Role of North Caucasus in the security of Russian Federation

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the dilemmas of post-imperial statehood in the context of Russian Federation security, with the particular emphasis on the fundamental alternative: to maintain the polyethnic (quasi-imperial) model of state or to build a nation state. The Author defines the concept of „empire" from the point of view of three determinants: the concentric structure based on center-periphery dichotomy, orientation towards the external mission and imperial idea. From this point of view, Russia is an imperial state (contrary to Tsarist Empire and USSR), neither is a typical nation state. The Author tries to prove that The author tries to demonstrate that the abandonment of federal, multinational state model would be tantamount to the loss of strategically important North Caucasus, which would deprive it of a regional power status. The study contains a multi-faceted exploration of the North Caucasus (which is a highly turbulent region) as a key territory for the global dimension of geostrategy. The Author analyzes potential threats to North Caucasian security and actions taken by Moscow in order to prevent them. He pays attention to the growing popularity of slogans about the necessity of separation of Caucasus and Russia. In his opinion, Caspian-Black Sea Region would become a zone of global destabilization, posing a threat to the world peace.