Pax Americana Comes to the South Caucasus

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In early March, U.S. intelligence as well as numerous officials had substantial basis to warn the White House that Azerbaijan was planning on reinitiating hostilities against Armenia, with deep concerns that incursions into Syunik would likely materialize by mid-March. U.S. officials undertook a flurry of activities to curtail Baku’s gameplan, and by mid April, a shuttle diplomacy of sorts was initiated by President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s team between Yerevan and Baku. In early May, the American team produced a proposal to both sides which would become the foundational basis of normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Washington Summit held on August 8 at the White House between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Trump, and President Aliyev is the culmination of this normalization proposal and months of negotiations between the three sides.

At the heart of the normalization process, from its inception, was the American belief that unless connectivity is established and the transit route issue addressed, Baku will weaponize the so-called “Zangezur Corridor” precept to relaunch hostilities. Thus, for Washington, normalization began with finding a solution to the transit route conundrum. What followed was a three-month process of complex negotiations on a highly-creative and unique proposal put forth by the United States. For those of us involved in this process, three things were clear: U.S. pressure was fundamental in order to get Aliyev to agree; the secret state of negotiations limited us from sharing details with the public or civil society; and, the complex and innovative nature of the proposal was ripe for pro-Russian proxies, both in Armenia and the Diaspora, to distort and seeks its obstruction through targeted disinformation campaigns.

On August 8, three documents were formalized at the Washington Summit. First, a joint declaration by Armenia and Azerbaijan, under the auspices of the United States, seeking full normalization of relations and permanent pathway to peace. Second, the foreign ministers of both countries placed their initials on a document based on the agreed contours of the draft peace agreement, signifying commitment by both sides to the terms of the deal, which, in essence, includes adherence to the 17 articles of the draft agreement. Third, both foreign ministers jointly signed a document formally withdrawing from the OSCE Minsk Group, noting the ineffective and obsolete nature of the format. 

At the bilateral level, numerous sets of pre-summit meetings were held on August 7, as both sides addressed the growing depth and scope of U.S.-Armenia relations. On August 8, President Trump and Prime Minister Pashinyan signed numerous memorandums of understanding to elevate the U.S.-Armenia partnership, which, in essence, is designed to not only quickly implement the agenda of the U.S.-Armenia Strategic Partnership, but also include initiatives to collaborate on artificial intelligence, energy, mining, semi-conductors, security, and Armenia’s Crossroads of Peace initiative. MOUs were also signed between Azerbaijan and the US, though not at the same scope or depth as that between Armenia and US, considering that the latter are formal strategic partners, while formal bilateral relationship does not yet have such an elevated status. Both sides, however, will be given access to America’s arms market, and in this context, the Trump Administration is open to offering both parties weapons sales as commensurate with commitment to bilateral agreements. 

There Will Be No “Zangezur Corridor,” Only an Armenian-Controlled Transit Route

With respect to the very cornerstone of this Summit lies the much-anticipated U.S.-proposed transit route. After months of intense negotiations, all sides have agreed to the Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a joint Armenia-U.S. venture designed as a master development plan to build a commercial route across Syunik. Conceding the fact that the term “corridor” has been politicized and weaponized by Baku and Russia’s proxies in Armenia and the Diaspora, the project will interchangeably use the terms “road” and “route,” thus addressing an important Armenian concern. TRIPP is envisioned as a vital and strategic trade artery that will be subjected to and administered by Armenian law, while operated under a joint Armenia-U.S. venture. Thus, TRIPP, as confirmed in discussions with numerous U.S. officials, ensures Armenia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdictional authority. Contrary to the disinformation spread by the likes of former Kocharyan foreign minister Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s illiberal opposition, and pro-Russia organizations in the Diaspora such as the ANCA, Armenian sovereign territory will not be ceded, given, or delegated to any third party actor that constitutes extraterritoriality. Moreover, contrary to the disinformation proliferated by such circles, foreign troops will not be stationed in Armenia, no neighboring country will have a presence in sovereign Armenian territory, and Armenia’s link south to Iran will not be obstructed nor have anything to do with this route. 

In this context, Armenia and the United States will undertake a joint venture, with both Armenian and American companies being granted contracts to build the infrastructure and undertake the development of the route. Considering the immense role the United States will be playing in securing financing for the project, the U.S., in consultation with its Armenian partners, and commensurate with Armenian law, will have the right to delegate or subcontract different parts of the construction project to pertinent companies as deemed appropriate in completing TRIPP. Thus, the United States will partner up with Armenia, with strict adherence to the principle of the inviolability of Armenia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdictional authority, to build and operate a commercial transit route through Southern Armenia, allowing for connectivity between Azerbaijan and Nakhijevan.   

The route is being qualified as an economic and commercial endeavor, not simply a geopolitical or hard power move, and it is for this reason that there is not and will not be talks of its militarization to address the security of the route. Unlike the stipulations put forth in the 2020, November 9 trilateral statement that had sought, based on Russian and Azerbaijani interpretation, the presence of Russian FSB troops controlling an extraterritorial corridor, TRIPP will not have any military presence from any foreign country. Rather, the United States, in agreement with Armenia, will take on the responsibility of ensuring that the route operates and functions safely through the hiring of highly-experienced and qualified companies whose activities, under Armenian law, will ensure the set objectives.     

