Premise: Geography (really natural resources) should make the Caucasus rich and happy; politics make it poor and miserable

Strategic importance
Much of the region is rich in oil and natural gas;

More oil discovered recently in the Caspian;

US/multi-national oil companies want to build pipeline across Caucasus   (independent of Russia)

Pipeline planned to Turkey for Azeri, Turkmen, and Kazakh gas

Why is the article called “where worlds collide”?

What worlds collide in the Caucasus?
 

The article asserts that coal and steel were the foundations of the European Community and that oil and gas could play the same role in the Caucasus.

Do you agree?
 

What other European and world conditions in the 1950s and 1960s made Western European economic cooperation possible?
 

The original six member of the European Coal and Steel Community were France, Germany, Italy, and the BENELUX countries
 

What differences or historical experiences did they have that made economic cooperation seem improbable?
 

What commonalities did these countries have that made economic cooperation possible?
 

What differences, historical experiences and commonalities seem most important in predicting the likelihood of economic cooperation in the Caucasus?
 

 
Note table on 238 - who’s on whose side and why

Russian allies:
Abkazia [unrecognized separatist republic in Georgia]
 
Ajaria [autonomous republic within Georgia]
 
Nagorno-Karabakh [self-proclaimed republic - Armenian majority in Azerbaijan]

South Ossetia [unrecognized separatist republic in Georgia]
 

US allies:
Azerbaijan [oil and gas; Russia suspects it helps Chechens]
 
Georgia
 

Russian and US allies:
 Armenia
 Javakheti [Armenian part of Georgia]
 

Turkish allies:
 Azerbaijan
 Nakhichevan [exclave of Azerbaijan]