Central and Northwest Asian Geopolitics in Post-USSR International Relations

The concept of “latecomer capitalism” was developed by Alexander Gerschenkron. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Harvard. 1962). It applies to socialist industrialising latecomers as well.

Kaldor Mary . The Baroque Arsenal (London. 1982) is a clear account, written on the brink of de-escalation of armaments in the superpower matching of USA and USSR. It elucidates the elaborating and inverting of overblown conservative weapons systems, which straddled both superpowers, in the case of the Soviet Union by subaltern competitiveness, and which spawned itself in Third World emulative militarism. See also Bhaduri Amit . Domination, Dettrence and Counterforce: An Analysis of Strategic Objectives and Doctrine in the Superpower Arms Race. (Calcutta, 1985).

Huntington Samuel P. . “Clash of Civilizations”. Foreign Affairs. Summer 1993.

Mitteleuropan isolationism is mentioned in Gerhard Wetting “Moscow’s Perceptions of NATO’s Role”. Aussenpolitik German Foreign Affairs Review. Vol. 45. 2/94. pp. 123–133.

A historical summary of Soviet southern flank strategies in given in Alvin P. Rubinstein. Soviet Policy Toward Turkey. Iran and Afghanistan. Though Russian Eurocentric, us well as broader integrationist imperatives have replaced those strategies. Rubinstein’s account clarified the problems of a landlocked power concerned for security regarding its southern seaward, i.e. ‘warm water’ as distinct from northern Arctic, littoral neighbours.

Hiro Dilip . Between Marx and Muhummed. The Changing Face of Central Asia (London. 1994). Illustration No. 12. President Nazarbayev, flanked by counsellors, inaugurates “Shaggies” fast food store and thus initiates consumer choice in Almaty.

Ibid.. pp. 68–76.

Khurshid Salman . “Visit of Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao. Prime Minister of India to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan” in Newsletter of Maulana Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies. Vol. 1. February, 1994.

See. for instance Uwe Halbach/Heinrich Tiller “Russian and its Southern Flank”. Aussenpolitick, op. cit. 156–163. Such work has not moved beyond the typically Atlanlicist heartland theory which has a European panoptical gaze on “the deep South”, a gaze which a stigmatically focuses mainly on the Caucasian region, without seeing further.

For subregionalisation trends in Russia, see Chinoy Anuradha M. . “Regional Politics in Russia”. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. XXIX. No. 27. pp. 1647–1651.

Hauner Milan . What is Asia to Us. Russia’s Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (Boston. 1990) describes Lev Gumilov views between 1965 and 1971, about “Ethnos” (divided into “Superethnos” and “subethnos”) a “bio-geo-graphical conception of ethnic history”, and compares this with National Socialist thought in Germany. He mentions that Nikolai Gumilov (1886-1921), who was executed by the Bolsheviks, wrote African Notebook which has recently been revived as exotic, and which attacked mixed marriages between Russians and Asians (a trend which had greatly increased by the late 20th century): pp. 30. 224.241.

Alexandrovna Olga . “Divergent Russian Foreign Policy Concepts”. Aussen politik, Vol. 44, 4/93, 363–372 distinguishes between Westerners. Russian-Nationalists. Eurasists and Geographical Realities. For more details on the ideas of the second and third types, see Palat Madhavan “Eurasianism as an Ideology for Russia’s Future”. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVIII. No. 51, pp. 2799–2809.

Mackinder Halford “The Geographical Pirot of History” (first published in the Geographical Journal, XXIII. 4, 1904) extracted in Kaspersen Roger E. and Minghi Julian W. . The Structure of Political Geography. (London. 1970) pp. 166–168.

Spykman Nichosas , extract from The Geography of the Peace (USA. 1944) in Kaspersen and Minghi, op. cit.. especially “What is true for India and China if they have to be defended by British sea power is no longer true if their military strength can be made a by-product of their own industrial development. Soviet strength will remain west of the Urals and it will not be exerted overpoweringly against the coast lands to the east, south and southwest” and “Within the immediate future. Central Asia will undoubtedly remain a region with a fairly low power potential” pp. 174 and 171.

Kennedy Paul . Preparing For the Twenty-First Century (New Delhi edition. 1993). a neo-Malthusian prognosis if ever there was one, underscores in bold relief in his Chart 9. Population of the USSR by Major Ethnic Groups, a sharp divergence of rates of growth of non-whites (particularly Uzbeks. Radzhiks (sic.). Kazakhs, Kirgiz, Turkmen, over whites (among whom least rates of growth were those of Russians) in the last days of the USSR.