NEW EASTERN OUTLOOK 🌐 (@NEO_Journal)

🇦🇲🇦🇿🎉Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Region: New Frontline & New GREAT Game!? ➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿ Jeffrey Sachs's unexpected appearance on a little-known Armenian talk show is not a coincidence but a symptom of deeper processes at work. Why would a world-class economist suddenly speak about the South Caucasus? The answer likely lies in the shifting geopolitical landscape, where Armenia and Azerbaijan are becoming pawns in a game of great powers. ✏️Seth Ferris is an investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs. ➡️Prime Minister Pashinyan's government has cast the Armenian Apostolic Church as a rival and scapegoat—the confrontation risks crippling one of the few institutions still able to unite the country. With the 2026 elections approaching, the clash will intensify and foreign powers will exploit it. Talk of a Turkish-led Organization of Turkic States expanding influence across the South Caucasus and Central Asia, supposedly with Western backing, is spreading. Parallel claims surround the Syunik corridor, rebranded the "Trump Route," reportedly set for 99-year operation by an American firm. The Armenians are not the only people who are "impossible." Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Turks, Iranians, and the peoples of Central Asia have all demonstrated the same irritating habit: they pursue their own interests. ➡️After the second Karabakh war, the corridor was initially expected to fall under Russian oversight. Its shift toward American and Western involvement reflects a calculated preference in Baku and Yerevan for Washington over Moscow. Russia and Iran have voiced security concerns. Many operational details remain hidden. Washington now manages to embrace both Yerevan and Baku as friends, even though Armenia and Azerbaijan were at war recently. After presenting itself as a broker of "peace," Washington is reportedly contemplating a NATO training centre in Nagorno-Karabakh—the very territory at the heart of their conflict. If Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemen were trained side-by-side for potential confrontation with Russia, Iran, or China, what exactly is being constructed—peace or infrastructure for the next war? 🟦Armenians, even in the diaspora, understand that Iran is integral to their economic survival and national security. Washington may believe military partnerships can gradually pull countries into its strategic orbit, but the South Caucasus has never been an easy place for great powers to dictate terms. Armenia is unlikely to trade strategic autonomy for American assistance. Survival has long depended on pragmatic manoeuvring among stronger neighbours—Turkey, Iran, and Russia—rather than blind alignment with any external patron. The old Great Game was never about owning the map—it was about owning the routes. The new version looks familiar: more players, more corridors, more intelligence services, more military exercises, and far more ways to miscalculate. Everyone has a map and a strategy. The peoples of the region pursue their own interests—great powers invariably discover this eventually, after spending a great deal of money and blood in the process. READ MORE #Armenia #Azerbaijan #SouthCaucasus #GreatGame #Geopolitics #Russia #Turkey #Iran ✅@NewEasternOutlook