Eurasia's Shifting Geopolitical Tectonic Plates

Alexandros Petersen (1984–2014) was an American academic, writer, and geopolitical energy specialist.

EURASIA’S SHIFTING GEOPOLITICAL TECTONIC PLATES IS A COLLECTION of writings on geopolitics and energy politics in Eurasia by the American academic and writer Alexandros Petersen, who died tragically on 17 January 2014 in a Taliban attack in Kabul. The book, published in the ‘Contemporary Central Asia’ series at Lexington Books, conveys an impression of Petersen’s ability to combine perceptive analysis with empirical insight. Given the paucity of analyses on and lack of Western strategies towards Central Asia in particular, his writings represent a much needed and welcome contribution. Most chapters are very brief and written with a journalistic flair. Petersen’s explicit aim was to provide succinct policy analyses rather than lengthy academic treatises. The brevity of the chapters should therefore not come as a surprise, as this is a collection to celebrate his scholarship as a prolific writer and passionate traveller rather than a sustained book-length analysis of geopolitics in Eurasia.

• Foreword, S. Frederick StarrPart I: Eurasia and a Changing Transatlantic WorldChapter 1: The Geopolitical Consequences of Transatlantic Energy DisunityChapter 2: Regions in Between: Europe, NATO and the Geopolitics of Shifting FrontiersChapter 3: Reimagining Eurasia (with Samuel Charap)Chapter 4: Getting the EU back into Eurasia (with Raffaello Pantucci)Part II: Energy Geopolitics: The Caspian and BeyondChapter 5: The Final Leg in the Race for Caspian GasChapter 6: The Nabucco Pipeline project is deadChapter 7: Alexandros Petersen: Interview on NabuccoChapter 8: Turkey's Multivector Energy Hub: Ignore At Your Own PerilChapter 9: Integrating Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey with the West: The Case of the East–West Transport CorridorChapter 10: Turkey: The Transatlantic Energy HubChapter 11: BTC Security Questions PersistChapter 12: Russia’s Energy Bully Takes a FallChapter 13: The Molotov-Ribbentrop PipelinePart III: The Black Sea World: South Caucasus, Russia, and TurkeyChapter 14: Turkey: Abandoning the EU for the SCO (with Raffaello Pantucci)Chapter 15: Russia’s Eastern Anxieties (with Raffaello Pantucci)Chapter 16: The 1992–93 Georgia-Abkhazia War: A Forgotten ConflictChapter 17: Russia Invaded Georgia to Teach the West a LessonChapter 18: Russia’s Resurgence: Risks and RewardsChapter 19: Azerbaijan and Georgia: Playing Russian Roulette with Moscow (with Taleh Ziyadov)Chapter 20: Security and Western Integration in the CaucasusChapter 21: Black Sea Security: The NATO ImperativePart IV: The New Silk Roads: China’s Inroads in Central AsiaChapter 22: China's Latest Piece of the New Silk RoadChapter 23: Central Asia's New Energy Giant: ChinaChapter 24: Central Asia's Most Important City Is….Not in Central AsiaChapter 25: China’s Strategy in AfghanistanChapter 26: How the West Is Totally Missing China's Geopolitical FocusChapter 27: China’s Inadvertent Empire (with Raffaello Pantucci)Chapter 28: Russia, China, and the Geopolitics of Energy in Central Asia (with Katinka Barysch)Chapter 29: Did China Just Win the Caspian Gas War?