Abstract
Eurasia, herein defined as Northeast and Central Asia, has been ravaged by historical and current conflicts of both military and political nature, such as Japan or Russia’s occupation of their neighbors, border disputes etc. This has created an environment where there is a chronic lack of trust among the regional actors and relations are often seen as a zero-sum game, or in relative gains. From an international perspective, it is symptomatic that there is very little cooperation in the military and political fields. For instance, Northeast Asia has no institutionalized regional organization that deals with political and military conflicts while trans-regional organizations that include cooperation between Northeast Asia and Central Asia states are far limited only to exercises against terrorism. There have been several organizations initiated in Central Asia working on cooperation but their viability is limited. This is due to limited political support from the respective Central Asia governments and also because of the intra-regional rivalry between the five Central Asian states. Thus, these organizations remain relatively weak and their future prospects uncertain. In order to have conflict management and resolution frameworks in place, and to establish greater trust between the different actors, these organizations would need to integrate deeper into the region, politically and economically.
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