By Vasif Huseynov

On November 10, 2020, a trilateral statement ended the 44-day Second Karabakh War. Six years later, Azerbaijan and Armenia are no longer negotiating the end of a conflict but the terms of coexistence. The Washington Joint Declaration of August 8, 2025 saw both leaders initial the text of a peace agreement at the White House, and less than a month later the OSCE Ministerial Council closed the Minsk Process by consensus, a closure completed on November 30, 2025.

The treaty, however, remains unsigned. At the CICA summit in Baku on October 15, President Ilham Aliyev warned: “This peace is still fragile, and it must be protected and strengthened.” Currently, the process now runs along four tracks: Armenia’s constitution, border delimitation, transport links and bilateral trade. Against this backdrop, officials in Baku contend that the next move lies with Yerevan, which they believe should act quickly or lose the historic momentum created by the end of the conflict, sustained US engagement and an unusually favorable regional environment.

Armenia’s Constitution: The Remaining Legal Barrier

Of the two conditions set by Baku in March 2025, only one remains: the Minsk Group is dissolved, but the Armenian constitution remains unchanged. President Aliyev said in Munich in February that Azerbaijan could sign an agreement “the very next day” once Armenia removed what Baku regards as territorial claims. Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov repeated this point on October 30, noting that Yerevan must take the necessary political and legal steps.

The dispute concerns a single cross-reference. Armenia’s constitution does not mention Karabakh, but its preamble invokes the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which in turn cites the 1989 decision on the “reunification” of Soviet Armenia and “Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Baku’s demand rests on sound legal logic: a peace treaty binds the governments that sign it, whereas a constitution binds every government that follows, so a future government in Yerevan could invoke the current reference to Karabakh’s unification with Armenia to challenge the treaty. Removing it would give the peace a solid legal basis that does not depend on whoever holds power in Yerevan. Ireland, for example, set a clear precedent in 1998, when, under the Good Friday Agreement, more than 94 percent of voters approved amending Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution to drop its territorial claim on Northern Ireland, a step that made Dublin a credible guarantor of the settlement rather than weakening its sovereignty. Germany did the same in 1990, amending its Basic Law under the Two Plus Four Treaty before signing its border treaty with Poland.

The obstacle now boils down to simple arithmetic rather than diplomacy. Armenia’s Minister of Justice Srbuhi Galyan has said the draft has been ready since March, and the Constitutional Reform Council must approve it by December 30, 2026, ahead of a referendum planned for 2027. But putting it to a vote requires a two-thirds majority in parliament, which Civil Contract lost in the June 7 election, and both opposition blocs reject changes they see as imposed under Azerbaijani pressure. On October 22, Pashinyan raised the possibility of holding another snap election to break the deadlock.

Borders and the Enclave Question

The least visible track has been the most consistent. At their 13th meeting in Aghveran on April 29, the state commissions led by Deputy Prime Ministers Shahin Mustafayev and Mher Grigoryan agreed on guidelines covering expert groups, delimitation maps and the publication of results, the procedural scaffolding without which no line can be drawn.

The substantive question is the Soviet-era enclaves. On October 14, Pashinyan proposed that Armenia’s territory of 29,743 square kilometers be delimited based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, that enclaves be eliminated through exchanges of equivalent territory, and that both states renounce all claims against each other. However, his deputy said two days later that no agreement on an exchange exists, and Baku has said only that the issue should be resolved within the delimitation process.

TRIPP Moves from Agreement to Implementation

Meanwhile the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), linking mainland Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan through Armenia’s Syunik province, crossed a major threshold on October 28, when Armenia’s National Assembly ratified the Armenian-American framework agreement by 63 votes to 32. A joint development company will manage the route, with the United States holding 74 percent and Armenia 26 percent for an initial 49 years.

On October 21, an Armenian government delegation visited Syunik to launch design work on the railway, road and power lines. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared the project to be entering its implementation phase while the Armenian ambassador to the United States Narek Mkrtchyan announced that he expects the groundbreaking for TRIPP to begin in early 2027. On November 6, the project acquired its first trilateral working mechanism. In a joint statement issued by the three governments, US Assistant Secretary of State Brendan Hanrahan and Deputy Foreign Ministers Elnur Mammadov of Azerbaijan and Vahan Kostanyan of Armenia launched technical planning groups on transport and electricity transmission, tasked with resolving complex technical issues and preparing the next phases of implementation, including connections to other regional infrastructure.

Regardless, TRIPP should not be viewed merely as a transportation project. A functioning route through Syunik would create daily, practical cooperation between two states that were at war six years ago, embedding customs, border and security procedures that require constant coordination. It would also give Armenia transit revenues and access to regional markets after three decades of closed borders, turning peace into a tangible economic interest for Armenian society rather than only a commitment of its government. Every kilometer built reduces the risk of any return to confrontation.

TRIPP is also the one element of the settlement that gives all three parties, including the United States, a material stake in its success. From Baku’s perspective, with ratification complete and the trilateral groups in place, officials in Yerevan should maintain the project’s positive momentum. Design studies are no substitute for actual construction, given that Washington’s commitment to unimpeded connectivity has existed on paper for over a year.

The regional environment around the route, however, is less settled than the progress on paper suggests. Iranian opposition has hardened. In an article in the Tehran daily Ettelaat on November 5, Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser on international affairs to Iran’s Supreme Leader, called Yerevan’s approval of TRIPP “blind submission to the interests of the West,” describing any change of borders in the region as an Iranian red line to be defended “by any means,” and recalled warning the Armenian ambassador that “if Trump and his allies want to cross this Iranian red line, we will break their legs.”

Russia’s stance is more ambiguous. Speaking in Baku after the CICA summit on October 15, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow had “not yet received any requests” to join the project, while stressing that Russia is ready to take part and pointing to the concession under which Russian Railways operates Armenia’s rail network. Neither Tehran nor Moscow, in other words, has yet come to terms with a transportation route being built with American participation on their doorstep.

Neither position should be allowed to slow the project down. TRIPP is a matter for the sovereign decision of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two states through whose territory and for whose benefit the route will run, and no third country should hold a veto over infrastructure that two neighbors agree to build. Nor does the route alter any borders, which is Tehran’s stated concern. It connects them.

For Yerevan, this is a further argument for speed, since every month of delay gives outside actors more room to raise the project’s political cost.

The Trade Dimension: Symbolic, Small, but Lopsided

The most tangible change in relations has come in commerce. On October 21, 2025, President Aliyev announced that Azerbaijan had lifted all restrictions on cargo transit to Armenia. On December 18, 1,220 tons of Azerbaijani gasoline left for Armenia, the first such delivery in over three decades, and by the anniversary of the Washington summit, close to 60,000 tons of goods had moved to and from Armenia through Azerbaijan.

In September, trade became two-way when Armenia shipped aluminium foil to Azerbaijan. While symbolically important, trade figures remain small: Azerbaijani exports to Armenia reached $23.45 million in the first nine months of 2026, about 0.1 percent of the country’s total exports, against Armenian exports of just $96,460. Much of the flow still travels by rail through Georgia, as no direct border crossing has opened yet.

The political significance, however, is considerable. By lifting transit restrictions before any treaty was signed, Azerbaijan demonstrated a remarkable gesture of good will toward Armenia and showed Armenians the concrete benefits of peace: cheaper fuel, new transit options and access to wider markets. Pashinyan himself has argued that economic ties will substantially strengthen the peace.

Outlook

As Azerbaijan makes progress in signing a treaty with Armenia that would settle borders and other claims, it would not close the moral chapter of the conflict. For nearly three decades, Karabakh and seven surrounding districts were occupied, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were displaced, and towns such as Aghdam and Fuzuli were left in ruins. On October 26, presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said every displaced Azerbaijani “expects an apology from Armenia”, while Pashinyan has urged both sides to stop looking for Armenia in Azerbaijan and vice versa.

From Baku’s perspective, an apology by the Armenian government for the occupation would be the next logical step. In December 1970, for example, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt before the Warsaw Ghetto memorial on the day he signed the treaty recognizing Poland’s western border, a turning point in German-Polish reconciliation. In 1995, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama offered a “heartfelt apology” for Japan’s colonial rule and aggression. The presidents of Serbia and Montenegro and of Croatia exchanged apologies in 2003, and in 2010 the Serbian parliament adopted a declaration condemning the Srebrenica massacre.

None of these acts was easy: half of West Germans rejected Brandt’s gesture, and Serbia’s declaration passed with a bare majority. Yet each side helped turn a legal settlement into a durable relationship. For Armenia, a sincerely acknowledgement of the cost of the occupation would reassure Azerbaijani society that peace is not merely a pause, making the treaty far more credible to those who lost their homes.

Six years after the war, the question is no longer whether Armenia and Azerbaijan can stop fighting, but whether a peace that already exists in practice can become a durable peace, binding in law before the political window that produced it closes. The answer will be written over the next eighteen months, and lies largely in the hands of the Armenian parliament and at the ballot box.

Author’s Bio:

Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Hi everyone,

The Saratoga Foundation is pleased to release a new report by Senior Fellow Roger N. McDermott, entitled From Combat Journal to Wartime Decision: Information Correction and Authority in Russian Military Command.

This timely report examines a central question about Russia’s military digital transformation: Does faster access to battlefield information actually enable commanders to make better decisions, correct mistakes, and improve operational performance?

Using Russia’s combat journal (Zhurnal boevykh deistvii, or ZhBD) and the process of recovering damaged military equipment as case studies, McDermott explores how battlefield reports become official records, how assessments are reviewed, and how information must reach officers with the authority to act.

Below are eight major takeaways from the report:

1. Digital connectivity alone does not guarantee better command decisions.
The military value of digital integration depends on whether corrected battlefield information changes an authorized decision in time to affect the mission—not simply on how quickly information is transmitted.

2. Russia’s combat journal is an important institutional record.
The ZhBD documents significant events and provides a reference for operational assessment, accountability, and the study of combat experience. Its significance rests partly on the authority attached to its entries and the consequences that follow from accepting them.

3. Electronic journal use is documented, but the wider technical architecture remains unclear.
Military-court testimony confirms electronic combat-journal use in one Russian brigade. However, the available evidence does not establish a standardized military-wide system, the journal’s precise software architecture, or an automatic connection between journal entries and command decisions.

4. Correcting information requires more than updating a record.
Commanders and staff must be able to challenge an accepted assessment, resolve competing accounts, distribute the correction to relevant users, and reconsider decisions made on the basis of earlier information. A correction that arrives too late may have little operational value.

