he worked in a research institute in the USSR Defence Ministry, received PhD in International Relations from the USA & Canada Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences (1988), and then worked in the Institute of Europe, Moscow, before joining PRIO in October 1992. In 1995-2001, he was the editor of PRIO’s quarterly journal Security Dialogue, and in 1998-2004, he was a member of PRIO Board. His research on the transformation of the Russian military is supported by the Norwegian Defence Ministry; other research interests include the energy and security dimensions of the Russian-European relations, and post-Soviet conflict management in the Caucasus and the greater Caspian area. His weekly column appears in Eurasia Daily Monitor (https://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm), and his latest book, Russian Energy Policy and Military Power, was published by Routledge, London in 2008.

Dr. Mitat Çelikpala

Dr. Mitat Çelikpala is Associate Professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University, Istanbul where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Eurasian Security, Turkish Foreign Policy and the Caucasus politics, security and history, and supervises doctoral dissertations in these areas. His areas of expertise are the Caucasus, North Caucasian Diaspora, people and security in the Caucasus and Black Sea regions and Turkish-Russian relations. In addition to Kadir Has University, he is lecturing in Turkish War College and Turkish National Security and Military academies on Turkish foreign policy, politics, history and security in the Caucasus and Central Asia and Turkish political structure and life. Dr. Celikpala is serving as Academic Adviser to NATO’s Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism (DATR). He is the board member of Turkish Armed Forces Strategic Research Centre. He has several numbers of published academic articles and media coverage and analyses on above mentioned areas.

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series. Prior to joining the faculty there in 2004, he served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and religious issues and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former Soviet space. Trained at Miami University in Ohio and the University of Chicago, he has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence and the withdrawal of Russian forces from those formerly occupied lands.