International Affairs

The visit of Armenia’s then-President Armen Sarkissian to Saudi Arabia in October 2021 was a historic turning point in relations between the two countries, which since the demise of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of Armenian independence in 1991 had failed to establish diplomatic ties.

Last October, at the Silk Road Forum in Tbilisi, Georgia, Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan proposed the "Crossroads of Peace" project. This initiative crystallizes the Armenian government's pursuit of peace, envisioning a multimodal transportation communications, and logistics network primarily linking Azerbaijan’s mainland with its Nakhichevan exclave, and Russia with Turkey.  The project's name reflects Western optimism for a new era of peaceful, win-win cooperation, and democratic stability in the South Caucasus. This perception is concurrent with discussions about the waning of Russia’s dominance, if not considerable reduction, of its traditionally major influence. However, a critical examination of the current regional dynamics suggests that the frequent invocation of "peace" by regional actors amidst the emergence of an autocratic, West-excluding regionalism in the Caucasus might obscure the true nature of affairs and the evolving precarious geopolitics of the region. Contrary to diminishing Russia’s influence, the situation appears to be acquiring characteristics of Russia’s collaborative dominance, in alignment with Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran – a phenomenon we identify here as Moscow’s forming “surrogate influence.”
In this report, we delve into the multilayer analysis of current and potential trajectories in the South Caucasus through the lens of realpolitik to discuss the implications of the post-Nagorno-Karabakh war landscape for emerging regional trends, and to unravel the complex interplay of interests, and misconceptions about the potential peace initiatives. While addressing the West’s excessive optimism regarding positive dynamics in the region, the article seeks to identify factors impeding genuine peace opportunities and questions the realism of the West’s envisaged democratic stability, given the persisting power imbalances and an evolving architecture of cooperative autocratic hegemony in the region, jointly imposed by Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran at Armenia’s expense.