5. Equipment recovery illustrates the practical stakes.
Returning damaged equipment to service requires more than locating it. Russian forces must assess damage, identify repair requirements, allocate specialists and spare parts, arrange evacuation, and determine when equipment is genuinely available for a mission. Information systems can help coordinate these steps, but cannot create resources that are not available.

6. Russia’s newly created unified data interaction system, known as SVOD, needs to be evaluated for its operational effects on Russian military performance.
By introducing SVOD, the Russian military is seeking to provide Russian frontline units and headquarters with their own shared, secure digital workspace combining maps, satellite imagery, weather data, and battlefield reports. SVOD’s purpose is to improve coordination and accelerate decisions by providing a more current operational picture. However, its actual effectiveness under battlefield conditions remains unproven.

7. Institutional learning is different from recording combat experience.
Russia has mechanisms for collecting and analyzing battlefield experience and proposing changes to equipment and procedures. But reports, databases, and modernization decisions do not by themselves prove that changes reach operational units or improve subsequent performance. Learning must be demonstrated through implementation and measurable results.

8. Ukraine and NATO should assess whether digital integration restores combat power.
The key indicators are whether revised information reaches the responsible officer, changes a decision, and improves execution under battlefield conditions. For equipment recovery, this means examining whether Russia returns assets to service sooner and sustains operations more effectively with the forces actually available.

Why This Report Matters for Ukraine and NATO

Russia’s digital command capabilities since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 must be judged by their operational results, not connectivity alone. Improved information flow can help Russia restore damaged equipment faster and sustain its combat power in a long war of attrition. For NATO policymakers, the key question from this report is how quickly Russian formations can recover and resume missions after major combat losses and how are they trying to improve that learning process. McDermott’s report offers a practical framework for distinguishing a more connected Russian military from one that can translate information into timely decisions, restore combat power, and adapt its conduct of war.

Please read the full report 👉 here and consider its implications for understanding Russian military command and adaptation.

Enjoy the report!

Glen E. Howard
President
The Saratoga Foundation

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By Alexander Melikishvili

For the first time since July 10, Russian authorities issued permits for vessels to depart from the ports of Temryuk and Kavkaz in the Sea of Azov, according to a Bloomberg report on October 28. Three industry sources quoted by the news agency claim that the Azov Sea Port Administration began issuing permits on October 26 and that at least one ship had passed through the Kerch Strait and entered the Black Sea. The report was corroborated by Reuters, as quoted by The Moscow Times, also on October 28. Seven industry sources told Reuters that the permits would be issued only until November 15, and two of them added that the ships would be protected in the Black Sea by a Russian naval escort.

This announcement appears to have caught the Ukrainian side by surprise. Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy, Taras Vysotskyi, stated that his agency was verifying the information about the resumption of grain shipments by Russia via the Sea of Azov, Interfax-Ukraine reported on October 29. The Ukrainian military has issued no statements indicating that it would unilaterally stop attacking Russian ships in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov in the absence of reciprocal commitments from Russia. Prior to the deterioration of the security situation in the northern part of the Black Sea due to tit-for-tat attacks targeting commercial navigation by Russia and Ukraine, about one-third of Russia’s wheat exports passed via the Sea of Azov, reflecting its strategic importance.

In the absence of a comprehensive ceasefire or moratorium on naval attacks in the Black Sea, a one-off resumption of maritime traffic by Russia, even if true, does not resolve Moscow’s main problem, which is finding ways to export its bumper grain harvest that is forecast to reach 140 million tons in 2026. Even though Ukraine has repeatedly expressed a readiness to halt its attacks, Russia has demonstrated no willingness to reciprocate. Speaking at the annual Valdai Club meeting on October 1, Putin rejected the proposal for a limited truce in the Black Sea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov further confirmed this position on October 2, when he stated that “piecemeal arrangements” could not bring about “a peaceful settlement.” Russia links the cessation of its attacks against Ukraine-bound ships and Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure not only to Kyiv’s halt of attacks on Russian refineries but also to the lifting of Western sanctions on Russian oil exports.

Looking North and East

The double blockade of the Black Sea forces Russia to seek alternative routes to transport grain, but these efforts are seriously restricted by geopolitical factors and infrastructure constraints. A good example of the former is Estonia’s decision to ban the transit of Russian and Belarusian grain, as announced by its foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, on October 1. Moreover, on October 9, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia proposed introducing a European Union-wide ban on all Russian grain transit via the EU. Russia has five ports on the Baltic Sea (Ust-Luga, Primorsk, St. Petersburg, Vysotsk, and Kaliningrad). Still, their aggregate throughput capacity is limited to only 7 million tons of grain per year. Although work is underway to expand port infrastructure to handle more grain, this will take some time and require considerable investment. In addition, grain will have to compete with other bulk dry cargo shipments, including coal and fertilizer.

As a result, Russia began exploring the northern or Arctic route. On October 28, it was reported that the port of Murmansk had received its first shipment of grain, amounting to 3,400 tons. This is likely intended for the Barbados-flagged dry bulk carrier New Born, which is scheduled to deliver 28,000 tons of wheat to Morocco, according to The Moscow Times. Russia has other ports along its vast northern coast, but Murmansk is the only one that remains ice-free throughout the year. In addition, other major northern ports are highly specialized in handling specific outbound cargo shipments (for example, Sabetta handles mostly LNG, while Dudinka handles metals and coal), and retrofitting their infrastructure to become multimodal is simply not economically feasible.

On September 12, Russian Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut told the Russian media that although the ports in the Far East had not been used for grain exports before, steps had been taken to “actively develop this direction,” without providing any details. She also denied that Russia was experiencing any problems with grain exports and noted that talks were underway with China to safeguard the transit of Russian grain for export to markets in Southeast Asia. Since then, however, there have been no reports in Russian media about Russian grain transits via China. Meanwhile, according to Forbes.ru, the volume of grain exported via Russian ports in the Far East, including Vladivostok, reached only 734,000 tons in the first half of 2026.

Overland transit via Kazakhstan would seem like another option, but transporting grain in this direction is severely hampered by mutual disagreements over tariffs for grain transit to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia and Kazakhstan also have conflicting policy priorities, with the latter keenly interested in using Russian seaports to double its grain exports by 2028. Due to Ukraine’s Black Sea naval blockade, Russia naturally prioritizes its grain shipments rather than accommodating Kazakh grain exports. This has already resulted in Russia rejecting Kazakhstan’s request to transport its grain via Russian railroads to the Estonian ports in October. Russia justified its refusal on the grounds of insufficient capacity in its railroad network.

Ukraine’s blockade of the Black Sea resulted in a 39.6% contraction in Russian wheat exports in July–October 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, as reported by Kommersant on October 30. Similarly, Russian barley and corn exports declined by 25% and 5.4%, respectively, during the same period year-on-year. Russia is mainly rerouting grain exports via its Baltic seaports, which now absorb 38.3% of wheat exports. The Caspian direction is also steadily growing, but there, again, infrastructure constraints do not allow for large volumes—the Russian analytical center Rusagrotrans estimates that only 582,000 tons of wheat were transported for export via the Caspian Sea in July–October 2026.

Outlook

Leaving aside the infrastructure bottlenecks at Russia’s northern, northwestern, and eastern seaports stemming from insufficient throughput capacity, rerouting grain exports substantially increases transportation costs, which ultimately must be borne by buyers or sellers. For example, freight charges for river-to-sea vessels transporting grain from Russia to Iran via the Caspian Sea increased by 2.3–2.4 times. As of September 25, it cost $110-115 per ton to transport grain from Astrakhan to Iran (compared to $47 per ton in 2025).

Similarly, shipping grain from Russia’s Baltic ports to Morocco now costs $42 per ton—a 40 percent year-on-year increase. Measures offered by the Russian government to grain traders are insufficient because of increased transportation costs. Already in July, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture offered to subsidize 90% of rail costs, but because the full tariff for transporting grain from Russia’s Southern Federal District to Baltic ports is $80-120 per ton, even the remaining 10% ($8-12 per ton) represented a heavy burden on farmers.

The aggregate volume of announced state purchases of grain in 2026 is only on the order of 3 million tons, which also offers little relief given the size of the bumper crop. Russian authorities commenced state purchases on October 29, according to UkrAgroConsult, but farmers’ participation in trading sessions was limited due to a combination of systemic factors, including a shortage of storage silos, increased transportation costs, and red tape associated with obtaining approval to participate in auctions. As a result, only four trading sessions were organized instead of the eight scheduled.

The president of Russia’s Grain Union, Zlochevsky, estimates that if its southern ports continue to remain idle, close to 40 million tons of grain will be stranded. Moreover, he adds that, under the best-case scenario, if all alternative routes are employed to the maximum, this will only allow compensation for the losses of not more than half of this volume. Overhauling port infrastructure to accommodate sharply increased grain volumes will take both time and money, which means that Russia is left with no short-term options.

Mounting logistical and economic pressures increase Moscow’s incentive to seek an accommodation, but it remains unclear whether the Kremlin will compromise on its broader strategic objectives (such as lifting Western sanctions or addressing ‘root causes’) in exchange for restoring maritime trade. Nevertheless, the growing costs of the Black Sea blockade could eventually make a limited truce an increasingly attractive option for Moscow. Following Zelensky’s weekend visit to Türkiye, this might even result in the revival of the Black Sea Grain Initiative from which Russia withdrew in 2023.

About the Author:

Alex Melikishvili is a senior country risk analyst with more than a decade of experience working in the private sector (S&P Global, IHS Markit) with a focus on Eurasian security. Alex holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

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On October 26, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, who is also the younger full brother of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), flew to Tehran with Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Syed Asim Munir and Turkey’s Director of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) İbrahim Kalın, whose countries joined the kingdom in signing the Mecca Defense Pact agreement in August. Riyadh called the trip an effort at de-escalation, but for all purposes the real aim of the trip was likely to ask Iran to rein in the Houthis. The prince reportedly brought an offer of $1 billion for the Houthis, to be routed through Iran, while Riyadh has not confirmed this report. Eleven days earlier, a senior Saudi diplomat had said that Iran was encouraging the Houthi attacks and that the kingdom had not asked Tehran to mediate.

That reversal reflects how the war is going for Riyadh. The Houthis are winning again, and for the same reasons they won the last war. The forces arrayed against them, nominally under the recognized Government of Yemen (GoY), are divided, lack a unified command of their own, and are hollowed out by corruption that Saudi money has made worse. By contrast, the Houthi command is unified, and its local commanders have the authority to make battlefield decisions as required. Drones and missiles have only amplified the Houthis’ advantage.

