Cosmin Gabriel PĂCURARU, PhD^

Summary. However energy resource-rich a country is, corruption that leads to the lack of transparency of State contracts, to the lowering of GDP, to poor living standards, brings citizens to poverty. A State in which corruption is endemic and moreover has neighboring conflicts, represents a factor of risk for the regions and leans towards the fall of said State. This scenario can be continued by finding another State, a bigger State, with the role of a civilizing metropolis that would ”offer” stability by ”pacifying” the area. Do these notions seem familiar? They appertain to the Russian Federation’s foreign policy, and the imagined scenario can evolve in the near future, even in the Caucasian zone, depending on the political will of its present and future leaders.

CONCLUSIONS

However energy resource-rich a country is, corruption that leads to the lack of transparency of State contracts, to the lowering of GDP, to poor living standards, brings citizens to poverty. A State in which corruption is endemic and moreover has neighboring conflicts, represents a factor of risk for the regions and leans towards the fall of said State. This scenario can be continued by finding another State, a bigger State, with the role of a civilizing metropolis that would ”offer” stability by ”pacifying” the area. Do these notions seem familiar? They appertain to the Russian Federation’s foreign policy, and the imagined scenario can evolve in the near future, even in the Caucasian zone, depending on the political will of its present and future leaders.