Chapter Eleven
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In the wake of global power shifting, which caused the rise of new
regional power centres such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa),^6 state and non-state actors are facing much stronger
competition over natural resources, economic markets, trade routes, and
power projection in international relations. However, one of the main
challenges international actors are currently dealing with is the emergence
of a power vacuum along the peripheries of regional power centres
resulting from the transformation of the international system from US-led
unilateralism into multilateralism as well as from the struggle for
leadership and power projection in international affairs.^7
Keeping this in mind, one major recent geopolitical development,
which has heightened Russia’s growing regional weight in its direct
neighborhood, was the launch of a new economic integration project
named the Eurasian Union. The creation of the Eurasian Union in the
former Soviet space has thus become a major foreign policy goal of the
political leadership under the current Russian president Vladimir Putin,^8
and in turn has caused international concern–especially among many EU
member states–over the long-term geopolitical implications of Russia’s
new integration initiative towards the former Soviet space.
Theoretical Background
Russia’s integration approach towards its direct neighborhood, which
actually comprises the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS),^9 stems from the theoretical framework of the European
economic integration process. A considerable amount of literature has
already been published on European economic integration theories over
the last decades.^10 Basically, the establishment of the Eurasian Union
theoretically follows the original logic of the European economic
integration, which arose from the growing international interdependence
of state and non-state actors after the end of the Second World War and
the pressing need to avoid conflicts and wars between neighbouring states.
(^6) O’Neil, “Building Better Global Economic BRICS.”
(^7) Minteh, The Global Balance of Power. World Order: Paradigm Shift From
Unilateralism to Multilateralism and not Multipolarity.
(^8) Putin, “A new integration project for Eurasia: The future in the making.”
(^9) Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS).
(^10) Artis and Nixson, The Economics of the European Union; Balassa, The Theory
of Economic Integration; Baldwin and Wyplosz, The Economics of the European
Integration; Molle, Economics of European Integration: Theory, Practice, Policy;
Nevin, The Economics of Europe; Wallace and Wallace (1996).