Meanwhile, the GoY’s offensive has stalled. Operation Dawn of Yemen, announced on October 4 with the stated aim of retaking Sanaa, lost momentum in its second week. GoY forces retook positions around Dhubab and the Bab al-Mandeb but never consolidated their hold around Mokha, an important port on Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast, which the Houthis seized on September 10 and still control. The Houthis also hold the high ground above the Tihama, a low-lying coastal plain that stretches from the Bab al Mandeb to the Saudi border. Control over it leaves any GoY advance up the coast exposed and in danger of being outflanked. In Marib, GoY claims a handful of hills near the Maas camp and north of Harib. The defensive lines there, however, have scarcely moved in recent weeks.

In recent weeks, the Houthis have tightened their grip on Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city. On October 4, they took al-Turbah and cut the city’s main supply road to Aden. Al-Turbah is strategically important because it sits directly on the main highway connecting the city of Taiz with Aden (the interim seat of the internationally recognized Government of Yemen). Securing or severing this arterial road dictates whether forces in Taiz receive military reinforcements, humanitarian aid, and commercial goods. A week later, the Houthis had closed all four exits from the GoY-held city. More than 600,000 people in and around Taiz are now beyond the World Food Program’s reach. Prices for basic goods have doubled, and fuel prices have tripled. By encircling Taiz rather than storming it, the Houthis tie down GoY forces and Saudi aircraft at little cost to themselves.

Another Flood of Cash

Saudi Arabia is once again trying to buy its way through a war in Yemen. By 2020, five years into its first war there, it had spent an estimated $265 billion and had not won. Much of that money went to allies who never formed a single army. Islah-aligned forces which are broadly aligned with Yemen’s Islah party, held Marib. The separatists who held Aden took their money and their orders from Abu Dhabi, as did Tareq Saleh, who is the military commander of the National Resistance Force (NRF). Saleh is a member of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), and nephew of the late former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and has built his own military force on the coast near Mocha. Their commanders answer first to their factions and their patrons.

Little has changed with this influx of Saudi money. When the coast fell in September, Tareq Saleh withdrew to Aden, where southern units at first refused to let his men enter the city. The Supreme Military Committee, set up in January to reorganize and command GoY forces, is run by the Saudi-led coalition, not by GoY. Progress has been made in centralizing command, but Riyadh, rather than GoY, holds ultimate authority. This slows decision-making and places much of the authority in the hands of Saudi officers who have little experience operating in Yemen and who do not understand the country’s complex tribal dynamics. In the field, the strongest formations still answer to the commanders who formed them and to the factions those commanders serve. Now, the Emiratis, whom Riyadh forced out of Yemen last winter, have agreed to resume paying some GoY forces in the south. Some southern commanders will now draw money from both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, further complicating loyalties and already murky chains of command.

The money from Saudi Arabia has only worsened the corruption. After the Emiratis left, Riyadh took over the salaries of tens of thousands of fighters paid by Abu Dhabi. The defense minister introduced a biometric payroll to purge ghost soldiers from its payrolls. Still, some commanders have resisted, reportedly because it would expose how many soldiers on their rolls do not exist. In August, the defense minister ordered those salaries be paid directly into soldiers’ bank accounts rather than through their commanders. Some commanders threatened to pull their men off the front lines. One soldier said his last salary had been less than $40. Neither reform had cleaned up the rolls by September. When the Houthis attacked Mokha, some units there were close to 80% ghost soldiers.

Much of the money never reaches the units fighting in the frontlines. In Marib, for example, which is a key oil producing region of Yemen, officers talk about farmhouses outside the city where commanders keep millions of riyals and dollars in cash, out of reach of auditors. Others continue to add to their property portfolios in Cairo, Egypt.

Tribal Threats Backfire

GoY has also handed the Houthis a remarkable gift. Last week, the defense ministry warned that Houthi-organized tribal gatherings, which it said were being used to recruit children, would be treated as legitimate military targets. The post was later deleted. The government called it an “erroneous and unacceptable statement,” and the defense minister apologized, saying tribal gatherings would not be targeted. The retraction did little though to repair the damage. In the highlands, tribal gatherings are how the tribes mobilize and settle their disputes. The Houthis seized on the statement as proof that Riyadh and its clients regard the tribes as targets. Before the fighting resumed, many sheiks in the outlying districts were reassessing their bargain with the Houthis. The threat to bomb tribal gatherings, combined with civilian casualties and perceptions of a Saudi alignment with Israel, will likely push many to continue their uneasy alliance with the Houthis.

The episode reinforced a perception that is already widespread in Yemen: that GoY takes its orders from Riyadh and remains more a Saudi tool than a Yemeni government. Saudi Arabia sponsored the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which heads GoY, in 2022. Riyadh pays GoY’s soldiers, GoY’s offensive depends on Saudi aircraft, and its leaders spend long stretches of time in the Saudi capital. In contrast, the Houthis are deeply rooted in the socio-cultural matrix of Yemen’s northern highlands.

A Mosaic Command

The Houthi command does not share these weaknesses. Authority rests with Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and a small circle of advisers around him. Below that level, local commanders have wide latitude in choosing targets and timing. The structure was forged in the six Saada wars between 2004 and 2010, when the Houthis fought the Yemeni army in small units that had to act without orders from a leadership under constant threat. Iran calls its version mosaic defense. The Houthis practice their variant of this strategy daily on more than thirty fronts across contiguous territory, allowing them the flexibility to shift men and materiel from one front to another. In August 2025, Israeli strikes killed the Houthis’ prime minister, Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi, much of his cabinet, and the movement’s military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari. Nevertheless, the movement’s conduct did not change.

Another factor helping the Houthis is their superior intelligence services. When they seized Sanaa in 2014, they absorbed the state’s intelligence agencies, decades of files on Yemen’s elite, and many of the officers who had run the state’s human networks. Their Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) has since penetrated much of GoY and most of its military commands. During the September attack on Mokha, the Houthis ran a major deception operation feeding false withdrawal orders into a coastal command that had no joint operations room linking its five formations. Among them was a recording, apparently made with an AI-cloned voice, in which the commander Tareq Saleh appeared to order his men to pull back.

Drones and missiles give the Houthis leverage over Riyadh. Saudi Arabia, roughly three times the size of Texas, offers a deep and rich target bank. In October alone, the Houthis struck or claimed strikes on airports in Riyadh, Dammam, Abha, and Najran and on Aramco facilities at Yanbu, Rabigh, Shaybah, and Dhahran. On October 8, a missile hit Riyadh’s airport, killing three people, among them a captain for Saudia national airlines, and burning out a parked Saudia airliner. Two days later, another strike on the airport killed thirteen. With Hormuz effectively closed, the kingdom depends on the East-West pipeline and the port of Yanbu for its oil exports. Flows through the pipeline were reportedly halted on October 5 after a strike on a pumping station.

Saudi air defenses are limited and spread thin. Built mostly to face the threat from Iran, their interceptor stocks were drawn down early in the Iran Gulf war. Earlier this year, the kingdom ordered 730 Patriot missiles for $9 billion, or more than $12 million a missile, and restocking can take up to 30 months. Every battery that is moved to defend Riyadh, royal palaces, and other vanity projects leaves Jizan, Abha, or Yanbu more exposed.

Few easy targets remain in Yemen. On October 13, Saudi aircraft struck the Yemen Oil Company’s al-Sabah station in Sanaa, which the coalition said was being used to store missiles and drones in underground fuel depots. The oil company said the tanks were empty. The Houthis are masters of physical and electronic camouflage, and many of their drone and missile production facilities are underground, in deep wadis, and under and within dense urban areas. On the ground, Riyadh is arming GoY-aligned forces with a wide range of drones, including first-person-view (FPV) drones, and these are inflicting losses on the Houthis. But the Houthis have FPV drones of their own and have been training with them far longer.

What Comes Next

The Houthis can continue striking Saudi Arabia for months. The war with Iran has already cut deeply into Saudi oil revenue, and the Houthi campaign compounds the damage. The IMF now expects the Saudi economy to contract by 3.3% this year; in July, it forecast 1.7% growth. The kingdom’s showcase for foreign investors, the Future Investment Initiative, has been canceled, and the United States has ordered non-emergency staff and their families to leave. The kingdom’s costs from damaged infrastructure, lost investor confidence, and curtailed exports could run into the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars. No similar costs can be imposed on the Houthis. They rule what was the Arab world’s poorest country before the war began, and their leaders have lived under air attack, on and off, since 2004.

Yemen was a preview of what would happen in Iran, and both wars have exposed new limits on the ability of the United States to dictate the outcomes. In 2025, the United States launched Operation Rough Rider, which struck the Houthis more than 1,100 times in 52 days at a cost of over $1 billion. It also cost the U.S. seven MQ-9 Reaper drones shot down in its first six weeks, and ended in a ceasefire with the movement’s capabilities largely intact. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran rested on the same assumption that enough firepower would force capitulation. Eight months on, the Iranian government is intact and is hosting the Saudi defense minister. Saudi Arabia should have learned the same lesson from its first war in Yemen. It did not, and it is failing again.

The weapons that exposed those limits are growing cheaper and more capable, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is accelerating the process. For much of the past year, the Houthis have used AI to war-game scenarios, draft and test propaganda campaigns, and refine missile and drone designs. In September, Anthropic reported that a group in Houthi-held northern Yemen had used its Claude model to write guidance and control software for a guided rocket, a long-range ballistic missile, and a hypersonic glide vehicle. Anthropic found no evidence that the group had fielded an operational weapon, but the group carried out a failed test of a guided rocket and built a simulation toolkit that runs without Claude. The Houthis, like Tehran, will learn from this war and refine their strategies and procurement for the next round of confrontation. According to a report on October13, they are reportedly already seeking to build a more advanced medium-range ballistic missile with Chinese parts.

The Houthis are also building greater strategic depth across the Red Sea. They have deepened ties with al-Shabaab, whose fighters have reportedly trained in Houthi-held areas in drone operation and bomb making, and with factions in Sudan’s armed forces, whose personnel Houthi operatives have helped train on Iranian-designed drones. These groups are both clients and partners. They pay for Houthi weapons and expertise, and they help move materiel along smuggling routes in the Red Sea.

Lastly, Saudi Arabia has settled with its Yemeni enemies before. In 1970, it made peace with the republic it had fought for eight years. In 2023, it negotiated directly with the Houthis after seven years of bombing them. Now it is working through Tehran, which influences the Houthis but does not control them. In the end, Riyadh will likely buy the Houthis off and learn to live with them on its border, and the Houthis will come out of this war with more leverage than they had at its onset.

