The South Caucasus – this historically burdened stretch of land between the Black and Caspian Seas, between empires, narratives and trade routes – is undergoing a status rotation. The region, long serving as a transit hub, logistical crossroads and symbol of global integration, is losing its former roles and entering a phase of geopolitical reorientation. In an era of increasing global fragmentation and return to bloc logic, transport corridors are becoming not bridges but front lines.
For a long time, the “West-East” project running through the South Caucasus was part of the infrastructure dream of a “new Silk Road.” It united the interests of several actors at once. The West viewed this route as part of the “anaconda strategy” – bypassing Russia in energy supplies and cutting off the post-Soviet space from Moscow. Turkey saw in it the contours of a future “Turkic belt” – from Ankara to Urumqi, with the dominant role of Turkish economy and culture. China included the Caucasus segment in its “One Belt, One Road” initiative as a land artery to Europe, bypassing unstable Iran and strategically hostile Russia. It seemed this route was secured by consensus.
By the mid-2020s, the previous global consensus structure began to noticeably disintegrate. China, shifting focus from the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, increased attention to Southeast Asia and the South China Sea, investing significant resources in projects with faster and more tangible effects, reflecting the “nearest priority” strategy.
The European Union, concentrating efforts and financial flows, reoriented towards supporting Ukraine, which became Brussels’ main political priority and caused a redistribution of political capital in favor of the Eastern front.
Turkey, meanwhile, faced the consequences of economic instability, inflation and internal political challenges, which significantly limited its ability to institutionally consolidate regional ambitions, especially in the South Caucasus and Middle East.
As a result, the previous supranational “West-East” that supported and moderated transit corridors and infrastructure projects in the Caucasus region is disappearing. In the Caucasus context, this means a significant weakening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars transport route: what was once a vital corridor is now turning into a “flat map,” an infrastructure illusion unable to ensure previous strategic importance.
Against this background, attention is sharpening towards another vector – “North-South.” Unlike the West-East route, this one doesn’t aim to connect “civilizations,” but creates a new Eurasian core. It links Russia with Iran, India and further to Africa, bypassing not only unstable regions but also the zone of strategic pressure from Anglo-American maritime infrastructure. Land roads, railways, tunnels, deep-water ports – all these are not just part of logistics but architecture of political trust and long-term sovereignty. Through Iran’s Chabahar port, India seeks to reduce dependence on Pakistan and China; Iran, living under sanctions, gains access to northern markets. Russia, in turn, creates an alternative to Western-controlled sea routes, especially amid attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and instability in the Suez Canal.
This project, unlike “West-East,” doesn’t require enthusiastic rhetoric. It develops out of necessity. Which means – sustainably. And in this new world pattern, the South Caucasus finds itself not at the center but on the periphery. Local elites – of Armenia, Azerbaijan, partially Georgia – find themselves in a situation where they must choose between situational loyalty and strategic loneliness.
The behavior of these elites can be partly explained by the “peripheral pragmatism” syndrome: when there are no real security guarantees, actors begin playing politics of short-term gains. Blackmail, emotional statements, demands for “gifts” – this is the language of desperation and weak position, not strength. Armenia under Pashinyan made a choice in favor of the West, consciously destroying the alliance with Russia. Recall just the recent Armenian military exercises with American forces.
This choice is partly emotional, partly symbolic. However, it exacerbates the country’s structural vulnerability. After all, CSTO membership hasn’t been annulled, the 1997 treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with Russia remains in force, and the military base in Gyumri, air defense system and border with Turkey are still guarded by Russian forces. Yet in 2022 Russia didn’t even send an observation mission in response to Yerevan’s request – the European Union took care of that. A precedent has been set: obligations are taken but not fulfilled.
In Azerbaijan, the opposite process is underway. Baku is strengthening its alliance with Ankara, achieving military successes, but simultaneously taking strategic risks. Azerbaijan is entering confrontation not only with Russia but also with Iran – a country where 15 to 20 million ethnic Azerbaijanis live. Meanwhile, Iran remains a regional power with developed industry and stable institutions. Baku’s shortsightedness in this direction could become its vulnerability if pressure intensifies from north and south.
