ABSTRACT
The Southern Caucasus has produced severe and sustained security challenges in Europe's eastern neighbourhood. The region hosts three unresolved civil conflicts: Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. This chapter describes and analyses the relationship between security problems/dilemmas in the Caucasus region and the engagement of neighbouring states in the Caucasian problematique. The Karabakh conflict, if resumed, carries significant risks of spreading, since it divides the three regional powers: Iran, Russia and Turkey. The chapter analyses the role of regional powers and the drivers of their policies in the Caucasus. Evolving transnational economic relations within and beyond the Caucasus also impinge on the policies and practices of regional powers. Trilateral relations raise the issue of transnational aspects of regional security within the Caucasus. The dynamics of regional security reflect a complex interaction between the sub-state, state, transnational, regional and international levels of analysis.
