TOC-WEB.pdf

by Svante E. Cornell
AFPC Press/Armin Lear, 2025

Link to Amazon and Kindle Edition

Link to Introduction, "The Second Karabakh War and a New Caucasus: The Regional Peace Dividend Playing Out at the Card Table"

COVER2

 

COVER

The outcome of the Second Karabakh War is a watershed event in the modern history of Eurasia. It represents the moment of conception of a new South Caucasus, the only part of the world that borders on Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Unsurprisingly, external powers like the U.S., China, the EU, India, and the GCC states are all taking greater interest in its future.

Written for scholars and designed for classroom use, AFTER KARABAKH: War, Peace, and the Forging of a New Caucasus is the go- to book for anyone trying to make sense of the geopolitics of this often misunderstood conflict. As the editors argue in their Introduction, the end of the conflict over Karabakh “will serve as a catalyst for the instauration of a much anticipated peace dividend centered on optimizing the region’s strategic connectivity potential.”

As Michael Doran writes in the Foreword, AFTER KARABAKH “performs a great service to students of international politics. We now have in one volume a set of comprehensive analyses of the main dimensions of the Second Karabakh War. By producing sharp, judicious, and readable accounts, the authors, who are all internationally recognized experts in their fields, have ensured that this volume will become the standard account of the conflict.”

Editors
Svante E. Cornell is Research Director of the American Foreign Policy Council’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP)

Damjan Krnjević Mišković is Professor of Practice at ADA University, where he serves concurrently as Director for Policy Research, Analysis, and Publications at the Institute for Development and Diplomacy and Co-Editor of Baku Dialogues.

Contributors:
Robert M. Cutler, NATO Association of Canada and University of Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation.
Michael Doran, Hudson Institute.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, U.S. Naval War College and Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Fariz Ismailzade, ADA University.
Onnik James Krikorian, Tbilisi-based journalist and photojournalist.
Niklas Nilsson, Swedish Defence University.
Michael A. Reynolds, Princeton University.
Brenda Shaffer, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Atlantic Council, and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

 

by Svante E. Cornell
AFPC Press/Armin Lear, 2025

Link to Amazon and Kindle Edition

Arminlear3

Link to Table of Contents and Introduction

Link to Chapter 7, "Iran's Arc of Domination"

Link to Chapter 12, "The Failure of Islamism in Turkey Reshuffles the Region"

For decades, the Greater Middle East has been a leading challenge to American foreign policy. This vast region - ranging from North Africa in the west to Afghanistan in the east, and from the borders of Central Asia down to the Horn of Africa in the south - has been a cauldron of turmoil that has affected not just American interests, but generated threats to the American homeland.

The multitude of challenges in this region has led to some confusion. What should be the focus of U.S. policy in the Greater Middle East?

This book explores this state of affairs and its implications by delving deeper into how the current geopolitics of the Greater Middle East came to be. A first few chapters look back to the history of the region and the historic rivalries among Turks, Arabs and Persians up to the end of the Cold War. The book then examines the main current power centers of the region - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It then turns to the geopolitical competition among them in recent years, starting with Iran's efforts to build an "Arc of Domination" across the region.

The book covers the advance of Islamists following the Arab Upheavals, the civil war among the Sunnis from 2013 to 2018, America's pendulum swings with regard to Iran policy, and the reshuffle of the region following Turkey's turn in a more nationalist direction. Finally, the book ends with an attempt to draw out implications for America's approach to the geopolitics of the Greater Middle East.

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Research Director of the American Foreign Policy Council's Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington D.C., and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, Sweden. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He formerly served as Associate Professor at Uppsala University and at Johns Hopkins-University-SAIS, and is also a Policy Advisor with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.

Between Eurasia and the Middle East: Azerbaijan's New Geopolitics

BakudialoguesSvante E. Cornell

Baku Dialogues, September 2020

Azerbaijan’s geopolitics have changed considerably in the last decade, along with the growing general instability in its neighborhood. Gone are the days symbolized by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline’s construction, when a relatively stable balance existed between a loose Russian-led alignment including Iran and Armenia, and an informal entente between the United States and Turkey, which supported the independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the construction of direct energy transportation routes to Europe. From 2008 until today, the geopolitical environment has shifted in several important ways. First, it is more unstable and unpredictable. Second, the threshold of the use of force has decreased dramatically. And third, to a significant extent, the geopolitics of Eurasia and the Middle East have merged, bringing increasing complications. 

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Published in Staff Publications

The most important takeaway from the killing of Qassem Suleimani doesn’t just have to do with Iran.

Svante Cornell and Brenda Shaffer
Foreign Policy, Febuary 27, 2020

There has been no shortage of debate about the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani and its effects on U.S. foreign policy toward Iran and the broader Middle East. Not nearly enough has been said about whether it can broadly serve as a model for dealing with the problems posed by proxy forces elsewhere in the world.

By killing Suleimani, the United States indicated it would no longer tolerate Iran’s use of proxies to circumvent its responsibility for killing Americans and for other acts of terrorism and mass bloodshed. Washington decided to deal with the source of the terrorism, not its emissaries. The same principle should apply to the many proxy regimes established by various states—Russia most prominently—to circumvent responsibility for illegal military occupations.

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Published in Staff Publications

By Svante E. Cornell

The U.S. and Turkey

A Road to Understanding in Syria?

Getting to better relations with Turkey will not be easy. But it's far from impossible.

June 2018

 

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Published on: June 22, 2018 

 

Published in Staff Publications
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