The Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Deal And The New Trump Corridor

Forbes

4 days ago

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Trump-brokered peace deal in the White House ending decades of tensions and conflict - if it holds. The deal includes the creation of a highly profitable strategic trade corridor that passes through both countries, incentivizing them to stay on course. That route, now known as the Zangezur Corridor ( previously discussed by this column multiple times), will be developed by American companies and rebranded Trump Route For International Peace and Prosperity (Tripp). It will include rail lines, communication lines, oil and gas pipelines.Why is the route so important that age-old adversaries have potentially buried the hatchet in order to make it happen? The corridor would forge a pathway from the Stans in Central Asia down through the Caucasus to Turkey and beyond to the world, effectively revitalizing the old Silk Road. Which means it would bypass both Russia and Iran, countries which have hitherto colluded to keep Central Asia's trade access westward bottled up except via their territory. Russia, in particular, is the loser here having dominated the terrain for over two centuries, imposing a choke hold and Moscow-centric dependency on its backyard from Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan. Those economies now stand to be liberated geopolitically from effective control by Russia.Armenians understand the geopolitical implications full well. It looks, at first glance, as if their historic adversaries - namely the Turkic world - are empowered and physically reconnected through this plan. So why has Armenia consented? Answer: because Armenians now distrust Moscow as security guarantor and have found a new one instead. As this column has pointed out numerous times, Moscow repeatedly failed to defend its allies in recent years (think Syria and Iran) since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Armenians were astonished that Moscow allowed the Azeris to retake Nagorno Karabakh in 2023, then cynically turned around and offered to partner versions of the Zangezur that would include Russia.By bringing in US participation, Armenia gets a new guarantor of its security, one that can keep the pan-Turkic threat in check, and achieves payback for Moscow's betrayal. For President Trump, the additional benefits include new leverage for his upcoming Ukraine peace talks with Putin, added leverage against Iran and - what nobody has mentioned - the replacement of China's trade route (Belt and Road Initiative) from linking via Iran at its final critical outlet stage. In the first instance, Mr.Trump can offer to re-include Russia as a participant in the Zangezur - or not depending on Putin's intransigence. In the second case, Iran is faced with the threat of its northern Turkic neighbor Azerbaijan getting richer and acting as a magnet to the Iranian province of Azerbaijan to break off and join its Turkic cousins. With regard to China, a new trade outlet for Central Asia makes the hitherto landlocked regional Stans less dependent on neighboring Chinese trade and economic influence.Another factor that goes unmentioned in the global coverage about TRIPP is the fate of Tbilisi. Currently, Georgia benefits substantially from acting as a trade route, not least for the oil pipeline that goes from Baku via Tbilisi to Ceyhan in Turkey. The Zangezur Corridor would render all that superfluous - thereby delivering a blow to Georgia's economy. And to its regime, universally acknowledged as directed behind-the-scenes by the country's richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, a pro-Russian influence on the country. His main rival and former President, now in prison, the pro-American Mikheil Saakashvili has gone public pointing out the potential geopolitical and economic disaster for Georgia in contrast to the Western-aligned era of his tenure as leader. 'Yes we are ending up in complete geopolitical isolation alongside Iran and Russia…This is where breaking our strategic alliance with America and Europe has brought us,' he says, while warning of 'accelerated emigration and deepening poverty'for his country. In short, the destabilizing of the pro-Moscow Georgian state would be yet another blow to Russia's strategic influence in its near-abroad.But the outlook for TRIPP and the peace deal is not all smooth sailing either. Most recently, a top Iranian minister openly threatened repercussions against it saying 'this corridor will not become a passage owned by Trump but rather a graveyard for Trump's mercenaries'. Considering the amount of new infrastructure envisaged by the deal, maximal vulnerability to sabotage must also be considered. Which brings up the question of how participating US companies will defend the security of the route against the countries it geostrategically challenges. The Zangezur is essentially the equivalent of a Panama or Suez Canal both of which needed Western military support for decades during and after completion. Protecting such an endeavor would certainly require boots on the ground - which rather contradicts President Trump's America First pledges to avoid foreign military entanglements.