The “Ukrainian Crisis” and Geopolitical Realignment of Eurasia: Implications for the “Eurasian Initiative (EAI)”

Abstract

This article focuses on the current arguments and geopolitical visions regarding the organizational shifts in Europe and the Eurasian region and the means for realization of these policies. It shows the responses of the major powers in Europe and Eurasia with regard to the “Ukrainian Crisis.” In this article also, analysis and comparison of the Eurasian strategy of China and Russia, which bear critical importance to geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations regarding the Korean Peninsula, is treated with significance along with the aforementioned issues. The article attempts to provide a short analysis of the implications of these pan-Eurasian strategic shifts on the Eurasian initiative of the Korean government. The concepts of Russia’s “Pivot to the East,” China’s “One Belt, One Road (OBOR),” and Korea’s “Eurasia Initiative” share a potential to stimulate the transition of the Asia-Pacific region from “the ocean of conflict” to “the ocean of peace.” However, in realizing these concepts, the relationship between Korea and the four powers (U.S.A./China/Russia/Japan) have a “strategic trilemma.” If the Eurasia Initiative can facilitate construction of the “continent of peace” in Eurasia, it will provide a vision and strategic opportunity to change the region form an “ocean of conflict” into an “ocean of peace.”