Armenia News & Analysis

The Zangezur Corridor is a transformative initiative that hopes to reshape trade and economic landscapes across Eurasia, but it’s not without it’s challenges.

The recent Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal underscores the new geopolitics of the South Caucasus, one where the region is no longer merely a post-Soviet periphery but a pivotal crossroads in broader global strategic competition.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement illustrates the critical role that incremental diplomacy can play in conflict resolution. It’s also one where middle powers can take the lead.

The chaotic conclusion of the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh dispute was a blow to Russian influence in the South Caucasus. Now Washington is moving to fill the vacuum.

This week we cover the prospect of Beijing backing down in the US-China trade war; Brazil’s tariff preparations; trouble in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process; the fate of South Africa's ruling coalition; and Taiwan’s role in the latest trade tensions.

A parallel can be drawn between the 1939 partition of Poland and the contemporary geopolitics of the South Caucasus. And like the 1939 crisis, the current situation could have profound effects on regional stability and global security.

The superiority of Western weapons and training, at least vis-à-vis Russian military equipment, has been established beyond a doubt on the battlefields of Karabakh and Ukraine.

It was not a betrayal from Moscow that lost Armenia the war. Rather, it was Yerevan’s longstanding and misguided over-reliance on Russia which, as its war against Ukraine demonstrates, is a declining great power.

It’s time for Yerevan to build a lasting regional peace for the Armenia that is, not the one imagined by the religious authorities.

The Central Caucasus is back on the geopolitical map, evident in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) and with it, China’s growing political influence.

Azerbaijan helps Europe bolster its energy security, but ever-closer relations between Baku and Brussels involve security and diplomatic trade-offs elsewhere.

Armenia cannot hope to convince Washington and Brussels that it is serious about European integration while it assists Russia’s war against the West.

The list of fields of potential cooperation between the South Caucasus and Central Asia is endless; it’s time for this potential to be realized at the institutional level.

After years of tensions and open conflict, peace is finally returning to the South Caucasus.

However much Yerevan wants to reorient its foreign policy westward, the practical realities of appeasing Moscow won’t be easily overcome.