The Geostrategic Role of the South Caucasus and the Black Sea Basin for the North Atlantic Alliance and Its Partner Countries

Abstract

This paper, “The Geostrategic Role of the South Caucasus and the Black Sea Basin for the North Atlantic Alliance and Its Partner Countries,” explores the extent and nature of international organizations’ engagement in promoting secure development and preserving stability within these regions. The study analyzes their strategic interests and objectives, alongside the potential threats and risks that may emerge in the process. Special attention is devoted to the political, military-strategic, and economic agendas of non-regional actors, whose involvement exerts a considerable influence on the security environment and long-term stability of the South Caucasus and Black Sea Basin states.

A significant part of the topic involves the study and analysis of activities oriented toward future outcomes, which helps to identify and distinguish concrete and important developments in relation to other parallel processes. The discussion pays particular attention to the region’s persistently turbulent environment, shaped by the overlapping or intersecting interests of various external actors, military conflicts, newly established economic zones, states’ political aspirations, strategically significant transport routes, and energy transit corridors.

Due to the region’s strategic location—offering short, convenient, stable, and reliable transport and communication routes for transferring energy resources from Central Asia toward Europe—the principal challenge lies in strengthening the security sector of the regional states and providing them with strategic support. This is of critical importance for enhancing and sustaining their capacity to act effectively.

The paper’s originality lies in highlighting, for the first time, the South Caucasus and Black Sea region not only in geopolitical terms but primarily through its geostrategic and military-strategic significance. This approach is essential for assessing the region’s operational-strategic role and for analyzing military operations within a broader security context. Its uniqueness is further underscored by the inclusion of an analysis of recent armed conflicts.

In the concluding part of the paper, we have examined the objectives of countries interested in the region’s growing potential, along with the investments mobilized for large-scale infrastructure projects and the security sector. The analysis clearly highlights the trends of increasing strategic support for the region and the strengthening of its capacities—military, military-political, economic, and financial—benefiting all actors involved in the ongoing processes. Ultimately, this dynamic is expected to create unprecedented security guarantees for certain states of the Black Sea Basin.