Jeffrey Sachs’s unexpected appearance on a little-known Armenian talk show is not a coincidence but a symptom of deeper processes at work. Why would a world‑class economist suddenly speak about the South Caucasus? The answer, likely, lies in the shifting geopolitical landscape, where Armenia and Azerbaijan are becoming pawns in a game of great powers.
Armenia’s real battle is at home.
Regional currents amplify the danger. Talk of a Turkish-led Organization of Turkic States expanding its influence across the South Caucasus and Central Asia, supposedly with Western backing, is spreading. Parallel claims surround the Syunik corridor, rebranded the “Trump Route” and reportedly set for 99-year operation by an American firm.
Is Washington quietly shaping the South Caucasus through Turkic ties?
The Organization of Turkic States remains a loose cultural and economic grouping, not a military-political bloc, and claims of Western orchestration probably overstate the case. It promotes a shared identity among Turkic-speaking peoples, though large communities in Russia are excluded, and the presence of Hungary and Northern Cyprus complicates the matter both in theory and in practice.
Yet pan-Turkist ideas—linking Anatolia to the Caucasus and across the Caspian — have circulated for more than a century. The collapse of the Ottoman and Romanov empires once offered an opening that never fully materialised. That long history raises a sharper question: why devote so much attention and resources to a region often portrayed as more strategic than it is? With the United States and Israel moving toward real and open war with Iran, we may soon have our answer.
Corridor Politics, Not Turkic Bloc
After the second Karabakh war, that corridor was initially expected to fall under Russian oversight. Its shift toward American and Western involvement reflects a calculated preference in Baku and Yerevan for Washington over Moscow. Russia and Iran have voiced security and strategic concerns about an infrastructure project that could acquire geopolitical weight.
Many operational details remain hidden behind closed doors; even discussions on implementation, including how the corridor will interact with other border openings or the broader Middle Corridor, are not made public. Interpreting these moves primarily through an ideological “Turkic integration” lens is dubious. Governments in Ankara, Baku, Astana, Tashkent, and Bishkek pursue distinct foreign-policy and domestic priorities; regime survival, tighter control over trade flows and revenue usually rank higher than pan-Turkic ambition. Washington’s interests align more with commercial connectivity and reduced Russian leverage than with any win-win developmental project.
Friends or Foes?
At least for now, Washington now manages to embrace both Yerevan and Baku as friends, even though Armenia and Azerbaijan were at war with one another only recently. After presenting itself as a broker of their supposedly historic “peace,” Washington is now reportedly contemplating a NATO training centre in Nagorno-Karabakh—the very territory at the heart of their conflict. I have my doubts.
It makes you question if Washington genuinely understands the history of the South Caucasus or has it simply decided that history is an inconvenient detail?
And if Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemen were to be trained side-by-side for a potential future confrontation with Russia, Iran, or China, what exactly is being constructed here—peace or the infrastructure for the next war? I’d myself be curious to hear more substantiation — if any exists — on a possible NATO training centre in Karabakh training Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, which seems like a toxic combination, and it would not be long before a head got chopped, as was the case with a NATO meeting some years ago.
Regardless, the US has a track record of training lots of foreign troops to fight in its proxy wars, including overt support for terrorists. However, that does not mean that it is going to come to a shooting war. Armenia, and Armenians, as a country and people, are a bit more pragmatic than to bite that hand that has saved them so many times, Russia. Armenians, even those in the diaspora, only too well understand that Iran is integral to their economic survival and their own national security.
Washington may believe that military partnerships, economic investment, and diplomatic leverage can gradually pull countries into its strategic orbit, but the South Caucasus has never been an easy place for great powers to dictate terms. Armenia and Azerbaijan may cooperate with Washington when it serves their interests, while resisting it when those interests diverge.
Larger questions remain?
Local Agency in the Caucasus: Not Washington’s Chessboard
Armenia is unlikely to trade its strategic autonomy for American assistance. Survival has long depended on pragmatic manoeuvring among stronger neighbours — Turkey, Iran, and Russia — rather than blind alignment with any external patron.
Western observers have noted this trait for generations. Including in a 1931 published record of a 1919 interview conducted by American journalist Lincoln Steffens in Paris. In the piece, Armenians Are Impossible, Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence, expressed deeply cynical, controversial views on geopolitics and ethnic groups in the Near East.
The piece captured the enduring difficulty foreign powers face in directing Armenian politics. The title still applies: Armenia is not a piece waiting to be moved by Washington, Moscow, Tehran, or Ankara.
Great powers often expect military and economic partnerships to produce reliable political alignment. The South Caucasus has repeatedly disappointed that expectation. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan will work with Washington when interests converge and resist when they diverge.
Hence, speculation about deeper American designs remains just that — a possibility, not an established plan. In a region thick with rumour and competing narratives, distinguishing the two is essential but often difficult.
Israeli Wild Card in the Region
Wherever Israeli influence goes, especially the case with Azerbaijan, soon follows internal division, increased illegal migration, and corruption of society with the rainbow agenda. The Zionist cult that runs Israel does not consider any other ethnicity to be fully human, but tools to be used to achieve the aim of “Greater Israel”.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that Israel is a major sponsor of Islamic extremism, which it sees as its sword against the Christian and Muslim world. Don’t forget the Great Game.
Britain has traditionally had a strong influence in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, which retains leverage over the ruling elites in the former Soviet republics. In addition, London, like Berlin, has its own programs of military biological research in Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Can the UK initiate the leakage of dangerous pathogens and use offensive biological weapons in these regions in order to further escalate the confrontation with Russia and to harm Iran and China?
That is definitely a possibility. Despite all that has occurred, the UK is still the loyal lapdog of the US and, aside from the Baltic republics, the greatest cheerleader for war with Russia, despite the collapse of its military strength. In the absence of hard military power, the UK, is now more reliant than ever on its intelligence services, such as MI6, to project power, is quite likely to undertake such terrorist actions. The precedent is not hard to see, either, with the UK boasting about its intelligence services’ involvement in the “Spider Web” attack on Russian strategic aviation, as well as attempts to bomb the Kerch bridge to Crimea.
The New Great Game looks remarkably similar.
The old Great Game was never about owning the map. It was about owning the routes—and convincing the people who lived on them that the arrangement somehow served their interests. The new version looks familiar: more players, more corridors, more intelligence services, more military exercises, and far more ways to miscalculate.
Washington sees partnerships and transit routes. Moscow sees a security buffer. Ankara sees cultural and commercial reach. Tehran sees borders it refuses to have redrawn. London still sees an opening to intervene. Beijing sees connectivity. Each arrives with a map and a plan.
London still sees, well, an opportunity to meddle, like always, going back to the 1918 Georgian-Armenian war. And Beijing sees trade routes and connectivity. Everyone has a map. Everyone has a strategy. Everyone, apparently, knows where the pieces ought to go.
The Armenians are not the only people who are “impossible.” Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Turks, Iranians, and the peoples of Central Asia have all demonstrated the same irritating habit: they pursue their own interests.
Great powers invariably discover this eventually. Usually, however, after spending a great deal of money and blood in the process.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs
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