South Caucasus: The Threats and Challenges for the Trump Administration

This event, hosted by the Heritage Foundation, brought together Dr. Ariel Cohen, Efgan Niftiyev, of the Caspian Policy Center, and Luke Coffey to discuss the strategic importance of the South Caucasus. The discussion was wide ranging, covering issues related to illegally occupied territory in the region to economic developments to the involvement of Russia and China and showed the importance of the South Caucasus to US foreign policy.

The Heritage Foundation described this event by saying:

“The South Caucasus sits at a crucial geographical and cultural crossroads and has proven to be strategically important for military and economic reasons for centuries. Today, this strategic location is also important to the United States. Whether it is Armenian forces in Azerbaijan or Russian forces in Georgia, there are approximately 15,500 square miles of illegally occupied territory in the South Caucasus. This month marks the one year anniversary of the brief four-day war in Nagorno Karabakh. Russia continues its creeping occupation and annexation of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Important pipelines transit the region carrying oil and gas from the Caspian to European markets. As Europeans try to become less dependent on Russian energy sources these pipelines will become increasingly important. However distant the South Caucasus might seem to U.S. policymakers, the region is important and cannot be ignored.”