Dopo la "fine di Eurasia" : dobbiamo aver paura della Russia? Una lettura critica della riflessione geopolitica di Dmitri Trenin sulla Russia post-sovietica

In his 2002 renowned work The End of Eurasia Dmitri Trenin made two intertwined points. Firstly, he affirmed that Russia and Eurasia were no longer synonyms, and they would not go back to being so in the foreseeable future. That is to say that Russia had definitely lost its quality as the center of gravity of the Eurasian continent, and that Moscow had no other option than integrating into Western Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community. Secondly, Trenin argued that the Russians should not regret the loss of Eurasian empire since – in the age of globalization – geopolitics (i.e. territory and its resources) no longer features as a fundamental source of power, security and prestige. This article observes that in Trenin’s latest works the picture has become much less clear: while reiterating that Eurasia is not destined to resuscitate, Trenin admits that Russia is back as one of the three major independent poles of power (along with the US and China) in “the transcontinental, transoceanic system which is emerging in the northern hemisphere”. He also affirms that the challenge mounted by Putin’s Russia to the pax americana is a serious one, and that geopolitics (i.e. Russia’s spatial resources and characteristics) helps explain why this is the case.