The 2023 Rondeli Security Conference, organized by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (Rondeli Foundation), will be centered around the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War and its geopolitical consequences. The conference will bring together participants from the United States, the EU, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Representatives of think tanks, academia, government, and media will discuss a broad range of topics which the world has to face today as a result of the most devastating war in Europe since World War II.
By conducting a full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine since February 2022, Russia has been trying to upend the international rules-based order and European post-Cold War security architecture, which the US, NATO and the EU have stepped up to defend by supporting the cause of freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine. The ongoing war has intensified the global struggle between revisionist, authoritarian regimes and Western liberal democracies, and has sent political, economic and humanitarian shockwaves across different regions – from the South Caucasus and Central Asia to the Middle East and Africa. Despite its military setbacks in Ukraine, Russia has not given up its imperial ambitions of regaining dominance over the post-Soviet space and Eastern Europe.
At the Rondeli Security Conference, we shall discuss the implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the regional security dynamics across the Eurasian continent, the relations between Russia and the West, the foreign policies of regional powers and the latest geopolitical trends in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
How can the Russia-Ukraine War end? Under what terms is a Russia-Ukraine peace deal possible? Do the US, NATO and the EU have coherent strategies in this regard? What is the future of Putin’s regime and its imperial project to restore dominance over the post-Soviet space and Eastern Europe? What could be the new modus of relations between Russia and the West? Has the Russia-Ukraine War changed the regional balance of power in the South Caucasus? What are the roles of the US, the EU, Russia, Turkey and Iran in the region today? Has the Russia-Ukraine War diminished Russian influence in Central Asia and created a power vacuum for China to step in? Will the Russian invasion of Ukraine result in the further enlargement of NATO? Following the failure to obtain the EU candidate status, what is the current state of Georgia’s European course? How have the Russia-Ukraine War and Western sanctions against Russia affected the European energy security and the East-West energy links? Has Europe’s attempt to end its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons increased the significance the South Caucasus energy corridor? These are only some of many pertinent questions for which we shall seek to find answers at the Rondeli Security Conference.
Strategic supporters of the Rondeli Security Conference are the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (BST), a project of the German Marshall Fund and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in the South Caucasus.