Research & Commentary Results

Over the past few years, both Russia and Turkey have played key roles in the world’s hottest conflict zones. Usually on opposite sides and often on the verge of a direct confrontation, Moscow and Ankara have demonstrated a knack for brinkmanship and crisis management through diplomacy. While both sides have suffered casualties, they pulled back before any fight got too big. On Sept. 27 the latest in a series of conflicts emerged when fighting broke out again between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. With Turkey and Russia on opposite sides once more, the flare-up in the South Caucasus will be a major test of whether their relationship will bend or break.

Fierce fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces represents a dramatic escalation in longstanding tensions, with the two countries on an all-out war footing following over a week of battle. Although the fighting has already dramatically eclipsed previous spikes in violence since the 1994 ceasefire, the most recent conflagration shows no signs of abating anytime soon, and raises the specter of even greater escalation among regional and global powers.

On September 27, hostilities broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK). Following several days of fighting, the region is now witnessing the worst escalation of tensions since the early 1990s. This time, Azerbaijan’s efforts are boosted by Turkey’s readiness to render robust military support.

Over the past decade, Iran has made a concerted push to expand its cyber capabilities, an effort in which the IRGC has played a central role. Given the IRGC’s expansive and growing power, scholars, analysts, and many Iran watchers have long thought that at some point it could take over control in Iran, replacing the theocratic government with a military one. As Iran approaches an inflection point over the issue of succession after Ayatollah Khamenei, that day could be coming soon, and the IRGC is well placed to bring about such a transition given the hybrid mix of physical and cyber capabilities that it has developed and perfected over recent decades.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Maxim A. Suchkov, Ibrahim Jalal, Eliza Campbell, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.

As with nearly everywhere in 2020, the Caucasus has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. While Armenia has registered by far the most cases of the three internationally recognized South Caucasian states, it’s another regional territory where the pandemic’s effects are being felt most broadly: the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia.

Countries in the Black Sea region have largely failed to integrate with their neighbors, despite common levels of openness and dependence on foreign trade. For many countries in the region, trade has become a driving force for growth, accounting for on average one-third of regional GDP. However, Black Sea supply chains largely connect the region to the outside world – primarily Europe and Asia – instead of neighboring countries. Highly integrated trade relationships, like those seen in Southeast Asia, simply do not exist amongst Black Sea countries.  

Since its annexation of Crimea, Russia has spent the past few years militarizing the peninsula. But one aspect of Russia’s control of Crimea is less discussed in Western policy circles—the importance of the Sea of Azov to Russia’s Black Sea ambitions. Russian control of Crimea does not only bring the goal of turning the Black Sea into a Russian lake closer, control over Crimea gives Russia dominance over the Sea of Azov.

Energy transition is the shift from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating, cooking, or transportation, to low carbon generation such as nuclear facilities or wind and solar power plants. For all countries, the energy transition process is laborious and raises challenging financial and social concerns. But this process comes with additional geopolitical dilemmas in a region such as the Black Sea basin.

Since the inception of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has substantially expanded its political, legal, trade, economic, educational, scientific, and cultural presence in the Black Sea region. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has pursued various initiatives with the littoral states to open new markets for Chinese goods, acquire local industries through loans and investments, and most importantly build infrastructure connecting China with Europe and the Middle East via the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s long-term stability will depend on its economic prosperity. As a transitioning economy, trade and investment are welcome and needed whether from the U.S., Europe, or China. Ukraine finds itself walking a thinning tightrope between the U.S. and China as their relationship turns increasingly adversarial. If Washington wants to keep Chinese activity in this economy to a minimum, the present and future administrations must more rapidly and directly coordinate American trade and investment in Ukraine.

On August 22, Turkey announced the discovery of Tuna-1. Though questions remain as to whether it is economically viable to start production – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested this could happen as early as 2023 – the news could not go unnoticed in other littoral countries of the Black Sea. The discovery may well help spur regional cooperation.

I have the good fortune of living in the Baltics and working in the Black Sea region. Compared to the positive NATO effort in the Baltics, the Black Sea region as an operational space is a dangerous conceptual mess for both NATO and the EU. A lack of clarity of purpose confuses countries in the region that really need support in their fight against Russian interference.

In a new briefing book released ahead of the U.S. elections in November, entitled Election 2020: Challenges and Opportunities for US Policy in the Middle East, MEI scholars lay out key issues across the region, highlight the U.S. interests at stake, and provide policy insights and recommendations for the path forward. 

The United States and its many partners in the “liberal international order” must remember the principles that brought them such success, while assessing how to promulgate them in a changing and increasingly threatening world. Indeed, the biggest threat to our present peace, prosperity, and political liberty is the Leftist assault on the legitimacy of liberalism itself, matched by the Right’s retreat into blood-and-soil nationalism.