Publications
How the 2025 NSS Reshapes U.S. Engagement in the South Caucasus
By Aytaс MAHAMMADOVA, Energy Security Expert affiliated with the Caspian-Alpine Society
The South Caucasus has long occupied an ambiguous place in American foreign policy, neither central to U.S. national security nor irrelevant to it. The region has historically mattered insofar as it intersected with larger geopolitical contests: between Russia and the West, between energy producers and consumers, and between stability and fragmentation along Eurasia's inner frontier. The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy codifies a shift that will sharpen this logic, moving the United States decisively away from expansive regional engagement toward selective, interest-driven involvement. While the document does not explicitly address the South Caucasus in its regional sections, its underlying principles, such as restraint, burden-sharing, transactional-ism, and rejection of transformational agendas, will fundamentally reshape Washington's engagement with the South Caucasus states. This recalibration reflects broader strategic realities: finite American resources, diminished appetite for open-ended commitments, and recognition that regional outcomes will ultimately be determined by local power dynamics rather than external patronage. READ MORE
Publications
Armenia in 2026: What Is Next?  By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the APRI Armenia
Armenia’s pivotal 2026 looms: a year that will test fragile peace efforts with Azerbaijan and Turkey, redefine Yerevan’s ties with the EU and Russia, and unfold amid deepening political and societal polarization.
The year 2026 could be crucial for Armenia, significantly influencing both the foreign and domestic policy trajectory of the country. Externally, the main developments to monitor are the Armenia–Azerbaijan and Armenia–Turkey normalization processes. Will the August 2025 Washington Declaration bring the restoration of all regional communications – including the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border and the signature of an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement – or will it meet the fate of previous, unsuccessful attempts to establish lasting peace and security in the South Caucasus? READ MORE
Publications
Leveraging Taiwan: India’s strategic counterbalance to China  By Shanthie Mariet D’SOUZA, PhD, founder & president, Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies (MISS)
Record trade and closer ties with Taipei mark New Delhi’s shift from caution to assertiveness.
In 2024, for the first time ever, bilateral trade between India and Taiwan exceeded US$10 billion. And in the past six months alone, governments and businesses in the two countries have agreed on multipledeals that bring their semiconductor, tech, artificial intelligence, and industrial sectors even closer together, along with supply chains. These new trade partnerships support Taiwan’s “New Southbound Policy” and India’s “Act East” and “Make in India” policies, with Taiwan alone investing US$4.5 billion in India since February 2024. While the surge in Taiwanese investment in Indian companies is grounded in the economic dimension of the relationship, there is another dynamic taking place. Like most countries, New Delhi does not officially recognise Taipei. Yet its compliance with the “One China principle” – the condition set by Beijing that nations must diplomatically acknowledge there is only one Chinese government and must not establish official contacts with Taiwan – has become more nuanced. READ MORE
Publications
Post-Soviet Blues – Part 1  By Alan WHITEHORN, Professor Emeritus in Political Science, The Royal Military College of Canada
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, led to the emergence of a number of new, but vulnerable states. Russia, Belarus, and Georgia are three examples of cautionary tales. A decade and half ago in 2011, led by the charismatic opposition leader Alexei Navalny, tens of thousands of Russians gathered together in the capital city of Moscow to protest the continuing erosion of democratic safeguards and election fraud in the increasingly autocratic regime of Vladimir Putin. Tragically, Navalny’s fate proved to be poisoning, imprisonment and a suspicious death in a remote, gulag-like prison camp. READ MORE
Publications
Türkiye’s Policy in the South Caucasus: Navigating Normalization Efforts Amid Ankara’s “Azerbaijan First” Policy By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the APRI Armenia
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 and ensuing geopolitical developments revealed the paradoxes behind Türkiye’s motivations in the South Caucasus. This report examines the main directions of Türkiye’s foreign policy in the region, building on insights from desktop research, 18 interviews, and other convening opportunities.
Key findings:
- The importance of the South Caucasus for Türkiye is underestimated. The region has strong significance for Ankara from both a geopolitical and geoeconomic perspective.
- Türkiye’s policy in the South Caucasus is, and will likely remain, based on its strategic alliance with Azerbaijan and can be articulated as an “Azerbaijan first” policy.
- Azerbaijan–Türkiye ties consist of heavy interdependencies in many fields, from political to social and economic, rather than a “big brother/small brother” dynamic. If land access from Azerbaijan to Nakhijevan—and then directly to Türkiye—via Armenia’s Syunik region is established, Türkiye may lose any incentive to continue normalization and open borders with Armenia.
- Türkiye sees Russia as “an unavoidable evil” that will remain a constant factor in South Caucasus geopolitics, and Ankara aims to manage its relationship with Moscow, establish a Russia–Türkiye condominium, and substantially limit the presence and influence of the US, the EU, and NATO in the region. READ MORE
Publications
High Stakes in India’s Refusal to Send Former Bangladesh PM to Trial By Shanthie Mariet D’SOUZA, PhD, founder & president, Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies (MISS)
A carefully worded extradition treaty means New Delhi can hedge its bets, but it should be prepared for blowback.
"This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.” On the face of it, this adage is being turned on its head by New Delhi, which has ignored Dhaka’s December 2024 request to extradite former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. However, it’s not just friendship with the former prime minister that could be shaping India’s current policy towards Dhaka. As bilateral relations have dived in recent months, New Delhi could be relying on Hasina to reverse-engineer Bangladeshi politics that have slipped out of India’s sphere of influence. That strategy, however, is fraught with risks. Not only might the outcome be counterproductive, but it also raises questions about policy towards its neighbourhood, where New Delhi has constantly struggled to find a friendly foothold despite its neighbourhood first policy. READ MORE
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