Three years ago, after the Kosovo war and the launch of the Stability Pact for South East
Europe, there was a spasm of interest in the idea of a stability pact for the Caucasus. However
nothing came of this, since neither the region’s leaders nor the international community were
willing or able to do anything of substance, although a comprehensive proposal had been
published by CEPS as a ‘track 2’ initiative. As a result, the de facto secessions of Abkhazia
and Nagorno Karabakh have become more deeply entrenched, but only with the protection of
Russia and Armenia, respectively, with which these entities have become increasingly
integrated de facto. Since conventional diplomacy in the Caucasus under UN or OSCE
auspices has failed to deliver solutions over a whole decade, we take a wider look here at the
kind of solutions that may emerge for these so-called frozen conflicts of the European
periphery. New developments external to the region are coming from the EU and the US: the
widening of the Europeanisation process on the one hand, and the ‘democratic imperialism’ or
Pax Americana coming out of Washington since 11 September 2001 and now the Iraq war.
We explore below how these developments may affect the prospects for the Caucasus.