Important geopolitical processes are taking place around Armenia, which will be decisive for the future of our great region and, naturally, for us. To what extent this is realized by the current government of Armenia, it is difficult to assess, because such views are not expressed publicly. Moreover, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia will not pursue a policy based on the conflict of geopolitical interests of countries. It is difficult to understand what he meant by that, but it is obvious that the political leadership of Armenia, regardless of its position, cannot completely bypass the dictates of geopolitics.
US experts put into circulation the term Greater Middle East, where, according to them, great changes will take place in the near future, or those changes are already underway. New maps are drawn, where new states are divided, disappear and appear.
The region of the Greater Middle East means the Arabian Peninsula, the southern part of the Mediterranean Sea, the Caspian Sea, as well as the South Caucasus, Middle Asia, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. It is not difficult to notice that in the center of this boiling cauldron are the three countries of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Georgia aspires to become a member of the EU and join NATO, but the future of Turkey, NATO’s main operator in the region, is unclear. For the first time, the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance put their member country, Turkey, under sanctions, including in terms of military cooperation. And the expansion process of the EU is replaced by the compression process: Great Britain leaves the EU, and the entry of new members is frozen.
Azerbaijan strives for deep integration with Turkey and, as a result, the latter’s cooperation with the West becomes complicated, and Russia, regardless of the claims of strategic cooperation, mistrusts Azerbaijan.
Despite the “democratic revolution”, Armenia is actually deepening its military ties with Russia (sending a military unit to Syria), considering it a defensive step against the encroachments of Turkey and Azerbaijan.
As we can see, not only in the large region, but also in the South Caucasus region, the geopolitical arrangement is fluid and sometimes unpredictable. The tectonic changes taking place there have become the focus of world politics. If the main stage of the First and Second World Wars was Europe, today the main playing field is in our region.
The processes of Syria, Iraq, and Libya, attempts to unify the Turkic world, initiatives to create unified political institutions, the smoldering conflict in Artsakh, and the ongoing developments around Iran keep the region in a heated state.
The major players in those regions are Russia, Iran, Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, which compete with each other. A tactical alliance is formed, but in terms of interests, the above-mentioned parties actually remain competitors. Other smaller countries are trying to draw the lines of their interests.
Important factors are religious and ethnic issues, as well as the opening of new trade routes, new oil and gas pipelines or actions to block them. This is a brief description of our explosive region today.
What is happening in Syria will definitely have an impact on that competition, and our small region, the South Caucasus, cannot remain unconnected to that process. Especially the uncertainty of Armenia’s foreign policy becomes problematic for this panorama.