About the Author:

Michael Horton is the co-founder of Red Sea Analytics International (RSAI) and a contributing author at Eurasia Outlook. He has two decades of experience as an analyst and researcher in Yemen and the Red Sea region. Michael has written policy briefs and conducted briefings and seminars for the US National Security Council, the British Foreign Ministry, the British Ministry of Defense, the US State Department, and senior members of the British Parliament and the US Congress. He has written extensively about the region for The Saratoga Foundation, Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Oxford Analytica, and The Economist.

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By Fuad Shahbazov

Since the United States imposed a near-total blockade of Iran’s major southern ports to stop the exports of Iranian crude oil, Tehran has increasingly turned to northern routes to circumvent the Gulf blockade and maintain a certain level of crude oil exports as well as imports of key commodities, such as grain. Indeed, since August, the Iranian economy has been severely affected by the American naval blockade, as relatively few Iranian oil tankers have managed to escape the Persian Gulf. As a result, China received 980,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil in August but only 475,000 in September, with no arrivals since September 26. In the long term, the collapse of Iranian crude oil exports has boosted spiraling inflation inside Iran, taking a heavy toll on domestic social spending programs.

In this vein, Iran is increasingly looking to alternative northern trade routes, particularly the Caspian corridor, to facilitate oil exports and secure imports of essential goods. However, given that the country’s principal export infrastructure and energy terminals are concentrated along its southern coastline, a meaningful northward shift would require substantial adjustments to existing transportation, logistics, and supply-chain networks. Nevertheless, at this stage, Iran’s Caspian route remains the only viable route for moving large volumes of cargo without American interdiction.

Iran Turns Northward to Bandar Anzali

Following the outbreak of war with the United States in February 2026, and the extensive missile strikes that severely disrupted Iran’s transportation and maritime infrastructure, Tehran accelerated its efforts to modernize and expand its northern port facilities, particularly Bandar Anzali and other Caspian ports, intending to reroute essential food imports and strategic cargo through the Caspian corridor. Indeed, Russia appears to be the main partner of Iran in this regard. According to the RusIranExpo company, two million tons of Russian wheat previously shipped annually via the Black Sea are now transiting the Caspian instead. According to earlier data, during the 2024–2025 agricultural season, Russia exported approximately 1.3 million tons of wheat to Iran, of which only 64,000 tons passed through Caspian ports, while approximately 1.2 million tons went through Black Sea ports. Therefore, the potential redirection of 2 million tons of Russian wheat through the Caspian corridor would represent more than a thirtyfold increase over the previous season’s Caspian wheat shipments. This illustrates the scale of the proposed logistical shift and the growing strategic importance of the Caspian corridor to Iranian food security and trade connectivity.

Consequently, the Caspian corridor has assumed both commercial and strategic significance for Moscow and Tehran, serving not only as a conduit for oil exports and essential goods imports but also as a channel for the transfer of military-related components, including drone technology, aimed at supporting Iran’s efforts to restore its offensive capabilities amid the ongoing conflict. The Iranian Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh, during his visit to Moscow on September 6, 2026, emphasized this point by reiterating his country’s commitment to activate its northern borders, while scaling down trade operations but not fully abandoning Iranian commercial activity along its southern littoral.

Nevertheless, one critical question remains unanswered: whether Iran’s northern ports have sufficient capacity to handle this shift amid regional geopolitical volatility. In other words, bringing goods into northern Iran does not automatically provide the terminals, pipelines and shipping arrangements needed to move Iranian crude to international buyers, as the northern ports only have approximately 30 million tons of capacity. In this context, the key question is not whether Iran’s Caspian ports can operate as trade hubs, but whether the northern route route can serve the same economic purpose at a comparable scale as the southern ports on the Persian Gulf. Moreover, in September, Masoud Polmeh, secretary-general of the Shipping Association of Iran, told state-linked media that Iran’s northern ports, which could once handle vessels weighing up to 6,000 tons, can now handle only 4,000-ton vessels, which is likely due to reduced water levels in the Caspian.

Tehran’s ongoing efforts to restore its oil export capacity through alternative and relatively secure northern routes indicate a broader strategy aimed at mitigating the geopolitical risks and sustaining crude oil exports, albeit at reduced volumes. Despite Iran’s recent agreements with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Tajikistan to expand overland trade connectivity, these corridors remain costly and constrained by limited transportation capacity, making the diversion of large volumes of trade from traditional maritime routes both economically inefficient and logistically challenging.

Considering these dynamics, Iran is increasingly seeking to deepen its partnership with Russia in order to expand trade volumes through the Caspian corridor. Recent trends underscore the growing importance of this route: shipments from Russia across the Caspian have risen steadily since the spring, with the number of active Russian- and Iranian-flagged vessels increasing by 21% year-on-year in August, while general cargo capacity expanded by an estimated 36%.

This surge in trade reflects Tehran’s growing reliance on northern transit routes. However, the Caspian corridor is unlikely to accommodate export volumes comparable to those traditionally handled through Iran’s southern ports due to the landlocked nature of the Caspian Sea, limited port infrastructure, and a shortage of maritime vessels. These structural constraints not only restrict the overall volume of cargo that can be transported but also narrow the range of goods that can be traded, crude oil and petroleum products that require larger shipping capacities.

Outlook

To bolster their trade connectivity Iran and Russia must urgently modernize their Caspian port infrastructure if they seek to significantly expand bilateral trade and facilitate larger volumes of crude oil shipments. This would require substantial investment in port and transport infrastructure, including the construction of a dedicated container terminal at Astrakhan, the replacement of largely Soviet-era cargo-handling equipment, and the expansion of rail connectivity linking Russian ports with Iran’s northern gateways, particularly Bandar Anzali.

From Moscow’s perspective, Tehran’s growing dependence on the Caspian corridor provides it with additional political and economic leverage, as the Kremlin understands that Iran currently possesses few viable alternatives for sustaining large-scale trade flows. Moreover, the prospect of replacing maritime oil exports with land-based transportation remains economically and logistically unrealistic. While a single large crude tanker can transport between around 2 million barrels of oil, replicating such capacity by road would require thousands of tanker trucks, highlighting the continued indispensability of maritime routes for Iranian energy exports.

In the final analysis, the Caspian route is emerging as the key link between the Moscow-Tehran axis, while challenging the West, namely the US, by demonstrating how this maritime corridor can be used to restore Iran’s military capacity and oil exports despite long-standing sanctions. These dynamics would enable Russia to further deepen its strategic partnership with Iran, even though it is suffering from a huge budget deficit and growing international pressure.

About the Author:

Fuad Shahbazov is a political scientist and analyst focused on regional security in Eurasia and the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Vytautas Magnus University, a professional master’s degree in Terrorism and Countering Religious Radicalization from the University of Bergamo, and a master’s degree in Defense and Diplomacy from Durham University.

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By Valery Dzutsati

On the night of October 4, 2026, a large-scale Ukrainian drone strike targeted the Khanskaya military airfield, situated about 6 kilometers from the city of Maykop, the capital of the Republic of Adygea in the North Caucasus. Residents reported that the attack persisted throughout the night, prompting the activation of air raid sirens and causing multiple explosions and a large fire at the facility.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officially confirmed the attack, stating that their long-range drones successfully struck the airfield from a distance of roughly 500 kilometers (311 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory to the Khanskaya airfield. According to the SBU and subsequent satellite imagery analysis, the raid successfully hit and destroyed a Su-35 multirole fighter and a Su-34 fighter-bomber, along with an active ammunition depot on the base. The SBU emphasized the importance of destroying these specific aircraft because they serve as the primary carriers for Russian guided glide bombs, which Russian forces heavily rely upon in their frontline air strikes against Ukrainian cities.

The head of the Republic of Adygea, Murat Kumpilov, played down the gravity of the attack, stating that Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed 28 Ukrainian drones in the Maykop area. He maintained that there were no casualties, noting only minor damage to the roofs and windows of several private homes. It is common for Russian officials to diminish the damage caused by Ukrainian attacks and exaggerate the number of destroyed Ukrainian drones. The Khanskaya airfield remains a vital strategic target for Ukraine. It also serves as a crucial refueling, training, and logistical hub hosting various Russian tactical aviation assets, including Su-30, Su-24, Su-34, and An-12 aircraft.

Rising North Caucasus Casualties in Russia’s Ukraine War

While the Khanskaya airfield has been attacked before, the October 2026 attack was apparently the most devastating to date in this westernmost Russian republic in the North Caucasus. Perhaps more importantly, the Ukrainian drone strike also stands to bring Moscow’s war in Ukraine back to the North Caucasus as Moscow continues an intense mobilization drive to recruit and conscript soldiers for its five-year-old war in Ukraine. The timing of the attack occurs as six residents of Kabardino-Balkaria (KBR) were recently killed while serving in Ukraine.

According to Caucasian Knot’s calculations, 483 servicemen from Kabardino-Balkaria alone have been killed in the Russian war against Ukraine as of mid-October. However, the joint project of Mediazona and BBC Russian Service puts the region's casualty count much higher at 862 as of October 7, 2026. Adygea alone has lost 652 people, while the North Caucasus republic of Karachay-Cherkessia has lost 541 people.

Circassian activists say that the Russian authorities forcibly mobilize Circassians to fight in Ukraine. At the time of partial mobilization in the Russian Federation in the fall of 2022, Circassian women staged protests, and some were even detained. Circassian human rights activists have repeatedly appealed to Russian authorities to cease mobilization in Kabardino-Balkaria. The largest protests in the North Caucasus at the time of the partial mobilization took place in Dagestan. The then head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, dismissed the protests as foreign-inspired events, as protesters blocked highways and clashed with the police.

Russia’s “Quiet Mobilization” Drive in the North Caucasus

Since the fall 2022 partial mobilization, Russian authorities have stopped large-scale and open mobilization efforts. However, activists claim that an undercover mobilization continues. Authorities in Kabardino-Balkaria have vehemently denied the accusations that a “quiet mobilization” is occurring in the republic.

Military Commissar of Kabardino-Balkaria Dmitry Pakhomov has tried to reassure its residents by stating that ongoing recruitment into the human mobilization resource reserve is a routine, strictly voluntary program rather than a covert mobilization. Pakhomov stated that reservists are tasked exclusively with protecting critical local infrastructure and countering drone threats in Kabardino-Balkaria, while retaining their civilian employment and receiving compensation equivalent to military contractors during specialized training.

