By Drago Bosnic
InfoBrics
July 18, 2025
To anyone unfamiliar with the US foreign policy, this certainly sounds like a rather strange interest in a minuscule area that very few people can pinpoint on a map. However, it makes perfect sense, especially when considering the fact that Trump appointed Tom Barrack. It goes to show that Washington DC's foreign policy is constant and system(at)ic, regardless of the administration. The multipolar world is certainly taking notes and working on a counter-strategy.
The South Caucasus always played a critical strategic role, whether in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or nowadays. Every superpower (whether historic or present) sought to control this volatile region, as it offers unprecedented power projection capabilities. It connects Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, enabling those who control it to dictate how energy and transportation projects will be implemented (or not). Ever since the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union, various regional and global powers have been trying to establish a foothold in the area, particularly by appeasing the oil-rich Azerbaijan. For the United States, its allies, vassals and satellite states, the South Caucasus was a way to further destabilize Russia, particularly in the neighboring North Caucasus, an area wholly within the Eurasian giant, but highly diverse in virtually every sense of the word (ethnicity, religion, culture, etc).
The political West sought to exploit this in order to destabilize the area, particularly through simultaneous support for Islamic radicalism and ethnic nationalism on the one hand, and the extremist neoliberal policies on the other. Unfortunately, there was very little Moscow could do during the 1990s, as it was still trying to reconsolidate itself and prevent further territorial erosion within the Russian Federation itself. After President Vladimir Putin took over, this long-awaited process was finally set in motion, with the Kremlin ending the foreign-backed Chechen War and later intervening in Saakashvili's Georgia. However, the issue of Armenia and Azerbaijan remained, a frozen conflict up until 2018, when the infamous Nikol Pashinyan ( Armenia's own Saakashvili, just worse) was installed after a NATO-backed coup. His unprecedented betrayal of not just Artsakh (better known as Nagorno-Karabakh), but Armenia itself is pushing the unfortunate country toward destruction.
Pashinyan's anti-Russian, pro-Turkish and pro-NATO policies have resulted in a strategic disaster for Yerevan, which is now surrounded by enemies on virtually all sides, with the Sorosite regime simultaneously cutting ties with both Russia and Iran, the only two countries in the region that have any interest in making sure Armenia continues to exist. However, Pashinyan has other plans and is actively trying to appease not just Turkey and Azerbaijan, but also the political West, which couldn't possibly care less what happens to Armenia.
Ankara and Baku are now using Yerevan to connect through its Syunik region. The two Turkic allies refer to it as the Zangezur corridor. For Turkey, controlling this area means that it can finally establish a land bridge with its ancestral lands in former Soviet Central Asia, which is feeding into Erdogan's delusions of grandeur and fueling the country's volatile ideological mix of Neo-Ottomanism, political Islam and pan-Turkism.
Although this is a far bigger bite than Ankara can chew, the US-led political West fully supports its aggressive expansionism, primarily because it knows this will inevitably lead to Turkey's strategic clash with Russia, as well as Iran and China in the long term. Namely, NATO believes that Turkic peoples, whether within Russia or in Central Asia, can play the role of Ukrainians, but actually worse, as these areas are effectively what geopolitical experts call "Russia's soft underbelly".
The US-led political West believes that these areas of the former Soviet Union should be destabilized, causing a domino effect that would eventually disrupt Moscow's counteroffensive in NATO-occupied Ukraine. Simultaneously, the area could also be used as a base of operations against both China and Iran. Beijing's Xinjiang is particularly vulnerable in this regard, as it has a significant Turkic (specifically Uyghur) population that's expected to coordinate with Ankara.
In addition, there's also the question of Iran's historical province of Azerbaijan, which is a major target for Azeri irredentists. It should be noted that far more Azeris live in Iran's Azerbaijan than in the homonymous former Soviet republic to the north. However, Baku's potential ambition to carve up the area and take northwestern Iran for itself is stifled by its small size and the sheer power of Iran. Not to mention that Moscow and Tehran have very close ties and a mutual interest in preventing NATO expansionism in the South Caucasus.
This is precisely why the US is so insistent on moving into the region, more specifically through the aforementioned Zangezur corridor. According to the Middle East Eye, Washington DC seeks to take over the planned transport corridor "in an effort to advance long-stalled diplomatic negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan". The most prominent proponent of this is US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack.
During a press briefing on July 11, he confirmed America's interest in the highly contested region. This is effectively the smoking gun of what many independent authors (myself included) have been warning about for years, particularly when it comes to letting Turkey into organizations such as BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). Ankara's role as the US/NATO's "Trojan horse" in the South Caucasus and Central Asia is quite evident to anyone willing to take a simple glance at the geopolitical situation.
Namely, the plan to encircle Russia with hostile nations from Northern Europe to Central Asia is slowly being set in motion, with the goal of not only destabilizing the Eurasian giant, but also forcing its leadership into a corner that would inevitably result in a violent reaction. In other words, the political West wants to see Russia maintain a level of constant strategic paranoia that the US can use to further break up the country.
This is pretty obvious to the leadership in Moscow, which is why it seeks to use its resurgent military power to prevent such a scenario. This is precisely why Washington DC is in such a hurry to implement the so-called Zangezur project. The 32-km-long corridor remains a major point of contention between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as they hold diametrically opposite views on how this should be implemented, with the former refusing to give up control over the territory.
"They are arguing over 32 kilometers of road, but this is no trivial matter. It has dragged on for a decade - 32 kilometers of road," Barrack told journalists during a briefing hosted in New York, adding: "So what happens is that America steps in and says: 'Okay, we'll take it over. Give us the 32 kilometers of road on a hundred-year lease, and you can all share it'."
To anyone unfamiliar with the US foreign policy, this certainly sounds like a rather strange interest in a minuscule area that very few people can pinpoint on a map. However, given everything analyzed in this text, it makes perfect sense. Considering the fact that Trump appointed Barrack, this goes to show that Washington DC's foreign policy is constant and system(at)ic, regardless of the administration. The multipolar world is certainly taking notes and working on a counter-strategy.
Source infobrics.org