Over the past two years, the political dynamics in the Greater Caucasus region (the North Caucasian republics within the Russian Federation and countries of Transcaucasia) has been overshadowed by developments in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the region continues to face a large number of risks, ranging from unresolved ethnic conflicts (the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in particular) and competing integration projects (the Eurasian project and the North Atlantic one) to terrorist activities...
The collapse of the Soviet Union created both a new political reality and geographical borders in the region. The South Caucasus has drawn attention from regional powers such as Russia, Iran and Turkey and external powers such as the US and Europe, while a political vacuum created by the fall of the USSR madethe newly independent Caucasus nations to look for new ...
... players as well as neighboring countries. Former Soviet Transcaucasia republics, which became subject to international law overnight, began to formulate their own national interests and foreign policy priorities. The emergence of independent states in the South Caucasus went hand-in-hand with attempts to advance new regional security mechanisms and new forms of international cooperation.
Analysis of bilateral Russian-Azerbaijani relations is key to understanding political developments across the post-Soviet ...