At the same time, Pakhomov made several statements that highlight the exact type of “quiet mobilization” he had denied. The reservists are expected to voluntarily sign three- or five-year contracts, and the Military Commissar insisted that they cannot be dispatched to the war zone. Yet, he simultaneously confirmed that these contractors are legally equated to military personnel—a measure allegedly intended to ensure they can be held fully accountable while on duty.

Outlook

Conflicting assertions by Pakhomov contradict the well-documented track record of how Russia’s Ministry of Defense is managing localized military assets. The historical precedent of Russia’s Combat Army Reserve (BARS)—the precise reserve system Pakhomov is recruiting for—demonstrates exactly how these regional promises of army recruits serving locally function as a bureaucratic bait-and-switch operation designed to lure the locals into serving in the Russian army.

When BARS was initially created, volunteers were assured they would remain in their home regions to protect local infrastructure while keeping their civilian jobs; yet, immediately following the large-scale 2022 Russian re-invasion of Ukraine, these localized units were aggregated into volunteer battalions and deployed directly into heavy front-line combat in Ukraine. Similarly, localized Territorial Defense forces in the Belgorod and Kursk border regions were quickly subsumed into active combat roles once regional security degenerated, while Rosgvardiya—originally a domestic internal security force—was rapidly deployed to the front lines as conventional infantry.

Because Russia’s military leadership forced all irregular, regional, and volunteer formations to sign direct military contracts, it gained the absolute legal authority to override local agreements. For a volunteer in Kabardino-Balkaria, signing a multi-year contract that “equates them to military personnel” means entering a rigid chain of command. If Moscow shifts its directives—as it has done repeatedly throughout this conflict—any regional reservist who refuses a subsequent order to deploy to the front line would legally constitute insubordination or desertion under the strict provisions of the Russian Military Criminal Code, carrying severe prison sentences.

Ultimately, Pakhomov’s emphasis on legal military accountability reveals that this regional anti-drone reserve is less of a local defensive shield and more of a gateway structure designed to facilitate covert enlistment under the radar. This supports Circassian activists’ claims of quiet mobilization, indicating both the war's unpopularity and deep local distrust toward Russian authorities. Local anger has surged further following the forced mobilization and reported death of Syrian-Circassian repatriant Nurdin Qaraf in Nalchik. When his father publicly sought answers, Russian officials threatened him while state media attempted to spin Qaraf’s forced service as a patriotic duty—igniting fury both in the North Caucasus and throughout the overseas diaspora, where many sympathize with Ukrainian resistance against Russian rule.

Consequently, the October 4 Ukrainian drone attack on the Khanskaya airfield near Maykop comes at a pivotal moment of heightened tension across Adygea and the broader North Caucasus. By bringing the physical reality of the war directly to Maykop just as Moscow doubles down on forced conscription, the strike serves as a stark catalyst—linking the physical destruction of Russian strike aircraft on the ground to the growing regional backlash against the war's mounting human cost.

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By Vasif Huseynov

Over the past month, Azerbaijan has been tested on a front that draws far less attention in Western capitals than its energy diplomacy or its peace process with Armenia. On September 21, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 309, which prohibits clothing items in state schools that conflict with the uniform dress code and the principle of secular education, and on October 6 the government approved parallel dress requirements for teachers. The measures drew limited protests at home and a louder reaction abroad, including a demonstration outside the Azerbaijani consulate in Istanbul on October 3.

President Ilham Aliyev had already framed the issue in strategic terms. Addressing the 8th Congress of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party on October 2, he described ideological security as vital as physical security, noting the country must protect itself from subversive provocations first and foremost through education, and insisted that Azerbaijan must shape its foreign policy so that no one interferes in its internal affairs. This reflects the essence of what is emerging as the Aliyev doctrine: whereby a state is truly independent only when it relies on its own resources, engages every center of power without subordinating itself to any, and neither practices nor tolerates interference in the internal affairs of others. Applied to religion, the doctrine means that the state guarantees freedom of belief, but it will not allow faith to become a vehicle for foreign political projects or a tool for dismantling the constitutional order.

Secularism as a Foundation of Statehood

Secularism is not an administrative preference in Azerbaijan. It is one of the foundations of its statehood. The Constitution defines the republic as a secular state, separates religion from the state, and establishes that the country’s education system is secular. These principles were not imposed from the outside. In 1918, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic became the first democracy in the Muslim world and the first country in the Muslim world to grant women the right to vote, an important milestone in gender equality and women’s participation in public life. That heritage is visible in Baku’s public spaces, including the Statue of a Liberated Woman, which depicts a woman removing her headscarf.

Secularism is also a practical necessity. About 96 percent of Azerbaijanis identify as Muslim, divided between Shia and Sunni communities, alongside long-established Jewish and Christian minorities. In such a society, a neutral state keeps confessional differences from becoming political fault lines. Iraq, Lebanon and Syria show what happens when sect becomes the organizing principle of politics: the state is hollowed out and foreign patrons move in.

The School Uniform Debate

Developments with school uniform amendments in Azerbaijan should be read in this light. These restrictions are not directed at any specific religion. They reflect Azerbaijan’s long-standing secular traditions and aim to uphold a unified dress code and the secular foundations of education. They are also consistent with the country’s multicultural traditions, maintaining a neutral educational environment in which pupils of different religious and ethnic backgrounds are treated equally.

While some protests have occurred, they mostly represent a relatively small minority, and some demonstrators may have received external support. More surprising than the domestic response was the reaction abroad, where the Istanbul demonstration was accompanied by a campaign on Turkish social media. Yet Türkiye’s ruling AK party quickly stated that the groups opposing Azerbaijan had no ties to the party or the government. Azerbaijan and Türkiye remain close allies bound by strong historical, cultural and fraternal ties, and it is not expected that this issue may affect allied bilateral relations. Teachers and pupils have already begun complying with the new regulations, and the situation remains stable. This leaves therefore no compelling reason for the government to revise the amendments at this stage.

Iranian Interference Inside Azerbaijan

Baku’s firm stance on this issue is rooted in experience. Since independence, some external actors, primarily Iran, have sought to extend its religious-political model northward, not only by funding mosques and seminaries, but by cultivating loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader among Azerbaijani believers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei maintained a personal representative in Baku from 1996, with an office housed inside a city mosque, until the authorities sealed the premises in 2021. By 2017, official data cited in the local press showed that 22 of the country’s 150 Shia madrassas were under Iranian control, and government-linked media accused Iranian intelligence of recruiting Azerbaijani pilgrims in Karbala for anti-government propaganda.

Meanwhile, Iranian clerical and military voices have repeatedly inserted themselves into Azerbaijan’s domestic debates. When an earlier attempt to regulate school dress prompted a protest outside the Education Ministry in December 2010, Grand Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani wrote from Qom to President Aliyev demanding that the measure be revoked. In 2011, leaders of the banned Islamic Party of Azerbaijan stood trial for calling for the overthrow of the secular government, while associates were accused of running an unregistered religious group funded through the Iranian cultural center in Baku. That same week, Azerbaijan summoned Iran’s ambassador after the chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff publicly accused the Azerbaijani government of acting against Islamic principles.

The seminaries of Qom have also served as a recruiting ground. The Iran-backed militia Husseiniyon was founded in Qom in 2016 by a cleric from Azerbaijan among Azerbaijani seminary students, who were given military training and sent to fight in Syria. Its name, “Islamic Resistance in Azerbaijan,” was reportedly chosen by Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Force (IRGC) Quds Force, based on the model of Hezbollah, and its leader was received by Ayatollah Khamenei in 2017. The group openly rejects Azerbaijan’s secular government.

*A woman in a Chador walks past a Shia mosque in Nardaran, near Baku. Source: Eurasianet.

Indoctrination has repeatedly turned into violence. In November 2015, a security operation in the Baku suburb of Nardaran against the Muslim Unity Movement ended in deadly clashes when the radical group attacked police officers. According to the authorities, the movement had armed its supporters and sought to overthrow the constitutional order and establish “a religious state under Shari’a law,” while officials said its leader tried to import the values of a foreign state. Moreover, in July 2018, an attack by a radical on the mayor of Ganja was followed by the killing of two police officers. The government said the suspect had spent eight months in Iran and fought in Syria, seeking to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law. In early 2023, after a gunman stormed the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, dozens of people were detained inside Azerbaijan after being accused of spying for Iran in a network suspected of using religion to spread pro-Iranian propaganda. Weeks later, authorities linked the shooting of parliamentarian Fazil Mustafa, a vocal critic of Iran, to an Iran-directed network that allegedly planned to establish a religious state and financed its activities through drug trafficking.

The threat is not limited to one sect. In January 2026, for example, the State Security Service arrested three people linked to the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch over a planned attack on the Israeli embassy in Baku. Whether Shia or Sunni in orientation, movements that seek to politicize religion treat Azerbaijan’s secular model as an obstacle to be removed.

Iranian Networks Test Azerbaijan

These debates unfold against the most volatile regional backdrop in decades. During the recent Gulf War III in and around Iran, drones launched from Iranian territory struck the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan on March 5, an attack President Aliyev called an act of terrorism, in reference to the 2023 assault on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran.

A weakened Iran has fewer conventional options, which makes its low-cost instruments more valuable: seminaries that train Azerbaijani students, informal funding channels, clerical networks able to turn a local grievance into a cause and, above all, Azerbaijani-language media frequently directed northward. President Aliyev placed this threat at the center of his October 2 speech. “Why is a resource created in the Azerbaijani language in a foreign country? Is it to help us?” he asked. “No, it is to carry out provocations against us, mislead our people, and poison the minds of our youth.” Without naming any country, he warned that “right beside us, provocations are rained down on us day and night in Azerbaijani,” and concluded that the protection of the ideological space “is as vital as physical security.”

The school uniform debate showed precisely what President Aliyev meant. On October 14, Azerbaijan’s Media and Broadcasting Council announced that Iran’s Sahar TV had aired footage of an event in Diyarbakır, in Türkiye, and presented it as a campaign in Azerbaijan in support of women wearing the hijab. The Council described this as deliberate disinformation and confirmed that the channel had been blacklisted for its systematically biased coverage of Azerbaijan. Baku’s patience with such outlets has long been exhausted. As early as 2012, Azerbaijani officials asked Tehran to halt Sahar’s broadcasts, and in July of this year Azerbaijan’s Media Development Agency banned the activities of Sahar TV and the Mehr news agency in the country, citing activities contrary to its sovereignty, constitutional order and national security.

