219-227 Hill.indd

Geopolitical competition between Russia and the US and EU on the periphery of the former USSR has complicated efforts to resolve lingering conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Transnistria. Regional and great power rivalries often obscure the distinctive local factors in each of these conflicts, which are ultimately crucial to their resolution. In addition, changes in local circumstances and adaptation of local elites during the two decades since the disintegration of the Soviet Union now tend toward preservation of the status quo in and around these largely unrecognized entities. The best chance for resolution at the moment seems to be coordinated engagement and cooperation by the major external powers.