The South Caucasus – Between integration and fragmentation

The South Caucasus is situated at the intersection of Eurasia’s major transport and energy corridors, making it an important geostrategic region. Traditional regional actors Iran, Turkey and Russia have jostled for influence and power in the region for centuries, and are now faced with competition from the EU, China, the US and NATO. Although Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have been independent for more than two decades, they still continue to feel the sway, and sometimes threat, of external actors. As a response, the three South Caucasus states have chosen very different geostrategic paths since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving the region more fragmented and volatile than ever.

In this book, various authors offer a deep and broad understanding of the developments in the South Caucasus, analyse the different foreign trajectories that each of the three states is following, and highlight the impact of external actors’ policies.

Main contents:
+ Europeanisation and Georgian foreign policy (Kornely Kakachia)
+ Russia's policies in the South Caucacus after the crisis in Ukraine: the vulnerabilities of realism (Andrey Makarychev)
+ Azerbaijan's foreign policy – A new paradigm of careful pragmatism (Farhad Mammadov)
+ Security challenges and conflict resolution efforts in the
South Caucasus (Gulshan Pashayeva)
+ Armenia – Stuck between a rock and a hard place (Dennis Sammut)
+ Iran's policy in the South Caucasus – Between pragmatism
and realpolitik (Amanda Paul)
+ Trade, economic and energy cooperation: challenges for a
fragmented region (Vusal Gasimli)
+ NATO's South Caucasus paradigm: beyond 2014 (Zaur Shiriyev)
+ The EU and the South Caucasus – Time for a stocktake (Amanda Paul)
+ Turkey's role in the South Caucasus: between fragmentation
and integration (Cavid Veliyev)
+ Policies from afar: the US options towards greater regional unity in the South Caucasus (Fuad Chiragov and Reshad Karimov)
+ China in the South Caucasus: not a critical partnership but still needed (Mehmet Ögütçü)