Yet the doctrine is not a recipe for confrontation. Aliyev has continued to keep channels open with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, including a phone call in January, and he thanked Azerbaijan for the humanitarian assistance delivered during the war. Pragmatic diplomacy abroad and firm protection of the ideological space at home are two sides of the same policy.

Outlook

Given these developments, why does all this matter? Azerbaijan is a Shia-majority, secular state on Iran’s northern border. Its success refutes the claim that Shia identity and theocratic governance are inseparable, which is precisely why it attracts so much hostile attention from Tehran. A stable, secular Azerbaijan is also the anchor of the Middle Corridor, and these connectivity projects are now unfolding at a rapid pace across the South Caucasus, while some Iranian officials are uncomfortable about this.

Finally, the Aliyev doctrine rests on a simple proposition: Azerbaijan’s religious tolerance is a product of its secularism, not a contradiction of it. Defending this secular order against external interference is not a departure from the country’s traditions; it is their continuation.

Author’s Bio:

Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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By Emil Avdaliani

Kazakhstan is actively seeking to diversify its export routes, particularly for oil. Currently, around 80 percent of its oil flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), a 1,500-kilometer pipeline linking the landlocked Central Asian country to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Recent disruptions in oil exports through Novorossiysk during July and August 2026, caused by Ukrainian aerial and drone attacks on the Black Sea port, have exacerbated Kazakhstan’s geopolitical and economic vulnerabilities. Chief among these is the dependence of its oil industry on a single export corridor passing through Russian territory.

Yet, Kazakhstan has found few alternatives. One option is through China, while the other two possibilities are to send its oil via Iran to the Gulf region and via Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. None is fully developed, nor efficient enough from an economic perspective. As a result, Astana is exploring multiple export options simultaneously. Consequently, the so-called Middle Corridor, which runs through the South Caucasus to Georgia’s Black Sea ports and onward to the European Union (EU), emerges as the most realistic route capable of absorbing a significant portion of Kazakhstan’s CPC-bound exports.

The Middle Corridor has existed since the 1990s but remains limited in scope due to geographic constraints and the lack of proper infrastructure. This started to change in the 2000s with the emergence of a range of infrastructure projects in the region linking the Caspian with the Black Sea. From railways to roads to pipelines, the Caspian Sea and, by extension, Central Asia grew closer to the South Caucasus and the Black Sea basin. Yet this too has not shifted connectivity patterns, as transit through Russia to Europe remained strong. None of this changed until 2022, when Russia launched its war against Ukraine and the Central Asian countries intensified their search for alternative routes. The Middle Corridor gained strategic importance as a viable route situated between the war in Ukraine and ongoing instability in the Middle East.

Astana Pivots to the BTC

No wonder then that Astana announced in August that it was considering increasing exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Supsa pipelines. Specifically, KazMunayGas, Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, announced in 2026 it would expand oil exports via the BTC pipeline by some 31 per cent to reach 1.7 million tons. Though the pipeline’s capacity stands at about 50 million tons of oil per year, the increase in Kazakhstan’s oil exports through this route is nevertheless significant.

Diversification, however, would not be efficient without attempting to shape geopolitics on the ground. This is where Kazakhstan has made major moves in the past year with a special focus on Georgia and Azerbaijan. In April, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Yermek Kosherbayev flew to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to discuss regional connectivity. Georgia and Kazakhstan then signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement on June 29, elevating their relationship to a higher partnership level. Meanwhile, bilateral relations between Baku and Astana have expanded to the level of strategic partnership following Azerbaijan’s admission as a full member of the Central Asian Consultative Meetings.

Image above: President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq Al Said (source: Astana Times)

Kazakhstan Forges Closer Economic Ties with Iran, Oman, and the Gulf

Kazakhstan’s search for alternatives through the South Caucasus should also be viewed from a broader perspective. For Astana, the Middle Corridor is valuable, but Kazakh officials understand that the route cannot serve as the main artery for the country’s goods and exports. This is driving Kazakhstan to seek further regional diversification. In late June, four months into the US-Israel-Iran war, the Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization reached an agreement to transfer land to Kazakhstan at the Shahid Rajaee Port in the Persian Gulf. The document will allow for the construction of a transport and logistics terminal. The agreement is set to be effective for 27 years: two years for the terminal’s construction and the next 25 years for its operation. Commercial operation is planned to begin in the third year.

In an effort to build stronger economic ties with countries in the Persian Gulf, Kazakhstan has significantly expanded its relations with Oman. This is no coincidence. Oman’s geography offers prospects of Kazakh goods reaching the Indian Ocean. To that end, in April Oman and Kazakhstan signed a preliminary agreement to establish a strategic partnership. The two countries have been in talks for some time on establishing a transport route through Iran to be overseen by a joint Kazakh-Omani logistics company. This was followed by the first-ever visit to Astana by Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said. The joint statement, among other topics, covers developing connectivity between the two countries. As part of this broader push to deepen Gulf economic partnerships, Kazakhstan—along with Uzbekistan and the UAE—signed a memorandum in early October to study a railway corridor passing through Afghanistan to Pakistani ports.

Limitations and Technical Challenges

Despite its best efforts for regional diversification, it is unlikely that Kazakhstan will fully eliminate its dependence on the CPC. Geography remains a key obstacle, and there are business efficiency issues that complicate switching to other routes. CPC requires no additional loading, and it avoids the transportation challenges created by the multimodal Middle Corridor. This route, however, requires passing via the Caspian Sea, where transportation tankers are much smaller in size than those that traverse the world’s oceans. The CPC is also more cost-effective and represents a well-developed infrastructure. Nor is Astana willing to fully abandon the CPC because exporting via Russia in itself is part of the strategic resilience that Kazakhstan attempts to build by diversifying its trade routes.

Technical issues as well hinder the switch to the BTC. Crude quality matters because the pipeline transports predominantly Azeri Light, and its operators enforce specifications intended to preserve the commercial characteristics of the export blend. Consequently, Kazakhstan cannot just inject substantially larger quantities of crude into the system without additional technical and commercial agreements.

What emerges from the discourse among Kazakh analysts and officials is that export options through China increasingly appear unviable for two reasons. First, Kazakhstan does not want to become overly dependent on China. Second, logistically speaking, shifting exports eastward is economically inefficient because Kazakhstan’s major oil fields are located far from the Chinese border. Ideally, two principal options could be considered to substantially expand Kazakhstan’s oil transportation capacity across the Caspian Sea: the construction of a subsea pipeline connecting Kazakhstan with Azerbaijan or the development of a significantly larger fleet of oil tankers, but none of these options appear to be part of Astana’s search for a solution.

Either option could eventually provide transportation capacity of up to 35 million metric tons annually, equivalent to more than half of Kazakhstan’s current exports through the CPC and nearly 30 times the volume presently transported across the Caspian Sea. However, both alternatives would pose considerable financial, technical and logistical challenges. For example, a subsea pipeline would require immense upfront investment, complex environmental approvals and long-term commercial commitments, while the tanker option would necessitate expanding the Caspian fleet, upgrading loading facilities in Kazakhstan and increasing reception capacity at Azerbaijani ports. Moreover, both solutions would require corresponding investments in onward transportation infrastructure through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Although the tanker option offers greater flexibility and could be implemented incrementally, a subsea pipeline would potentially provide more predictable, large-scale transportation over the longer term. Neither alternative is likely to emerge as a fully operational replacement for CPC in the near future.

Outlook

Regardless of these challenges, the emphasis on the Middle Corridor will increase as the war in the Black Sea rages on. Indeed, a recent report by Reuters, based on insights from two sources, claims that Kazakhstan will ship an additional 168,000 tons of oil via the BTC pipeline in October, up from 130,000 tons in September. The bulk of this volume (150,000 tons) will come from the Tengiz field, with the remaining 18 000 tons coming from the offshore Kashagan oil field in the Caspian.

What makes the trans-Caspian route more appealing is also the issue of declining Azerbaijani production, which means that the BTC and Baku-Supsa would have greater throughput capacity in the future. Therefore, the likeliest scenario is that the Middle Corridor and the CPC will coexist as dual export routes for Kazakhstan. They will remain complementary, with the majority of Kazakh oil exports still passing through the CPC.

In the final analysis, Kazakhstan will likely pursue a gradual diversification strategy rather than an expensive attempt to replace the CPC entirely. Its immediate priorities will likely involve increasing contracted volumes through Azerbaijan, expanding Caspian tanker capacity, improving railway and terminal infrastructure in Georgia, and incrementally strengthening west-to-east pipeline connections for exports to China. Astana will simultaneously seek closer coordination with American and European investors whose commercial interests give them incentives to defend the uninterrupted operation of CPC.

About the Author:

Emil Avdaliani is a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a scholar of Silk Roads. He can be reached on Twitter/X at @emilavdaliani.

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By David Kirichenko

In recent weeks, Ukraine and Russia have traded strikes on one another’s data storage facilities. The damage to Russia, however, appears far worse due to its centralized infrastructure. Attacks on data centers are not a new phenomenon. In the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Russian forces targeted a governmental Ukrainian data center, but Ukraine had already prepared for such attacks by backing up its critical data with the help of Western partners. Similarly, Iranian drones in the ongoing Gulf War have also targeted Western data centers, signaling that these attacks on IT hubs are becoming part of a broader trend in drone warfare.

On September 11, Russia hit a data center in Kyiv, and escalated again on September 23, as the Kremlin hit a few more Ukrainian data centers and internet providers in Kyiv. In addition to the capital, Dnipro and Odesa were also targets during these attacks.

Moscow’s strategy is to target civilian infrastructure and exert maximum pressure on the civilian population in the hope that Ukraine’s leadership will give up. “Throughout the full-scale invasion, Russia has repeatedly struck civilian infrastructure to pressure the population, trying to make normal life uncomfortable enough that people break. That strategy has failed so far, so Russia keeps looking for new pressure points,” said Dmytro Zhluktenko (callsign “Liber”), a former drone operator and now an analyst with the 413th RAID Unmanned Systems Regiment.

The “Digital Detox” Campaign

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense has branded the data center attacks as a part of its mandatory “Digital Detox“ campaign by posting an image of an Iranian-designed Geran drone flying over a burning city. Over the coming months, Russia is expected to continue targeting Ukrainian data centers. The Kremlin started data center warfare, which has now exposed its vulnerabilities to centralization. “Two can play this game. We started hitting Russian centralized data centers in the European part of Russia,” said Zhluktenko. “That symmetry is the main reason for the spike in intensity.”

