The South Caucasus: United, and Divided, by NATO

Eduard Abrahamyan

Security, Eurasia

Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have different hopes for the Atlantic Alliance.

Amidst the disputes that arose over the efficiency of the missile defense system, Montenegro’s accession to NATO and Russia’s new military build-up, the new engagements of the South Caucasus states with NATO that are seemingly underway were somewhat overshadowed.

Three rather interesting moves, linking NATO even more closely with the region, could lead to changing realities in the wider Black Sea region and inherently provoke Russia to be even more belligerent.

Georgia recently held joint NATO-Georgian military drills with substantial numbers of U.S. and UK troops in attendance, called “Noble Partner 2016,” at its Vaziani base, in addition to the first NATO-Georgia field exercises at the Joint Training and Evaluation Center at the Norio training camp. Such programs are running in compliance with the substantive package approved for Georgia at the NATO summit in Newport in 2014, and are aimed at enhancing Georgia’s territorial self-defense capabilities.

In the wake of the recent military escalation with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenia is about to enter a new stage of partnership with NATO. This initiative entails enhancement of the bilateral defense cooperation through considerable renewal of the Planning and Review Process (PARP), part of the Partnership for Peace program adopted by Yerevan since 1994. Likewise Georgia’s Defense Minister Tinatin Khidasheli, while holding talks with her Azeri counterpart Zakir Hasanov, invited Azerbaijan to take part in military exercises under the auspices of NATO, to be scheduled by spring 2017.

Although such a sequence of military-political developments might at first glance seem insignificant, it could nevertheless have a decisive impact on regional dynamics in the medium term by providing an additional means of making NATO more visible in the South Caucasus. Setting aside Georgia’s traditional endeavors to become a military-political pillar for the West in the South Caucasus, there are two other complex states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, that are increasing their partnerships with the Euro-Atlantic Alliance.