... blocking Azerbaijan’s maximalist aspirations.
Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi in March 2024 was quite revealing in this regard. Brussels believes now is the time for geopolitical homogenization of the region. The crisis in Russian-Armenian relations, Georgia’s desire to monetize its status as a NATO “aspirant” as soon as possible, the bolstered cooperation between Baku and Ankara (NATO’s second largest army) – all these factors work to promote the West’s agenda. However, the mosaic in the Caucasus is multicolored. And the Alliance (along with ...
..., a Shiite-majority nation, has a complicated relationship with the Sunni Taliban. The two have long had ideological differences that have been
glazed over
due to a common enemy in the United States. The Afghan government has
accused
both Iran and Russia of training and equipping Taliban militants on Iranian territory for attacks on NATO and government forces. Iran is forced to take a more realist approach to the Taliban. Despite ideological differences, it recognizes that the Taliban will remain a powerful influence in Afghanistan and sees its best prospects for influence in the ...
... are many players in the region that claim a leading role, primarily, Saudi Arabia and Iran, cooperation between which is seriously complicated by religious divergence. The... ... accept a role as second in command. For this reason, US plans to establish some form of NATO in the Middle East are doomed to failure. Eventually I don’t see any streamlined... ... main goal today is to end the conflict in Syria and embark on economic recovery there. Russia will not be able to do this single-handedly but from the viewpoint of the future...
... similar to what U.S. President Donald Trump proposed following his visit to Saudi Arabia in spring 2017- the so-called Middle Eastern NATO as it was dubbed by journalists- has no chance of success in the region in the 21st century [
47
]. Such an institution ... ... as they are economic and humanitarian. Its purpose would be to unite against someone, not cooperate for the sake of something. Iran, without whose support countries like Russia and Turkey cannot imagine a successful future for the region, has certainly found itself excluded from such formats....
... littoral state. These military aspects of the deal echo a narrative long propagated by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, namely, to avoid conflicts and maintain peace, there must be a legally binding agreement that NATO will not expand or penetrate into areas Russia considers within its “sphere of interest.” Such a ban would also be in the interests of Tehran, as Iran is against any Western presence on its borders.
From the perspective of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea would ideally be a demilitarized zone. However, Moscow rejected the demilitarization option long ago. Indeed, the fact ...
... will it impact the process of inter-ethnic reconciliation and stability in the Balkans?
How is the global refugee crisis in general impacting the Balkan region? What should be done about the massive refugee crisis in general?
Syria and Turkish-Saudi-Iranian Conflict
When a Turkish F-16 pilot shot down a Russian fighter jet in late November 2015, it might have provoked war between NATO and Russia. But international diplomacy helped to defuse tensions, and Turkey and Russia have subsequently worked to improve relations — even if the incident negatively impacted NATO, Russian and Turkish relations.
Turkish-Russian relations were ...
... the country of Afghanistan before that). As I wrote before, Russia intervened from a position of desperation and weakness, and Russia’s weak hand has only improved marginally for all its efforts but has also saddled it with more responsibility. Trump’s strike will certainly make Iran question the cost of its support of Assad along with helping to limit the expansion of Hezbollah’s power. Also, as was ... ... have led to the toppling of his government, and this not long after the disillusionment of the experience of Libya’s post-NATO-intervention problems (although I still would say that the intervention was successful in saving many lives preventing a ...
