Omens for the South Caucasus in the 2024 US Presidential Election
The debates round the coming US election primarily concentrate on its home implications or penalties for large points in international politics, resembling the Russia-Ukraine battle, NATO’s future, and the China-Taiwan or Palestine-Israel conflicts. Nonetheless, the final result of the US election could affect quite a lot of different weak areas. A case in level is the South Caucasus, with its presently reworking order, inside tensions, and a lot of overseas pursuits concerned. The latest survey performed by the Pew Analysis Centre exhibits huge partisan gaps in figuring out the US high overseas coverage priorities. The general public angle of People is split over points like strengthening NATO and the UN, selling human rights overseas and sustaining US navy benefit. Equally, conflicting perceptions could be noticed amongst US politicians. As Jordan Tama argues, the elevated polarisation and collapse of the consensus on liberal internationalism imply a bipartisan compact on America’s international position is unlikely to occur.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus (additionally known as Transcaucasus) is basically comprised of right this moment’s nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The US technique in the South Caucasus has gone by means of different stages. At the starting of the Nineteen Nineties, any aspirations about increasing the US attain in the area had been hampered by ethnic conflicts, the rise of nationalist forces and the usually destabilised political surroundings in the three Transcaucasian states. From the early 2000s, US expectations in the area got impetus by some efforts for democratic transition in Georgia, resulted in the so-called Rose Revolution. Later, the Russia-Georgia battle in 2008 made additional enlargement of Western establishments and values troublesome. Rumer et al. write that since that second, US politics there grew to become declaratory with diminished expectations. Till now, the US angle in the direction of the Transcaucasus was certainly inertial. Although, the transition of energy in Armenia in 2018, the new regional order after the 2020 Karabakh battle and additional escalations in 2022-2023 might need made the US decision-makers rethink their pursuits and expectations.
Present US targets in the area are introduced in the newest built-in nation methods printed in the spring of 2022 by the US Division of State. In Armenia, Washington pursues three main goals. First, it goals at strengthening democratic establishments, combating corruption and defending human rights. Secondly, the US seeks to advertise commerce, funding, and power cooperation in the nation. Specifically, the goals are to enhance competitiveness, cut back limitations in commerce and funding and improve Armenia’s power and water safety. Thirdly, the US builds partnerships to deal with international and regional threats, advancing reconciliation efforts, supporting defence sector reforms and strengthening Armenia’s capability to conduct peacekeeping operations and reply to pure and man-made disasters.
In Azerbaijan, the US wants to bolster Baku’s contribution to regional and worldwide peace. Washington tries to help cooperation and reconciliation efforts and strengthen Baku’s capabilities to counter home and transnational safety threats. The nation’s technique additionally encourages Azerbaijan to diversify its financial system and construct nearer ties with the United States. The important thing goals are to help the Southern Fuel Hall and European power safety, entice US direct funding, obtain Azerbaijan’s dedication to a inexperienced financial system and its involvement in impartial and Western-led financial and environmental initiatives. Washington additionally goals to stimulate civil society establishments and change into a extra seen associate of Azerbaijan by offering a greater understanding of United States tradition and values. The US is also interested in Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic and regional integration and in growing its functionality to deal with home and international threats. Much like the two neighbouring nations, it’s anticipated of Georgia to strengthen democracy, rule of legislation and anti-corruption efforts, a lot important for the Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations. In the financial space, the US seeks to foster a clear market-based financial system open to US funding, diversified commerce and inclusive, higher-value employment.
A couple of issues are clearly noticed right here. In the South Caucasus, the US focuses on the regional stability and normalisation of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, spurring peace as a elementary situation for unlocking regional potential in the financial system. Then, it considers Georgia’s integration with the West extra promising and possible. Lastly, the US recognises the significance of getting Azerbaijan as an financial associate, considering its position in regional transit tasks and power provide functionality.
