ArmInfo.Caucasus again gains in strategic importance for Washington amid growing pressure on Iran and the Russia-West confrontation, such an opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by Eduard Abrahamyan, a researcher at the Department of International Relations and Security at the University of Leicester (United Kingdom), an expert at the Washington based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, part of the American Foreign Policy Council.
"Bordering with Russia and Iran, the Caucasus is a vital region in terms of ensuring European energy security. As well as the most important logistics hub providing US access to Central Asia and Afghanistan. And the interest of the Trump Administration in this region is only increasing, as evidenced by the recent regional visit of John Bolton. According to its results, one can state the growth of the White House's attention to regional dynamics and the intention to continue to develop strategic ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the field of security in the context of a competitive world order, "he stressed. On October 24-26, a delegation of the US Department of State headed by presidential Adviser on National Security John Bolton visited Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The visit was preceded by Bolton talks in Moscow. Russian experts, in general, described the adviser's Caucasian tour as contrary to the interests of the Russian Federation, evidence of the intensification of the US policy towards the Caucasus.
The analyst considers that according to the strategy of Washington, voiced by Bolton, Armenia is one of the main priorities for the United States, Georgia is of great strategic importance, and Azerbaijan is of strategic importance. In this light, Abrahamyan believes that within the framework of this evolving strategy, the South Caucasian countries can potentially perform the function of "triple deterrence" in relation to both Russia and Iran, as well as increasingly unreliable Turkey. In this light, the analyst notes the inter-relatedness of increasing strategic importance of Georgia to the United States in the context of ongoing tension in the Washington-Ankara relationship. In parallel, this process further intensifies the role of Azerbaijani diplomacy in mediation between the United States and Turkey. Thus, Abrahamyan believes that the Administration has all the possibilities for the initiation and fruitful implementation of a new regional cooperation based on the US-Caucasus platform. In order to jointly resolve common security problems. "Trump and his administration's rise to power against the background of the crisis in Ukraine significantly contributed to their awareness of the need to strengthen the US presence in the adjacent South Caucasus in order to face the challenges coming from Russia and Iran. In this context, I consider Bolton's Caucasian tour as an important political message of US activization in Caucasian affairs. It is also necessary to note the distinctly new image and strategy of the behavior of the new Administration based on political pragmatism, while its predecessors preferred purely normative approaches in Caucasian affairs, "the analyst concluded.