Natalie Tavadze
For years, to avoid the confusion between Georgia the country, and Georgia the U.S. state, international media referred to the former as a post-Soviet entity. It seemed that only in the wake of the 2008 Georgian-Russian war (when Americans were finally assured that it was not their state being attacked) did the country rise to global attention. Nowadays, it appears that Georgia, next to its immediate neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan (together forming the Central Caucasus), draws attention due to its role in the so-called Middle Corridor (TITR). However, it eluded the attention of many that the area has long obtained three distinctive geopolitical roles owing to its location. These were: a bridge of economic interactions, a buffer between Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, and a border of different civilizations.
There were reasons why it evaded the notice of many, but first and foremost, we should mentally map the area. The Central Caucasus, comprised of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, is a historically constructed, complex political concord, embodying a geopolitical tapestry woven over centuries and forming a culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse area stretched between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
In the geopolitical discourse, as explained by Saul Bernard Cohen, an eminent American geographer, the axiom stands firm: “Geopolitics is a product of its time.” Each historical period has produced a geopolitical model offering a lens through which to interpret the world map and the world order of that time. In imperialist geopolitical writings of the 19th to early 20th centuries when a state’s greatness lay in its maritime power and/or in domination of the Heartland (the territory ruled by the Russian Empire and later by the Soviet Union), the distance of the Central Caucasus from the Anglo-American space resulted in little to no mention of the region.