On October 8, Ukrainian drones struck a Yandex data center in Sasovo, in Russia’s Ryazan region. The facility reportedly houses two of the three supercomputers used to train Yandex’s AI models. Further strikes targeted Yandex facilities in Kaluga on October 9 and Vladimir on October 11. Following the Ukrainian drone attacks Russian business began complaining of losing access to online services, while Yandex fell 4% on the Moscow stock exchange. Yandex is extremely important to the IT sector because it accounts for 70% of the Russian search engine market. Yandex services across Central Asia were affected as well. “This war moved from a purely battlefield fight into an economic and industrial contest a long time ago,” noted Zhluktenko.

On October 11, Dima Pirogov, head of Yandex’s fintech division, published a statement on social media stating: “This morning, another Yandex data center—our services’ home—was damaged. Because of this, many of you still can’t check your balance, pay for a purchase, or transfer your money.” Fire Point, the Ukrainian defense company whose drones are being used to strike the data centers, trolled Yandex, writing, “Dima, have you tried turning it off and on again?”

On October 12, Yandex reported that its “Cloud platform is operating in a limited mode.” The Russian newspaper Kommersant indicated that it could take months to replace the data center equipment damaged by Ukrainian drones. “Yandex’s data centres and cloud services support a wide range of civilian and critical facilities, as well as countless small businesses that Russians rely on daily,” said defense analyst Olena Kryzhanivska and authors of the Ukraine Arms Monitor newsletter. “When they go down, delivery apps, taxi services and even Alice, Yandex’s voice assistant on smart speakers, stop working.”

According to Zhluktenko, who worked in the tech industry before the war, Ukraine’s internet is decentralized, with thousands of small providers and services distributed across different hosting companies. Since 2022, much of the country’s government and commercial data has been moved to cloud infrastructure abroad.

“Although the Russian strikes caused infrastructure damage, financial losses to companies and short-term internet disruptions for users, long-term service disruptions were avoided thanks to prior decentralization and the use of foreign infrastructure on which some of the servers are hosted,” said Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center.

Kateryna Chernohorenko, the former deputy minister of defense for digital transformation, noted Ukraine has already been moving more of its digital infrastructure underground to protect it from Russian attacks, but not everything can be moved underground.

Will Moscow Move its Digital Data Centers Offshore?

Russia, by contrast, has concentrated much of its infrastructure among a handful of domestic providers. “A system built so that a few nodes control everything is also a system where a few strikes break everything,” Zhluktenko said, underscoring that the strike on Yandex’s Sasovo facility disrupted services used by Russian Railways, MegaFon, and several media outlets. Western sanctions and global demand for AI hardware also make replacing damaged equipment difficult. “Centralization is a vulnerability you cannot patch quickly,” he warned.

Furthermore, bringing these facilities back online could be hampered by Western sanctions, according to Kuzan, who pointed out that “The restoration of damaged facilities is also complicated by sanctions restricting official supplies of modern server equipment, network components and Nvidia accelerators, which are required, in particular, for training neural networks.”

Kremlin efforts to control its society had led to greater centralization efforts, making the data center strikes more impactful for Ukraine, “Moscow has attempted to create its own ‘sovereign internet’, similar to the ‘Great Firewall of China,’ said Kuzan. “Federal Law No. 152-FZ requires that key operations involving the collection and storage of Russian citizens’ personal data be carried out using databases located within the country.”

Another outcome of the Ukraine drone strikes on the data center has been claims of Russian bot traffic falling off after the Yandex strikes. Ukraine in turn is actually implementing its own “digital detox” campaign against Russia. With the data centers being down, Russian bots reportedly have lost access to important Application Processing Interface (APIs) endpoints that help them translate and distribute mass propaganda, according to one analyst.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelensky also weighed in on the data center campaign, noting: “By the way, when we started responding to the Russian operation against our data centers, and when our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, suddenly it became a little easier to breathe on many social networks.” He also noted: “Many people, a lot of people noticed this. And there was less hatred, less discord, and less provocations, because there were fewer bots. And it’s quite clear where these bots came from.”

Outlook

Similar to Ukraine’s drone strikes on the Wildberries warehouses, its recent attacks across Russia demonstrate the failure of the Russian state. In fact, Kryzhanivska believes the data center strikes have delivered a major blow to Russian digital sovereignty. “They show that the state has failed to protect its citizens from the spillover of a war it started,” noted Kryzhanivska. In a major admission of its own failure, she added that: “The Russian state was unable and perhaps even unwilling to defend these critical facilities, and it has largely shifted responsibility for protecting them and restoring operations onto Yandex itself.”

In May, the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center highlighted that Russian businesses were increasingly being forced to pay for their own defenses against Ukrainian drone attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in August allowing the government to temporarily take control of critical infrastructure operated by businesses that failed to protect their facilities as a result of Kyiv’s drone strikes. Consequently, Russia is also now considering the deployment of AI data centers in friendly countries, which would require a revision on current data restrictions.

Taken together, Russia’s data center war—a campaign that it started—has put the Kremlin on its back foot. As Ukraine’s symmetrical response inflicts greater damage, it is yet another sign that Putin’s invasion has been a disaster, and that the war’s fallout continues to be felt by an ever-increasing number of Russians.

About the Author

David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist who has been covering Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022 and is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.

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Dear Colleague,

The Saratoga Foundation is delighted to announce the creation of a new research series exploring Cognitive Warfare by Senior Fellow by Senior Fellow Jānis Bērziņš.

As strategic competition evolves, cognitive warfare has become an increasingly popular buzzword that explains everything and nothing. NATO’s own workshops reveal that the Alliance lacks a common understanding of how it differs from traditional information warfare. For defense planners, this ambiguity presents a critical vulnerability: extended deterrence rests on societal cohesion and political will, which cannot be defended if the threat itself remains undefined.

Below is the executive summary and key takeaways from Part 1 of the three part series.

Enjoy!

Glen Howard, President and Chairman

Executive Summary

Cognitive warfare has become a term that explains everything and nothing. NATO’s own 2022 workshop found that the Alliance had no common understanding of what it is, how it differs from psychological operations and information warfare, and where it becomes something qualitatively different. This matters for American planners because extended deterrence in Europe rests on allied societies that trust their institutions and can sustain political will, and a threat to that cohesion cannot be assessed or planned against if it cannot be defined.

The article below, which will be the first in a series of three pieces on Cognitive Warfare discussing what the term means, where its boundary lies, and what that boundary implies for defense planning, proposes a definition drawn from the Russian military literature, which treats the manipulation of perception as a way to alter a political order without contesting material reality by force. Cognitive warfare is defined by its object, the capacity of individuals and institutions to process reality, rather than by the instruments it uses. By that test, much of what is currently called cognitive warfare is strategic communications and counter-disinformation under a new name. NATO’s own documents show how this happened. Both remain essential, but renaming them hides what they are for and leaves the real problem without a name.

Key Takeaways

· Cognitive warfare targets epistemic infrastructure, the processes by which people and institutions construct knowledge and reach decisions. Propaganda targets beliefs, psychological operations target behavior, disinformation targets content. Cognitive warfare targets the mechanism underneath all three.

· The distinction is between processing reality and receiving information. A target whose beliefs are attacked can revise them when better information arrives. A target whose capacity to judge is attacked cannot.

· Russian military writing separates Reflexive Control, aimed at decision-makers, from Mental Warfare, aimed at whole societies over long timeframes. Western doctrine makes no such distinction of levels.

· The boundary is set by the object, not the instruments. Propaganda, psychological operations, disinformation and strategic communications can all be used in cognitive warfare, but none of them is cognitive warfare. Artillery is used in a siege; artillery is not siege warfare.

· NATO’s Chief Scientist report describes cognitive warfare as the convergence of PsyOps, InfoOps and cyber operations. Under Allied Joint Doctrine, the first two are the components strategic communications exists to integrate, and strategic communications already holds responsibility for the cognitive dimension. The concept was described in terms of work that community already did.

· A description built from existing capabilities names no object of its own. That is why the concept cannot be settled, and why the institutional response defaults to counter-messaging, which corrects false narratives but does not protect the capacity to judge.

· Strategic communications and the work against disinformation remain necessary. They do not need a new name. Calling them cognitive warfare does not make them more effective, and it leaves the actual threat undefined.

The Policy Problem

In 2022 the NATO Science and Technology Board recognized cognitive warfare as a strategic research challenge. In November of that year a workshop at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment brought together over seventy-five participants from sixteen nations. It concluded that, despite broad agreement that the cognitive dimension is a critical strategic challenge, the Alliance still lacked a common understanding of what cognitive warfare is and is not, how it relates to psychological operations and information warfare, and where it becomes something qualitatively different. Participants warned that the term risked following the trajectory of the “Gerasimov Doctrine”^[1] and “Hybrid Warfare,”^[2] which explain everything and nothing at the same time.

The warning should be taken seriously. The technological advancements of the past fifty years, particularly in information and communication technologies, have made it possible to employ well-established methods of warfare in innovative ways. As warfare’s primary objective is political, with military instruments serving as a means to that end, the struggle for hearts and minds has become a crucial aspect of contemporary warfare. Rather than relying solely on conventional military instruments, adversaries have increasingly focused on exploiting the West’s systemic vulnerabilities to achieve political victories by gaining control over cognitive processes, influencing perceptions, behavior, and decision-making at both individual and collective levels.

This is why it matters for American planners. U.S. extended deterrence in Europe rests on allied societies that trust their own institutions, back NATO commitments and can sustain political will under pressure. An ally whose population no longer trusts its own government cannot mobilize, cannot support forward defense, and cannot resist coercion below the threshold of Article 5. If the Alliance cannot define the threat to that cohesion, it cannot assess it, allocate against it, or build it into deterrence planning.

The Russian Approach to Cognitive Warfare

Russian military literature analyzes the same phenomena and organizes them differently. The Western approach does not differentiate between levels of effect, so cognitive warfare may refer to operations targeting individuals, groups, or entire societies without distinction. Russian military writing divides the cognitive factor between Reflexive Control and, more recently, Mental Warfare. Reflexive Control is the technique of providing an opponent with specially prepared information to induce them to make, voluntarily, a specific decision predetermined by the controller. It operates on decision-makers, whether an individual or a group. Mental Warfare seeks to reshape the cognitive processes of social collectives to alter their social consciousness, undermining spiritual and moral values, traditions, and the cultural and historical foundations of the state. It operates on whole societies over long timeframes. Neither is a subset of what Western doctrine calls information operations.

