Russia's Caspian Policy

Abstract

The Caspian Sea, the world's largest enclosed inland body of water prominent with its biological and natural resources drew attention of the international community with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The number of the Caspian coastal states rose to five with the emergence of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan as independent states. Shortly after this, an intense rivalry ensued among all the littoral states including Iran and Russia to divide up the spoils of the Caspian Sea. This paper will discuss this competition from the Russian perspective. Russia pursued an active policy to thwart the construction of alternative oil and natural gas pipelines that would bypass its territory, tried to bring together all the littoral states under a multilateral security organization and worked on the institutionalization of a regional environmental security framework. The article will evaluate the success of all these moves and will examine the extent of their contribution to strengthen Russia's position in the Caspian.