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1. Azerbaijan in the Struggle for Eurasia Restoring America’s Geostrategic Approach

Author:
Michael Doran
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
Azerbaijan is “geopolitically critical” to the United States, argues the 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter. Counterbalancing Russia is a primary duty of the United States, and the mere placement of Azerbaijan on the map makes it a crucial partner in that effort. The benefits of partnership extend well beyond Azerbaijan’s immediate neighborhood, the South Caucasus. The country is the sole gateway to the West of the former Soviet states of Central Asia. The independence of those states, Brzezinski explains, “can be rendered nearly meaningless if Azerbaijan becomes fully subordinated to Moscow’s control.” Brzezinski was not alone in championing this view. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, American foreign policy professionals on both sides of the political aisle espoused the same perspective, which we shall dub the “the geostrategic approach.” Its influence generated significant American support for the creation of an East‑West land bridge, across which rail tracks and energy pipelines now stretch—the Silk Road region’s only terrestrial supply lines from Asia to Europe that Russia cannot control. This land bridge opened the way for an air corridor which, during the war in Afghanistan, allowed planes from America’s military bases in the Middle East to reach the battlefield by a route much shorter than any alternative, and one that required no haggling with difficult partners, such as Russia. As it emerged defeated three decades ago from the First Karabakh War (1988‑1994), Azerbaijan was virtually a failed state, inundated with hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons. Today it is the wealthiest, most prosperous, and most influential country in its neighborhood. Its victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War also revealed the startling power of its military. The rise of Azerbaijan has vindicated Brzezinski and his cohort, but even as the country grows stronger and fulfills the role envisioned for it, the geostrategic approach grows weaker. Supporters of this perspective in Washington today are few and far between. Are we witnessing the temporary eclipse of an influential foreign policy doctrine, or its total demise?
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Hegemony, Geopolitics, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Asia, Azerbaijan, North America, and United States of America

2. The Centrality of Karabakh in Caucasus Geopolitics

Author:
Svante Cornell
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
Azerbaijan’s ability to reassert its territorial integrity in the 2020 war with Armenia was a major event in the modern history of the Caucasus. This war, commonly called the Second Karabakh War, showed the continued centrality of Karabakh in the geopolitics of the Caucasus. Even more specifically, the citadel of Shusha is the center of the Caucasus: the capital of the former Karabakh Khanate, Shusha lies at the center of this conflict and thus of the region’s geopolitics. Surprisingly, very few scholars have underlined this critical point; in fact, only two studies spring immediately to mind. The first is by Elchin Amirbayov, who in 2001 wrote a report for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center on Shusha’s “pivotal role” in any future Karabakh settlement; the second is by Faris Shafiyev, who in 2021 contributed a chapter on the “paramount significance” of Shusha in a book co‑edited for ADA University Press by the Co‑Editors of Baku Dialogues. (Amirbayov is presently an adviser to the First Vice President of Azerbaijan; Shafiyev is presently the chairman of the Center of Analysis of International Relations. Both are former Azerbaijani ambassadors.) To reiterate: Shusha has been—in military and symbolic terms—the center of the Armenia‑Azerbaijan conflict, with wide implications that have gone beyond that. For example, it was the loss of Shusha in May 1992 that spelled the end of the first post‑Soviet government of Azerbaijan. Conversely, it was the occupation of Shusha that same year that sealed the Armenia‑Russia alliance, which formed one of the major geopolitical axes of the post‑Soviet Caucasus. But it was also Azerbaijan’s retaking of Shusha that ended the Second Karabakh War. On a deeper level, the Armenia‑Azerbaijan conflict (which centered on but was not limited to Karabakh) formed the main dividing line in the Caucasus. This conflict ensured that the Caucasus was composed of states that were suspicious of each other or in conflict with each other, instead of developing statehood and sovereignty and cooperation together.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Geopolitics, Regionalism, and Statehood
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Asia, and Azerbaijan

3. The Lynchpin of the Middle Corridor

Author:
Anthony Kim
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
Particularly in today’s evolving geopolitical and economic reality triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Caspian region has gained greater relevance whilst acquiring renewed significance. More specifically, one of the geostrategic consequences of Putin’s ongoing assault against Ukraine and its broader implications for the global economy has been the enhanced impetus for ensuring the pragmatic and strategic utility of the “Middle Corridor” (also more formally known as the Trans‑Caspian International Transport Route, or TITR) for the Caspian region and beyond as a viable commercial transport route alternative to the long‑established northern pathway through Russia. China, which has been eager to expand its economic networks, had hoped to dominate economically the utilization of the Middle Corridor as part of an expanding BRI. But at least some of the countries in the region (and beyond) have grown increasingly uneasy about participating in it. They have viewed China as leaving many of its BRI promises unfulfilled. And they have also become more concerned that Beijing’s BRI engagement comes with too many geopolitical strings attached and can lead to debt traps. By and large, China has invested in a number of infrastructure projects in Central Asia within the framework of BRI. Most of China’s activity has taken place on the eastern shore of the Caspian. Major port, pipeline, and infrastructure projects on the Caspian’s western shore have been done without much, if any, direct Chinese involvement. Making the Middle Corridor work properly is not an easy task: it will take considerable degrees of time, financial means, and political commitment. With many economic and political challenges lingering around, by no means, the cross‑country transportation route could become the cheapest option any time soon. Nonetheless, in an increasingly raucous world where diversifying supply chains reduce risk and has become more desirable, the route could become not only fully viable but, more importantly, truly cost‑effective.
Topic:
Security, Development, Geopolitics, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Europe and Asia