While Aliyev had demanded complete unimpeded access of all cargo and goods passing through Armenia, without any inspection of the content included in the shipments, his maximalist demand was not achieved. Rather, only commercial access will be permitted, and in this context, military equipment or non-commercial products will not be permitted. Further, since the control of the route will be under Armenian law, and thus, under Armenian control, cargo entering and passing through the Republic of Armenia will be subjected to inspection prior to entering Armenian territory. The border inspection mechanism will utilize the front-office/back-office model: a third party operator, hired by the U.S.-Armenia joint venture, will work the front office when physically dealing with incoming Azerbaijani cargo, while Armenian officials and border control personnel will be in the back office overlooking all aspects of the process. Through this model, all cargo entering and passing through Armenian territory will be ensured to be commercial, while Armenian law will dictate front-office/back-office operations.    

The U.S.-Armenia Paradigm and a Growing Security Architecture

The Washington Summit is testimony to the highly constructive and methodical role played by the United States in making this initiative a reality. Two important factors stand out in how this came about. First, against much of his strategic self-interest, which is well-designed to maintain his power asymmetry with Armenia and thus obstruct any third-party initiative that allows Armenia agency and potential for development, Aliyev finally agreed to the U.S. proposal, after having sought every diplomatic mechanism of obstructing or prolonging the process. In my extensive engagements with the State Department, National Security Council, and the White House, it was evident that there was a clear understanding in Washington that bringing Aliyev to the table was incumbent upon the United States if Washington had any hopes of its proposed initiative having life. In essence, the Trump Administration’s model of working through deadlines, and making certain that involved parties will face punitive action for failing to meet the set deadlines, produced the outcome that many of us, even having access to the process, were skeptical of: that Aliyev will agree to terms that are not commensurate to his maximalist posturing.   

Second, the U.S. normalization proposal, while having had several iterations since its first draft, is primarily hinged on the following logic: the United States will step in as a constructive economic and geopolitical actor to support the establishment of a transit route through Syunik, giving Azerbaijan commercial connectivity to its exclave of Nakhichevan, with the route being subjected to Armenia’s laws and in full compliance with Armenia’s sovereignty. In conversations with the leadership in both the State Department and the NSC during the last three months, it was directly shared with me that America’s thinking was predicated on three underlying postulates. 

One, the Washington Summit is not a one-off engagement, but rather a foundational framework for what the United States views as a three year process, from this normalization initiative to signing a final peace treaty. Two, the White House proceeded with a “peace first” approach, where the conflict is removed from the battlefield space and the use of force is precluded, after which the normalization process proceeds. And three, the U.S. envisions a new South Caucasus, one defined by trade, stability and interconnectivity, which also includes the opening of borders with Turkey in the very near future. In this context, the background leading up to the Summit has been defined by categorically denying Baku the option of using force, offering creative (economic, energy, infrastructure, etc.) incentives to both sides to make certain they adhere to the U.S. plan, and using these developments to formalize a normalization framework that, by 2028, will lead to the signing of a final peace agreement.   

For Armenia, the U.S. proposal was not only a highly-preferable outcome of its Western pivot and policy of diversification, but more specifically, it has fundamentally altered its security architecture. The joint U.S.-Armenia venture in building TRIPP, for official Yerevan, is not, in and of itself, only an economic or commercial endeavor, but just as, if not more importantly, an important layer of robust deterrence against any future acts of Azerbaijani aggression. Within the domain of security, TRIPP offers Armenia an expansive and multilayered framework of soft deterrence, which exponentially diminishes the threat propensity within its security environment. In essence, whereas the threat of Azerbaijani incursions were a continuous and high-probability threat since 2020, that threat has been exceedingly marginalized by virtue of the U.S.-led normalization initiative and the development of the TRIPP project.

Furthermore, the outcome of the Washington Summit, and America’s vision of undertaking a multi-year process of finalizing a peace treaty, extensively handicaps Aliyev’s capacity to tap into his hybrid warfare toolkit. While Baku, for tactical and strategic reasons, will still seek to utilize certain methods of hybrid warfare, it will, nonetheless, be unable to utilize its wide-ranging toolkit the way it has for the last five years. Within the confluence of such developments, Aliyev’s penchant for relying on kinetic and coercive diplomacy will also lose efficacy, since the theater of conflict has been transferred to a normalization format with immense U.S. investment.    

In no uncertain terms, the normalization process brings Armenia a state of de facto peace, and while a peace treaty, if achieved in the future, will produce a de jure outcome, the more important variable, in the immediate and near future, is that Aliyev’s war machine, which had fed off of the power disparity with Armenia, would have go into hibernation. What the U.S. normalization initiative has done for Armenia’s security architecture is quite unique: it has given Armenia a transit route that it controls, not the Zangezur Corridor of Aliyev’s dreams or the FSB-controlled corridor of Moscow’s desires, while at the same time strengthening Armenia’s position as a regional actor.

Finally, inherent in the normalization initiative is the implicit understanding that Azerbaijan will have to withdraw from the territories it has occupied within Armenia-proper as the TRIPP project comes close to conclusion and reaches the opening stage. More simply put, Azerbaijan will either have to withdraw or act as an obstructionist force against the U.S. project, for the U.S. normalization initiative envisions the operationalization of TRIPP with the de-occupation of Armenian territories. Thus, Azerbaijan’s occupation of Armenian sovereign territory will soon become a liability, and what Aliyev had initially deemed an important instrument of leverage against Armenia will now become a source of diplomatic weakness in its relations with the U.S. Quite similar to what will also happen soon with the POWs: as the process develops, the issue of Armenian prisoners of war, a topic of growing importance to the White House, will become a political liability for Baku.  

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