All this is happening against the backdrop of historical traumas. In Armenian-Turkish relations, the key issue remains the 1915 genocide. The destruction of up to one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, mass deportations, targeted ethnic cleansings – all this is recorded both in scholarly sources and international acts. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the very concept of “genocide,” derived it in part from the Armenian experience. The Nazis referenced the impunity of Ottoman crimes when planning the Holocaust. This is not historical accident but a legal and moral line. And today, genocide recognition should be assessed not only as an act of justice but as an attempt to prevent the present, as in the case of Gaza, and secure the future.
In this landscape, the EU acts as a tactical actor. It offers Armenia and Georgia humanitarian and political support but not protection. The €2.6 billion assistance plan for Armenia until 2027 is essentially long-term development programs. For comparison: Ukraine alone was allocated €50 billion in 2024. The first “non-lethal” EU assistance to Armenia of €10 million went to a field hospital. From this we can conclude the EU’s goals in the region are:
- Geopolitical – weakening Russian positions in the region.
- Symbolic – demonstrating an alternative to Russian influence for the Armenian population.
- Sanctions-related – preventing circumvention of European sanctions through Armenian territory.
The EU isn’t offering Armenia membership, can’t protect its territory, and isn’t a geopolitical guarantor, lacking sufficient resources for long-term presence in the region. Its influence is symbolic, balancing the vacuum formed after Russia’s weakening. This influence is soft power allowing Western values to take root in the fertile soil of a people feeling “rejected by Russia.”
As mentioned earlier, Georgia acts as an important strategic node on the “Baku-Tbilisi-Kars” route, which initially promised it economic growth and increased regional influence. However, modern research shows that declining global interest in this transport corridor is due both to changing logistics priorities and the general economic and geopolitical context.
Internally, Georgia is experiencing deep political turbulence – growing polarization between pro-Western elites and Eurasian-oriented opposition, increasing social instability and declining trust in government institutions. These factors significantly limit Tbilisi’s ability to effectively use economic advantages and maintain a sustainable development strategy.
Thus, Georgia finds itself in limbo: while maintaining a declarative pro-Western course, it simultaneously loses influence through reduced transit potential and internal disagreements. This turns the country into a complex geopolitical and internal knot, on whose stability and development depends not only regional dynamics but more broadly – the balance of power in the South Caucasus.
As history has shown more than once, countries without alliances, without clear strategy and without collective memory are first on the list of geopolitical defeats. The South Caucasus, having lost its significance as a major transport crossroads, is turning into a periphery – a space where interests of more powerful players intersect but where local actors themselves have fewer and fewer levers of influence.
Yet it is precisely in this periphery, in these nodes of “forgotten” routes and societies torn by contradictions, that the main question of the 21st century will be decided: how spheres of influence are formed and transformed – through direct force, through collective historical memory or through control over logistics and economic flows.
Each of these factors will become key in the struggle for geopolitical subjectivity. Paraphrasing ancient wisdom, the periphery may turn out to be not a place of weakness but a space of opportunity – if it can revive strategic vision, form new alliances and preserve its historical memory as a resource of political identity and resilience.
This concerns Armenia first and foremost. Will it be ready for this? Can it become an active subject of world politics, especially after the turbulent changes of recent years, rather than just an object of influence – this remains an open question. In this sense, the words of French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville sound as a warning, relevant even today:
“History teaches that peoples without memory and without unity are doomed to fall.”
For now, only one thing is clear – in the coming decades, the fate of not only the South Caucasus but also the broader configuration of forces in the Eurasian space will depend on how relations develop between local elites, external players and global trends. After all, control over Eurasian transit routes will accelerate the collapse of the unipolar world, burying beneath it the wreckage of the “end of history.”
