Publications

The catastrophic flooding in Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan has exposed the limits of Russian state capacity on its southern periphery at a moment when Moscow's grip on the wider Caucasus is already loosening. 

The three South Caucasus states are responding to the same geopolitical shock with radically different resources, constraints, and choices.

The Trump administration’s success in brokering the Armenia-Azerbaijan deal demonstrates what’s possible when the United States engages seriously in the region. As the TRIPP corridor begins development, American policymakers would do well to look beyond immediate economic opportunities to the strategic landscape taking shape around them. The Caucasus is no longer Russia’s exclusive domain. The South has transformed. The North may follow, with consequences extending far beyond Russia’s borders.

Armenia faces significant challenges to its political stability and geopolitical security as it attempts a high-stakes strategic pivot away from its traditional Russian security patron and toward the West—a reorientation driven not by choice but by necessity, as the country finds itself militarily inferior, diplomatically isolated, and abandoned by unreliable security guarantors.