TY - BOOK ID - 138766121 TI - The South Caucasus in a Reconnecting Eurasia AU - Kuchins, Andrew C AU - Mankoff, Jeffrey PY - 2016 SN - 1442279656 9781442279650 PB - Blue Ridge Summit Center for Strategic & International Studies DB - UniCat KW - International relations. KW - Caucasus, South KW - Foreign relations UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:138766121 AB - As we approach the 25-year anniversary of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia's independence, the South Caucasus states and the extended region around them are again in great flux. The conflicts in and around Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh are no longer "frozen" in the way they were prior to 2008. Russia has more assertively declared its interest in maintaining a protectorate over the South Caucasus and limiting Western influence in the region. Meanwhile, relations between Russia and Turkey remain uncertain, even as Iran is being cautiously brought in from the cold. Continuing to manage the problems of the South Caucasus, as the United States has been doing since the mid-1990s, is becoming less sustainable as pressures for U.S. retrenchment rise and frustration builds at the lack of democratic progress in Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is time for the United States to take a fresh look at the region and think creatively about how it can advance the cause of security and prosperity in this complex, fragmented region ER -