Browsing by Subject "energy"
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access Cooperative security in the Black Sea region(Bilkent University, 2003) Şenol, ÖzkanDuring the Cold War years, the Black Sea was treated as a barrier and borderline rather than an integral part of the European politics. With the end of the Cold War, The Black Sea area emerged as a region on the physical and intellectual map of Europe with its political, economical, and military dynamics. This thesis is a study on the role of cooperative initiatives to increase security in the Black Sea region within the framework of cooperative security. It aims to analyze the cooperative security efforts in the region with a certain emphasis on the post-Cold War developments. This study argues that the strategic importance of the Black Sea region to the West, and to Europe in particular has increased substantially in recent years. Provided the region’s geostrategic position as a natural link between Europe and Asia, and between Central Asia and the Middle East, it constitutes a vital trade link as well as an important area of transit. Moreover, instability and potential for conflict in the region, its energy sources, and its economic prospects matter to the international community. At the same time this study argues that the BSEC, GUUAM, and BLACKSEAFOR as main regional cooperative initiatives have contributed to the peace, security and stability of the Black Sea region with their various activities. It evaluates that the OSCE, NATO, and the EU as wider European organizations have played an important role in projecting security and stability to the region through their various mechanismsItem Open Access Dynamics of the alliance between Turkey and USA : the South Caucasus case(Bilkent University, 2003) Ayhan, Halil SıddıkWith the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus presented several opportunities and challenges in the political, economic and military domains to the US as the unique superpower of the world, and to Turkey as a regional power. Though there occurred several crises in the Turkish-American alliance from its outset, both states whose interests converged; encouraging the development of democratic pro-Western regimes and free-market economy, hindering ethnic conflicts, expanding NATO’s membership, blocking monopolization of oil export routes in the Caucasus, securing oil reserves in the Caspian, preventing the rebuilding of the Russian Empire and falling the newly independent states of the South Caucasus from falling into the hegemony of Russia and Iran, keeping Iran’s fundamentalist regime in check, and pursuing active politics in the South Caucasus as a duty for the sake of their own global and regional interests. But, there had been also differences in the allies’ politics as in the NagornoKarabakh conflict. However, the South Caucasian states, including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia faced enormous difficulties in enhancing their national security, implementing the process of state building and improving their economic situation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and therefore, independence for these states did not initially provide political stability. Internal conflicts, and Russia’s imperialist policies undermined these states’ efforts in order to be strong and independent states, and they could not cope with the challenges of the new geopolitical and economic environment due to the lack of their own military power, and strong economy. Thereupon, these states’ first years of independence have been fraught with economic, political, and social difficulties. But the vigorous efforts of the US and Turkey prevented the South Caucasian states from falling into Russian hegemony and accelerated state-building process of these countries as examined in this studyItem Open Access Six low-strain zinc-blende half metals: An ab initio investigation(2003) Pask J.E.; Yang L.H.; Fong, C.Y.; Pickett W.E.; Dag, S.A class of spintronic materials, the zinc-blende (ZB) half metals, has recently been synthesized in thin-film form. We apply all-electron and pseudopotential ab initio methods to investigate the electronic and structural properties of ZB Mn and Cr pnictides and carbides, and find six compounds to be half metallic at or near their respective equilibrium lattice constants, making them excellent candidates for growth at low strain. Based on these findings, we further propose substrates on which the growth may be accomplished with minimum strain. Our findings are supported by the recent successful synthesis of ZB CrAs on GaAs and ZB CrSb on GaSb, where our predicted equilibrium lattice constants are within 0.5% of the lattice constants of the substrates on which the growth was accomplished. We confirm previous theoretical results for ZB MnAs, but find ZB MnSb to be half metallic at its equilibrium lattice constant, whereas previous work has found it to be only nearly so. We report here two low-strain half metallic ZB compounds, CrP and MnC, and suggest appropriate substrates for each. Unlike the other five compounds, we predict ZB MnC to become/remain half metallic with compression rather than expansion, and to exhibit metallicity in the minority-rather than majority-spin channel. These fundamentally different properties of MnC can be connected to substantially greater p-d hybridization and d-d overlap, and correspondingly larger bonding-antibonding splitting and smaller exchange splitting. We examine the relative stability of each of the six ZB compounds against NiAs and MnP structures, and find stabilities for the compounds not yet grown comparable to those already grown.Item Open Access Thrace on the East : Georgia?(Bilkent University, 2004) Kiremitçi, İlkerSince Turkey has turned its face towards Europe, it can be concluded that one of its ‘backs’ is the Caucasian region. However, Caucasia may not constitute Turkey’s first security priority under present conditions, but this does not mean that it will not, in the future. Therefore, that Turkey should consider its ‘back’ from the security perspective is an indisputable reality. In that sense, this thesis examines one of the Caucasian states, namely GEORGIA, which is in the middle of the region, from the security point of view. How Georgia has been affecting Turkish security policies after the end of Cold War is the main concern of the thesis.