The South Caucasus and the Middle East grow increasingly closer to each other, ushering in a new period of bilateral ties.
The South Caucasus has long been considered as one of the regions where Russia exercised a near exclusive level of influence. The geography of the area allowed Moscow to project power to the Black and Caspian seas and most of all, into the Middle East. Yet, over the past few years, this began to change. Local and much wider geopolitical processes transformed the dynamic, allowing incidents such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict of February 2022 – to take place. But as will be argued below, the shift is much more fundamental and is deeply connected to the geography of the region, pushing the South Caucasus further toward the Middle East.
Embroiled in a long-term conflict which required all the country’s economic and military resources, Russia has not been able to uphold the strong position in the South Caucasus it enjoyed prior to 2022. The regional countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – swiftly moved to use this emerging space to maneuver. Azerbaijan reasserted control over territories which had long been under Armenian control, while Russian peacemakers stationed in the Nagorno-Karabakh remained inactive. Ever since September 2023 when the Armenian statelet fell, Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia have gradually soured. In Baku the need to rely on Russia’s benevolence has significantly decreased and the country has become more confident in its foreign policy. Azerbaijan has thus expanded its ties with Israel and Pakistan, improved relations with Iran, developed strategic relations with the Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and most notably established a strategic partnership agreement with China. Baku has even resumed talks with the EU on re-establishing strategic partnership and has improved relations with the US under the Trump administration.
Other regional countries have likewise pivoted away from Russia. Armenia, discontented with Moscow’s inability and unwillingness to help its ally during and following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020, chose to pursue a more diversified foreign policy. Yerevan has engaged with Ankara to establish diplomatic ties, open their common border and build close economic ties. Armenia has also established a series of strategic partnerships with China, the UK, and the US and is about to do the same with the Islamic Republic. Its relations with the EU are likewise expanding with a visa liberalization program and much closer economic and political engagement now discussed.
More importantly, Armenia has moved to mend ties with Azerbaijan. The two have agreed on the stipulations of the peace treaty they plan to sign in the near future. Both also endorsed the US’ involvement in the peace mediation – a notable deviation from traditionally Russian involvement in the process. For instance, Moscow helped to end the hostilities back in 2020 but was gradually sidelined by Baku and Yerevan from the peace process. Armenia has even managed to limit its dependence on Russian weaponry. India is now Armenia’s biggest arms supplier reversing a trend whereby Russia had dominated Armenia’s defense market.
Then there is Georgia, which similar to its neighbors, has strived to diversify its foreign policy by building a strategic partnership with China and Central Asian countries and is increasingly looking at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a vital source of investment. More importantly, Georgia moved to stabilize relations with Russia amid Georgia’s stagnating ties with the West. In short, Tbilisi has limited its dependence on a single geopolitical player in favor of multiple partnerships.
But there are much deeper, historical shifts taking place. One aspect that defined the post-Soviet period in the South Caucasus was intense rivalry between Russia and the Western countries. The past few years, however, show that this concept has changed dramatically and the picture now has become more fluid. The South Caucasus has become a highly congested geopolitical arena with multiple powers now competing for influence. The US, the EU, Turkey, Iran, increasingly so China and the Arab Gulf states, all have stakes in the South Caucasus whether though major investments into infrastructure projects, alliances or partnerships propped up by expanding trade ties. This signals the end of the post-Soviet era and the beginning of something more chaotic.
A longue durée perspective suggests an even more intriguing shift. With the apparent weakening of Moscow’s position in the South Caucasus ends a long history of nearly exclusive Russian influence as well. The year 1801 proved to be critical in the history of the Caucasus. This was when the Russian Empire annexed eastern Georgia, then known as the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, ushering in the beginning of Russian domination over the region. It lasted for nearly two centuries and even the end of the Soviet Union did not bring about an end to Moscow’s geopolitical pre-eminence in the South Caucasus. Turkey and Iran as well as the Western countries were either weak or too geographically distant to replace Russia, while South Caucasus countries were not strong enough to pivot elsewhere.
In reality, however, for the history of the region, the Russian influence has been a relatively short phenomenon. The South Caucasus has for millennia been dominated by the Middle Eastern powers. Whether the Romans / Byzantines, Ottomans or the Achaemenids, Sassanids, Safavids and other Iranian dynasties, the Middle Eastern empires often divided the region into two broadly even spheres of influence, and it lasted intermittently for millennia.
Geography was a driving force behind this link. Indeed, the mighty Caucasus range divided the southern part of the region from the Eurasian steppes and quite naturally pushed it to build closer commercial, political and cultural ties with the Middle East. The emergence of the Russian Empire as a dominant force in the 19th century reversed this process but, as it seems, only temporarily. The geographic constraints take precedence and geopolitics once again push the South Caucasus to re-engage with the Middle East.
This is indeed what has been taking place recently. Take for instance Azerbaijan which has built close commercial and security ties with Israel. The latter’s support was instrumental in strengthening Azerbaijan’s army which led to its victorious war over Armenia in 2020-2023. Baku has also engaged with Syria and the latter’s new leader recently visited Azerbaijan to initiate gas transfers via Turkey. Azerbaijan has also built close links with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The latter has made tremendous investments into wind and other alternative energy spheres across Azerbaijan. Georgia has made similar moves. Its ties with Turkey are expanding and the GCC states have been investing into the country’s tourism and transit infrastructure. The reason behind Tbilisi’s moves is similar – to build as diversified a foreign policy portfolio as possible.
In the age of multipolarity, a multi-aligned South Caucasus emerges. Russia remains a major player, but it is now one more among the many, rather than dominant, or even primus inter pares. Its exclusive level of influence has now been diminished and instead Moscow has to reposition itself to adjust to a new reality on the ground. Doing so however proves difficult amid the continuous conflict in Ukraine, troubled relations with the Western countries and a pivot to Asia (and heavy reliance on China) which distorts the balance in Russia’s foreign policy which was maintained prior to 2022. More importantly, shifts in Russia’s position are not only limited to the South Caucasus. Widely similar developments are taking place in Central Asia. The region’s five countries likewise are using the emerging momentum behind Russia’s distraction to build a diversified foreign policy. It has mostly worked - with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and even Tajikistan being good examples. All have expanded relations with Asian and European countries and worked hard to attract major investments.
From being traditionally under Russia’s sphere of influence, the South Caucasus is no longer anyone’s backyard. The region’s countries are now more confident in building a multi-vector foreign policy reflecting global changes where the US’ unipolar moment has come to an end and the rise of other powers produces less organized but nevertheless more opportunistic geopolitical reality. Here Russia is just one of the actors.
