Internal and external threats to Russia's national security on the North Caucasus

The author analyzes some of the most important internal and external threats to the national security of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus, their interrelationship and correlation in the post-Soviet period. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the region has become an internal border geopolitical space of Russia, which is closely associated with the new South Caucasus independent states, and to a less extent with a number of the states of the Middle East. From this point of view, the Caucasus is seen as a single geopolitical space that occupies the key place in the southern Russian «underbelly». A distinction is made between the state territory and geopolitical space. In addition to the geographical space the economic, informational, ethno-national, confessional spaces are becoming more important in the region whose boundaries do not always coincide with the state borders. These realities have more or less significant impact on the national and regional security of Russia.