Omens for the South Caucasus in the 2024 US Presidential Election

Intigam Mamedov

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The debates around the coming US election mainly focus on its domestic implications or consequences for big issues in global politics, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO’s future, and the China-Taiwan or Palestine-Israel conflicts. However, the outcome of the US election may influence a variety of other vulnerable areas. A case in point is the South Caucasus, with its currently transforming order, internal tensions, and a number of foreign interests involved. The latest survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre shows wide partisan gaps in determining the US top foreign policy priorities. The public attitude of Americans is divided over issues like strengthening NATO and the UN, promoting human rights abroad and maintaining US military advantage. Similarly, conflicting perceptions can be observed among US politicians. As Jordan Tama argues, the increased polarisation and collapse of the consensus on liberal internationalism mean a bipartisan compact on America’s global role is unlikely to happen.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus (also referred to as Transcaucasus) is largely comprised of today’s nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The US strategy in the South Caucasus has gone through different stages. At the beginning of the 1990s, any aspirations about expanding the US reach in the region were hampered by ethnic conflicts, the rise of nationalist forces and the generally destabilised political environment in the three Transcaucasian states. From the early 2000s, US expectations in the region were given impetus by some efforts for democratic transition in Georgia, resulted in the so-called Rose Revolution. Later, the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 made further expansion of Western institutions and values difficult. Rumer et al. write that since that moment, US politics there became declaratory with diminished expectations. Until now, the US attitude towards the Transcaucasus was indeed inertial. Though, the transition of power in Armenia in 2018, the new regional order after the 2020 Karabakh war and further escalations in 2022-2023 might have made the US decision-makers reconsider their interests and expectations.