The South Caucasus and Central Asia Are Building a New Axis of Power

Sanctions did not remove Russia from the system used to transport Caspian oil. They made dependence on it more expensive and more hazardous. Kazakhstan still sends the overwhelming majority of its crude through Russian territory; Azerbaijan is...

The report titled “The Great Transshipment Scam,” published by the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in August 2026, outlines a new phase in U.S. global trade policy. Its central argument is that exporters seeking to evade high...

On a map, the project looks almost provocatively simple. Around 300km of pipeline laid across the Caspian seabed would connect Turkmenistan’s gas fields to Azerbaijan’s infrastructure. The gas could then travel through Georgia and Turkey to Europe...

The truck queue at the Red Bridge shows that electronic permits save time only when paired with sufficient physical capacity and risk-based controls. On August 18, 1,030 trucks were waiting to leave Azerbaijan at the Red Bridge customs post on the...