Between Economic Benefits and Strategic Dividends. The “Middle Corridor” and Turkish-Azerbaijani Infrastructure Alliance

Over the last decade, and chiefly as a result of the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, infrastructure politics emerged as a new key domain for regional politics in the Eurasian chessboard. That is, the promotion of interstate and transcontinental connectivity networks has become a privileged ground for power cooperation and competition, involving countries spanning from Eastern Asia to Central and Western Europe. Unsurprisingly, a large and growing body of scholarly attention has been focusing on infrastructure politics. Yet, it was mainly great powers’ initiative drawing scholars’ and analysts’ attention, while the perspectives and actions of smaller powers were somehow sidelined. In an attempt to fill this gap, the present article focuses instead on infrastructure diplomacy of Turkey and Azerbaijan, a middle and small power which yielded an infrastructure alliance aimed at leveraging their rediscovered central position in the Eurasian system to come up with a joint recipe for connectivity. In particular, the article focuses upon the logic behind the joint Turkish-Azerbaijani flagship connectivity project - the so-called Middle Corridor Initiative - and upon the interaction between the latter and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt

Armenia 2022: Looking for a way out of the Nagorno-Karabakh impasse

In 2022, the Republic of Armenia struggled with a complex set of challenges and opportunities; a by-product of the precarious path towards a peace agreement with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, following the 2020 escalation, and from the reverberations of the war in Ukraine. Yerevan faced Baku’s coercive bargaining strategies coupled with Russia’s partial yet significant misalignment from a bilateral alliance that dictates Armenia’s national security. As a result, security considerations were front and centre of Armenia’s strategic thinking. However, the rapidly changing parameters of regional politics and the re-engagement of Euro-Atlantic actors in the Southern Caucasus have also widened Yerevan’s diplomatic leeway and led the way to a new understanding of security policy. Hence Yerevan’s more pragmatic approach to conflict resolution and its more realistic assessment of the limitations of the Armenian- Russian alliance. Accordingly, Armenia pursued its own security interests through diplomatic engagement with multiple partners. It was consistent with the country’s Armenia-centred foreign policy vision, which focuses on its developmental prospects rather than existential threats coming from irreconcilable enemies. Looking for a way out of the Nagorno-Karabakh impasse seems to have led Yerevan to a foreign policy paradigm shift based upon a new conception of national interest

Dipendenza e interdipendenza tra paesi land-locked e di transito. Azerbaigian, Georgia e comparto energetico

The article aims at investigating the nexus between the land-locked condition and the energy security needs of a hydrocarbons-exporting country. Addressing the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia, the article looks at the dynamics of dependence naturally unfolding between a land-locked country and its main transit one. Introducing the elements which may provide the land-locked country with a sounder bargaining power vis a vis its transit country, the article will focus on the tools exploited by Baku in order to reduce the asymmetry of power ensured to Georgia by its role of ‘window to the West’ for Azerbaijani national hydrocarbons. Findings suggest that the Oil & Gas sector provides land-locked country with effective tools enabling it to downgrade the vulnerability vis a vis transit country and to foster functional interdependence with the latter

La Fenice turca risorge dalle urne.

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L’area del Caspio nello scenario energetico contemporaneo.

L’area del Caspio nello scenario energetico contemporane

Sicurezza Energetica

Il Focus Sicurezza Energetica guarda alle principali dinamiche della Energy Politics prodottesi nel primo quadrimestre del 2022, rivolgendo lo sguardo alle dinamiche dei mercati energetici, alle politiche italiane ed europee e, infine, a quanto va accadendo negli scacchieri di prioritaria rilevanza per la tutela e la promozione dell’interesse nazionale italiano e di quello comunitario