Vance’s Trip To The South Caucasus Tightens The West’s Encirclement Of Russia

The timing amidst continued US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine suggests that the US expects this ramped-up pressure to raise the chances of coercing concessions from Russia.

Vice President JD Vance’s trips to Armenia and Azerbaijan were aimed at advancing several interconnected strategic goals. The most immediate was making progress on implementing the “Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity” (TRIPP), which is the planned trade corridor across southern Armenia unveiled after last August’s White House summit that ended the decades-long Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict. TRIPP isn’t just economically significant, however, since it’s also highly strategic.

To begin with, it replaces Russia’s plan to pioneer a corridor along the same route that would be guarded by its forces, therefore challenging the Kremlin’s political influence in the post-war South Caucasus. Second, TRIPP serves as the means for optimizing Western logistical access to the resource-rich but landlocked Central Asian Republics on the other side of the Caspian, which is of interest for the US due to its critical minerals. The US signed MoUs with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan about this last November.

On that topic, Vance proposed the creation of a critical minerals trading bloc during the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial that was attended by representatives of more than 50 countries, thus further contextualizing his trip to the South Caucasus a week later. His progress on implementing TRIPP will help to logistically open Central Asia’s critical mineral supply chain for the US. Having explained the political and economic aspects of TRIPP’s strategic significance, it’s now time to segue into the military one.

By replacing Russia’s planned corridor across southern Armenia with one in which the US will have a controlling stake for the next 49-99 years and preventing the Kremlin from monitoring traffic across it, Turkiye can now clandestinely optimize its military-logistics to Central Asia. Four of its five states have some formal relationship with the Turkish-led “Organization of Turkic States” (OTS), while two of its members are also Russia’s CSTO mutual defense allies, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The OTS is increasingly taking on more security responsibilities, which can be interpreted as means of challenging Russia’s security influence along its vulnerable southern periphery. To make matters even more concerning from the Kremlin’s perspective, Kazakhstan announced its plans late last year to produce NATO-standard shells, likely emboldened by TRIPP facilitating the US’, Turkiye’s, and ultimately NATO’s military logistics to it in the event of a crisis with Russia. This was elaborated on here.

Making progress on TRIPP’s implementation, which is assessed to be the purpose of Vance’s trips to Armenia and Azerbaijan, therefore tightens the West’s strategic encirclement of Russia along its entire southern periphery through the political, economic, and military means that this corridor unlocks. Vance undertook his voyage there amidst continued US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine, which suggests that this was timed to ramp up pressure on Russia for coercing concessions from it.

Be that as it may, while Trump 2.0 has indeed intensified pressure upon Russia along its southern periphery as explained, along its western one via support for the EU’s militarization, and along the financial front by pressuring India to reduce its import of Russian oil, Russia still insists on achieving its goals in full. If it ever compromises, however, then that would be due to the US’ carrot and stick policy of a proposed resource-centric strategic partnership and the aforesaid tightening encirclement campaign.