ABSTRACT
The Russian special services have been accused of fomenting coups and assassination attempts against leaders inclined to move their states out of Moscow's orbit. The so-called "Eurasianists," however, never found a receptive audience among ordinary Russians. The Secretary assumes, however, that Moscow, Washington and the governments of the "Eurasian" republics share a common interest in pursuing the cooperation. With the disintegration of the Soviet Empire, however, the non-Russian republics once referred to as "the Soviet Union in Asia" found themselves spinning in a geopolitical void. The Russian political elite was initially ecstatic, for it assumed that the United States would task Russia, as a "regional superpower," to keep order in Eurasia. Moreover, the lack of substantial Western investment in the region, other than in the hydrocarbons sector in certain areas, allows Russia to retain a considerable degree of economic and political leverage in the new Eurasia.
