ABSTRACT
The term “Eurasia” almost invariably invokes images of geopolitical intrigue and even primordial human struggle. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell (1949) referred to the neo-Bolshevik superstate in control of Europe and northern Asia as a metageographical “Eurasia,” one of three constantly contesting power blocs. In popular modern usage, Eurasia is often accompanied by discussions of a “Great Game,” “a chessboard,” and civilizational chasms (Brzezinski 1997; Kaplan 2009). Such depictions of Eurasia became more prevalent following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the growing regional influence of China and India. Many social scientists use the term uncritically to denote a field of ethnic, political, or economic conflict, the big territorial Space in which old-fashioned confrontations occur (e.g. Freire and Kanet 2010). These connotations are related in no small part to the region’s place in past imperial power struggles, and an overwhelming sense that “geography is destiny” in the spaces between the major powers on the globe’s largest landmass (Kaplan 2009). In this regressive perspective, China and the U.S. replace Russia and Great Britain as contending geopolitical “chess” strategists, with intervening interests such as nuclear India and Pakistan along with semi-resurgent Russia.