There are a number of components in 2024 that may influence the brief and long-term way forward for the area. First, Armenia and Azerbaijan are engaged on a peace settlement. It appears that evidently they’re now nearer to the peace deal than ever. There are nonetheless three sticking points in reaching this deal, resembling the demarcation of borders, worldwide ensures and dispute decision mechanisms, and opening the Zangezur Hall – a transit route connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan by means of Armenia’s territory. The primary two points usually are not insoluble and could be settled with the diplomatic efforts and political will of the events. In distinction, the third level relating to transportation infrastructure and connectivity presents the most complex downside. The 9th provision of the 2020 Trilateral Statement (armistice settlement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Battle) states that “all economic and transport links in the region shall be unblocked”, and Armenia shall assure transport communication between Azerbaijan’s western areas and Nakhichevan to arrange the motion of residents, automobiles and cargo. Nonetheless, the two nations have reverse views and interpretations of this provision, and Armenia doesn’t need its territory for use for the worldwide hall managed by Baku. This concern is usually thought-about a menace of additional escalation. Such issues are shared not only in Armenia but also in Iran, presenting them as a danger for its sole land border with Armenia and a related commerce route.
Other than the obstacles to the peace deal, there are equally important issues deserving consideration. Such points embrace demining huge territories in Nagorno-Karabakh, exchanging prisoners of battle, reintegrating Karabakh Armenians prepared to return to their properties, restoring the cultural heritage, establishing narratives of peace between the two nations, and implementing the common environmental policy of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia inside the Caspian-Caucasian bioregion.
Second, Georgia is anticipating parliamentary elections in late October 2024, the place the Georgian Dream – the Russia-friendly ruling celebration – will attempt to preserve energy. The outcomes of those elections will definitely influence the way forward for EU-Georgia relations and usually decide the nation’s overseas coverage path for the following 4 years. However even when (it’s uncertain) the newly elected parliament will, in its majority, include pro-Western opposition, there are components not favouring strengthening cooperation with the West. The brand new geopolitical actuality established with none salient involvement of any Western state or establishment diminished their position and potential energy in the area. Georgian Dream celebration and its pro-Russian stance usually are not the solely issues in Georgia’s means towards Euro-Atlantic integration. This was brilliantly illustrated by Kornely Kakachia. On the one hand, Georgia witnesses the evolving regional safety structure that excludes Western companions. On the different hand, Russian regional presence is perceived as an existential menace to Georgian sovereignty. Eugene Kogan explains that right this moment’s Tbilisi has come to a political deadlock. It has no allies prepared to guard Georgia in case of any navy battle. A few of its territories had been annexed in 2008 and stay below Russian strategic management. The society is politically divided, and anti-Western rhetoric utilized by the ruling celebration challenges its relations with the EU.
Third, the uncertainty of the present second stems from the growing uncertainty of the worldwide political context. The complete-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in the altering affect of Moscow in the South Caucasus. It now has the lowest degree of relations with Armenia – previously the foremost ally in the area. Erevan has frozen its relations with the Collective Safety Treaty Group, ratified the Worldwide Prison Court docket’s Rome Statute, and is actively wanting to diversify its security partners. The alliance between Azerbaijan and Türkiye has change into the main energy in the area. Türkiye considerably intensified the strategic and navy cooperation with Baku. In a post-war order of 2024, Ankara’s priorities are regional peace and connectivity. It might take into account the lowering degree of Russia’s energy in the area as a window of opportunity to ascertain a secure safety structure, in addition to an inclusive commerce and financial system related to different logistic applications, resembling the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. Ankara sought to construct a regional mechanism of cooperation. In the 2000s, it initiated the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. Then, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan put ahead the “3+3” Platform for Regional Cooperation in 2020, which endeavoured to undermine the West’s influence in the South Caucasus by limiting the regional cooperation to Russia, Türkiye and Iran plus Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Georgia refused to participate in this format, and it gave the impression to be simply one other failure to create an inclusive regional cooperation mechanism, both with or with out the West.
Russia is attempting to reshape its coverage in Transcaucasia in keeping with new geopolitical actuality and inside the ongoing rivalry with the West. Regardless that it’s dropping direct management and energy over the area, the exclusion of the Western attain there could be thought-about a victory for Moscow. The absence of Russia’s current strategic vision on the South Caucasus makes it take a reactive method, able to adapt to any order that isn’t depending on the West. As Azizi and Isachenko rightly emphasise, “a ‘less Russia, more Turkey’ dynamic heightens Tehran’s apprehensions towards Ankara”. Iran is anxious about the Zangezur Hall, which primarily empowers Azerbaijan’s and Türkiye’s positions and threatens to complicate Tehran’s entry to Armenia and isolate it from international commerce routes. Apart from, Iran is pissed off by deepening of Azerbaijan-Israeli navy and financial relations. At the similar time, the decision to construct the Aras corridor connecting Azerbaijan’s mainland and its exclave by means of Iranian territory illustrates the enchancment of ties with Baku and the cooling of relations with Erevan. It may be defined as Tehran’s try to adapt to the altering regional order and profit from the place it could. Nonetheless, it is usually brought on by Armenia’s strive to involve Western states in regional politics.
