If Russia is a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” as Churchill famously claimed, then the South Caucasus region is a conundrum cloaked in obscurity and tangled in Gordian knots, American analyst Andrew Moffatt writes in the article “The South Caucasus and the limits of Western power”.

According to him, the three countries of the region—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—have distinct ethnic, cultural, religious, linguistic, and geopolitical identities. “ But despite the tremendous differences among the constituent countries, they are typically grouped together in Western policy considerations. This grouping has led to shortsighted policy approaches at times, but it is naive to expect the average policymaker in Washington or Brussels to appreciate the granular complexity of a South Dakota-sized region in Eurasia. That said, the countries of the South Caucasus today share a similar and arguably unique challenge for Western policymakers,” the analyst writes.

Stability and integration in the region are, according to him, clearly important to the West.

The author proposes to use the policy of “soft regionalism”  on long-term efforts with regard to the region. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus countries drew considerable Western attention for three principal reasons: The newly independent nations held untapped potential for developing a new route for exporting Caspian hydrocarbons; the West aspired to further its associations with Euro-Atlantic institutions to enhance security and stability on the periphery of Europe; and the West had an interest in offsetting long-standing Russian and Iranian influences. 

“Since 2008, however, the trajectory of the South Caucasus has radically changed,” Mofatt writes, adding that the war in August 2008 revealed Russia’s interpretation of the region as part of its privileged sphere of interests. 

For the West, other foreign policy crises—from the Arab Spring to Syria and Iran—overwhelmed its agenda. Western-supported efforts to bring about greater stability and regional integration, including the EU’s Eastern Partnership framework and the diplomatic push to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia failed. 

“Lastly, changes in the global energy market, including diminished European demand for gas, have revised strategic calculations about the value of Caspian resources for European energy security,” the author notes.  

He also stresses that the recent actions of Russia in Crimea and Ukraine have heightened the sense of insecurity and instability in the South Caucasus. Besides, Russian assertiveness has also reignited long simmering tensions surrounding the unresolved conflicts, “especially in Nagorno-Karabakh where violence has reached its highest level since the ceasefire was signed in 1994.”

The West is now looking toward the South Caucasus “with fewer resources and less overall foreign policy capacity”, while the three countries, according to the author, no longer share an unambiguous orientation toward Euro-Atlantic integration.