Why is the United States always meddling in the back yards of other major powers? Doesn’t anyone on Washington’s Think Tank Row ever wonder if the US may be destabilizing the world? An email notification I got this morning from Foreign Policy Magazine set me to thinking. 3:01 AM Athens, Greece time. Gmail notified me […]
Recent weeks have seen a significant military escalation on the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. With belligerent statements made by both sides, Iranian troops are being transferred to the border with their northern neighbor. Explaining the move, Brigadier-General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Ground Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said: “We will […]
The Republic of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet state that is now a member of the CIS, is a long-term partner of Russia. Although it is not a member of such important (from Russia’s perspective) international organizations as the EAEC (Eurasian Economic Union) and the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), Russia and Azerbaijan nevertheless work together […]
The more you read, and read again, the same material but with the titles changed, the more disillusioned you become. It is as if the pundits just don’t get it, even to the extent of calling the South Caucasus part of Europe. In that particular case even Wikipedia is more accurate than most: Transcaucasia, also […]
The Russia brokered negotiated end of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has laid the basis for a major geo-political transformation of the South Caucasus. While Russia’s role in bringing the military conflict to an end and holding the ceasefire did put it in-charge of the South Caucasus, subsequent developments show how Russia has expanded its role and consolidated […]
As the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh mushrooms, the Israeli-Azerbaijani arms trade is flourishing, and in this case Netanyahu’s government is being chiefly guided by economic benefits, with political calculations, or rather miscalculations, in second place after those. It should be pointed out that at present the Israeli economy is experiencing great difficulties due to the pandemic, […]
Armenian-Iranian relations have the potential to achieve new levels of ‘amicable’ collaboration—if the two nations are left alone to deal with one another. Although few laypersons can even locate one or the other on a map, many soon will be able to as American sanctions on Iran impact the region and complicate larger geopolitical events.
“The Turks have passed by here; all is in ruins and mourning.“ – Victor Hugo, 1880, Balkan liberation wars
It did not take long to smell a rat on this story. Question number one in these out of thin air conflicts is “why now”? And the answer to that is Russia is on a diplomatic roll and Turkey on a slide, so someone decided to put Armenia in play to possibly force Russia to support it militarily.
