NEWSLINK: “Russia’s Evolving Grand Eurasia Strategy: Will It Work?” – Carnegie Moscow Center/ Dmitri Trenin

“With a shift in strategy, 2014 was a pivotal year for Russia’s foreign policy. It was then that Moscow began moving away from its traditional focus on Europe and the Atlantic, with secondary attention to the former Soviet borderlands. The Ukraine crisis served as the coup de grâce for the two concepts that had guided Russian foreign policy since the break-up of the Soviet Union: integration into the wider West and reintegration of the former republics with Russia. What is now emerging is not so much a Russian pivot to Asia or more precisely to China, as many commentators trumpeted immediately after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, but rather a 360-degree vision, where Moscow serves as the central element of a new geopolitical construct: Eurasia writ large. While Russia repositions itself as a stand-alone power in the north-central portion of the world’s largest continent, its leaders are seeking to create a distinct national entity amid a vast and highly diverse neighborhood. The country’s new geopolitical framework is being referred to as Greater Eurasia. …”