A brand new regional order in the South Caucasus established after Azerbaijan regained its sovereign territory brings altering energy dynamics and creates a significant alternative both for peace, integration, and prosperity or for a brand new wave of geopolitical rivalry. Too many important issues are on the agenda right this moment. There may be nonetheless no consent over some safety and financial points. And there’s no regional platform representing the three states that is ready to present fast and dealing options. Every of the three Transcaucasian nations or these neighbouring states like Türkiye, Iran and Russia are following the US election intrigue. So, the final result of the US election not solely impacts American overseas coverage itself however in all probability impacts the conduct of the regional actors. Beneath are just a few observations made in this discipline.
Georgia’s constant efforts to affix the European Union and NATO at the moment are in danger due to the adoption of authoritarian legislation on overseas affect. Moreover, the prospects of Trump being re-elected in the US, in reality, make Tbilisi precisely align its politics with Russia. Undoubtedly, pro-Western forces in Georgia favor that Democrats win the election. However in any case, whether or not Trump or Harris will take the White Home, the way forward for Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration is questionable if the ruling celebration will hold energy and proceed its political line. The present Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, holds a pro-Republican stance and reproduces narratives about the “global war party” or “liberal fascism”. Kobakhidze will not be the solely chief in the area who helps Trump’s coming to energy.
In July 2024, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev expressed his preference to work with Trump and the US Republican administration. Constructing a brand new safety order and positioning itself as a rising middle power, Azerbaijan must minimise overseas interference in the South Caucasus. From this attitude, Trump’s “America first” agenda and the proposed foreign-policy isolationism of the US play in favour of Baku’s pursuits. A transparent home focus of the 2024 Republican party platform means Armenia needs to be cautious when relying on US help in the subsequent 4 years. It was throughout Trump’s earlier presidency when Azerbaijan defeated separatists and took again lands occupied by Armenia. And it was Trump who rejected to recognise the Armenian ‘genocide’ by the late Ottoman empire. The Republican non-interventionist stance will not be ubiquitous. Some points, resembling the help of Israel, are nonetheless on Trump’s agenda. Although the South Caucasus is clearly of much less worth for Republicans.
Reverse to this, in her social media, Harris brazenly declared that she considers the mass killings of Armenians as ‘genocide’. By no means being completely pro-Armenian, she collaborated with Armenian lobbyists and supported a few of their initiatives throughout her work in the US Senate. The Armenian Nationwide Committee of America now pressures Harris to vow sanctioning Azerbaijan and guaranteeing protected return of Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh in order to draw Armenian American voters. Democrats, in basic, are extra centered on overseas affairs and the rising US footprint worldwide. However this assumption doesn’t essentially imply that if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election, she’s going to considerably improve the US attain in the South Caucasus. The overseas coverage doctrine of the Democrats will not be clear but, and it’s a query of how Kamala Harris will deal with Transcaucasia in such an advanced interval. We could count on the Democrats to proceed Biden’s trajectory and focus on the Center East, Russia-Ukraine battle and East Asia. Thus, the consideration to the South Caucasus is determined by which position the rising regional order will play in the altering international safety structure. Harris’s administration will unlikely be happy with elevated Russian or Iranian management over the area. So, a containment coverage could type a central mannequin.
There may be a widespread opinion that the peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan could occur in November this yr throughout the COP29 summit hosted by Baku – if the US intensifies the negotiations. Such a breakthrough is useful for each events and the US, which can get a mediator position. Nonetheless, it’s contentious whether or not such a situation is possible. It requires robust political will and specific settlement on the abovementioned sticking factors. What’s extra necessary is that Azerbaijan doesn’t have to rush and make undesirable concessions – particularly considering the possibilities of Trump being re-elected and a subsequent lower in US participation in regional affairs. But when the peace deal occurs in November, it might hopefully launch a brand new period of cooperation, lasting peace and stability.