Propaganda targets beliefs. Psychological operations target behavior and morale. Disinformation targets the specific content of what people take to be true. Strategic communications is different. It is not an instrument with an object of its own. NATO doctrine describes it as a staff function whose purpose is to inform and influence an audience’s attitudes and behaviors. These are what propaganda and psychological operations already target. Strategic communications coordinate the two. Cognitive warfare targets something underneath all of these: epistemic infrastructure, the processes by which individuals and institutions construct knowledge and reach decisions.

Thus, the distinction is between processing reality and receiving information. If beliefs are attacked, the target can revise them when better information arrives. If the mechanism is attacked, better information has no effect, because the capacity to recognize it as better is no longer there. This is the difference between deceiving a commander about the position of a unit and destroying that commander’s ability to know what is happening at all. This marks the ontological divide between the two traditions. The Western approach rests on a liberal-rationalist epistemology which assumes that supplying correct information produces correct beliefs. The Russian approach, rooted in Marxist dialectics and historical materialism, holds that if material reality cannot be changed, the perception of it can be reshaped, and through that reshaping the political superstructure can be altered.

That premise is the source of the boundary. Cognitive warfare is the deliberate, strategically directed manipulation of the relationship between material reality and its perception, conducted at scale, with the objective of reshaping an opponent’s political superstructure without having to contest the material base by force. This definition does not exclude propaganda, psychological operations, disinformation or strategic communications as means. Each of these can be used in cognitive warfare. It excludes them as equivalents. Artillery, for example, is used in a siege, but artillery is not siege warfare. A campaign is cognitive warfare when its object is the target’s capacity to judge, whatever instruments it uses.

But how is cognitive warfare becoming the next “Gerasimov Doctrine” or “Hybrid Warfare”? A significant part of the cognitive warfare literature has been produced by people who came to the field based upon their experience in strategic communications. In recent years, much of their work (often in government) was on disinformation and how to counter it until the term disinformation became a politically contested topic in the United States. Since this issue is urgent and relevant, instead of abandoning the subject, they renamed it. What was strategic communications, influence operations, and counter-disinformation became, with little more than a change of vocabulary, cognitive warfare. A common argument is that we must move beyond disinformation because the real danger lies deeper, in identity, belonging and narrative. Yet the object of analysis did not change. It remains narratives, public opinion and persuasion, which is what strategic communications has always studied. Only the frame is new, and the new frame is the brain.

NATO’s Definition

NATO’s Chief Scientist report describes cognitive warfare as representing “the convergence of PsyOps, InfoOps, and cyber operations with the advancement of Artificial intelligence/Machine learning networks.” Set that beside Allied Joint Doctrine. AJP-10 defines strategic communications as the integration of the communication capabilities and the information staff function with other military activities. The communication capabilities are military public affairs and psychological operations. The information staff function is information operations.

Psychological operations and information operations are therefore not neighboring fields to strategic communications. They are the capabilities strategic communications exists to integrate. In this description, cognitive warfare is the convergence of two components of strategic communications with the addition of cyber and artificial intelligence. An early NATO paper by Bernard Claverie and François du Cluzel describes the concept in the same terms. It places cognitive warfare at the intersection of two existing fields: psychological and influence operations on one side, and cyber operations on the other.

A second reason is that NATO doctrine already makes strategic communications responsible for the cognitive dimension. Since 2023, AJP-10 has given it the task of making sure that every NATO activity is planned with its effect on the cognitive dimension in mind. In this way, the instruments are those of strategic communications, while the cognitive dimension is its responsibility.

As a result, cognitive warfare looks like a new name for work strategic communications already does. A conceptual analysis of the NATO ACT exploratory concept reaches a similar conclusion. It classifies the concept as a maximalist approach whose current empirical applicability may be limited, and notes that a unified understanding of the concept has not yet been reached. Moreover, a description built this way cannot carry the weight placed on it. It lists capabilities and names an effect, influencing decisions, which the listed capabilities already produce. It does not identify an object of its own.

The operational cost falls on the planners. If the phenomenon is classified as a subset of information operations, the institutional response defaults to counter-messaging and strategic communications. These instruments correct false narratives. They do not protect the capacity to judge. None of this makes strategic communications or the work against disinformation less important. Both are necessary. False narratives must be corrected, and governments must explain what they do and why. These tasks do not need a new name to justify them. Calling them cognitive warfare does not make them more effective. It hides what they are for, and it leaves the real problem without a name of its own.

Stated this way, much of what is currently called cognitive warfare turns out to be something entirely else.

Part 2 of this three-part series will test the boundary against three cases, one of which is not cognitive warfare at all.

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Author Bio

Dr. Berzins is a Senior Fellow at The Saratoga Foundation and the former director of the Center for Security and Strategic Research (CSSR) at the National Defense Academy of Latvia. He is also Latvia’s principal member of the NATO STO SAS panel. His work focuses on the juxtaposition between the theoretical developments of Russian Military Thought and the operational reality on the ground, and cognitive warfare. Dr. Berzins has lectured as a guest in the United States, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Singapore, Belgium, Brazil, Estonia and Lithuania at various academic and defense institutions.

^[1] The term “Gerasimov Doctrine” was first coined by Mark Galeotti in a 2013 blog post, when trying to make sense of an article by Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, in the newspaper Voenno-promyshlennyi kur’er. Since then, Galeotti has withdrawn it: “It doesn’t exist. And the longer we pretend it does, the longer we misunderstand the real, but different, challenge Russia poses.”

^[2] The well-known expert Frank Hoffman defined “Hybrid Warfare” in 2007 as wars that “incorporate a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder,” coordinated within the same battlespace. He based it on Hezbollah and its war against Israel in 2006. After 2014 the term started being applied to Russian operations in Crimea and the Donbas, and from there it was stretched to cover disinformation, energy coercion, cyber-attacks, and election interference, until it meant any hostile act short of open war.

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By Vasif Huseynov

The sixth Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition (ADEX 2026), which opened at the Baku Expo Center on September 30 and lasts until October 2, was the largest in the event’s history. According to the Office of the President of Azerbaijan, 277 companies from 30 countries took part in ADEX 2026 and its sister event Securex Caspian. As many as 59 foreign delegations from 39 countries registered, and 14 countries set up national pavilions. Record demand for the event forced organizers to open an additional pavilion, and for the first time an entire hall was reserved for Azerbaijan’s own national exposition.

President Ilham Aliyev toured the exhibition on opening and was briefed by Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov and Minister of Defense Industry Vugar Mustafayev. In his address to the participants, Aliyev stated that the country’s defense industry “has now entered a qualitatively new stage” and that its products stand out for their competitiveness in international markets. The exhibition floor offered evidence for both claims, but it also carried a more pointed message about the future direction of Azerbaijani air power.

Defense Industry Consolidation and Expansion

The clearest change since earlier expositions was the weight given to Azerbaijan’s growing defense industrial capabilities. At the center of the national exposition stood Azersilah, the defense industry holding created under the Ministry of Defense Industry by presidential order in 2023. The presidential press service describes its mandate as organizing the production, sale, and export of weapons, expanding production capacity, and building international partnerships. Its consolidation of scattered state plants into one entity able to form joint ventures reflects a deliberate industrial policy rather than exhibition showmanship.

The second shift is the role of private capital. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Defense Industry Minister Vugar Mustafayev noted that more than 20 local private companies are presenting products at ADEX and that most of these firms already supply the Armed Forces, while several have begun exporting weaponry. He tied this directly to the lessons of the 2020 Karabakh War, arguing that a strong national defense industry cannot rest on state-owned enterprises alone and needs the flexibility and investment capacity of the private sector.

The product line on display follows those battlefield lessons. Azerbaijani media pointed to the locally built Tufan mine-resistant vehicle, the ITX-15 and ITX-20 armored personnel carriers, including Fireforce, described as the country’s first domestically produced air defense laser system. According to official information, Azerbaijan now produces more than 1,000 types of military products and exports them to over 30 countries. Several new systems made their public debut. Azersilah presented the MGK MK-82 “SkyDiver”, a 250-kilogram laser-guided bomb produced in Azerbaijan in 2026, as well as armed unmanned ground vehicles carrying remote weapon stations with heavy machine guns or grenade launchers, the “kamikaze robots” the Ministry of Defense Industry had announced ahead of the show. Domestic producers also unveiled the QIRAT and ARROW series of reconnaissance and kamikaze drones, while Bayraktar Teknoloji Azerbaijan, the local subsidiary of Baykar that began production in the Sumgayit Industrial Park in 2025, debuted the KASIRGA, a vertical take-off drone that can either strike as a loitering munition or return from a reconnaissance mission.

Baku’s Growing List of Foreign Defense Partners

The guest list at ADEX 2026 is itself a statement of Azerbaijan’s multi-vector defense diplomacy. Türkiye is the most widely represented country, with Baykar, Aselsan, Roketsan, and the shipbuilder Dearsan among the stands the President visited, according to the official account of the visit. The same account lists Israel’s IAI, Rafael, and Elbit Systems, Italy’s Leonardo, Germany’s Rheinmetall, the UAE’s EDGE Group, the Czechoslovak Group, Slovakia’s national pavilion, and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, which co-produces the JF-17 with China.

Two Western newcomers particularly stand out. Several prestigious American companies participated in ADEX for the first time, and the United Kingdom arrived with a Ministry of Defence stand that includes BAE Systems and a 14-company delegation from the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce. When President Aliyev received UK Minister of State for Defence Lord Vernon Coaker, he described defense industry cooperation as a new chapter in the bilateral partnership and raised the prospect of joint ventures in Azerbaijan, not just purchases.

The ADEX exhibition also produced several concrete agreements. Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Hasanov and Haluk Görgün, head of Türkiye’s Defense Industry Agency, oversaw the signing of contracts with Turkish companies worth more than $500 million. The package includes 14 Hürkuş-II trainer aircraft from Turkish Aerospace, which Görgün said will begin arriving later this year, a purchase that matters for pilot training as the Air Force transitions to new combat jets. It also covers Baykar’s Mızrak smart loitering munitions and Antidot systems, Roketsan’s Barbaros coastal defense system, and a framework agreement on Aselsan’s ALP-100 radars.

Several deals went beyond mere procurement. Aselsan and the Azerbaijani company NOVASIS signed a term sheet to set up a production facility in Nakhchivan for laser guidance kits, TOLUN precision-guided munitions, and KORKUT air defense systems, while MKE, Otokar, Kayı Defense, and Boğaziçi Defense concluded cooperation agreements with Azerbaijani firms Miras and NOVASIS. Azerbaijan’s Ministries of Defense Industry and of Science and Education also signed a memorandum with Türkiye’s Defense Industry Agency and Council of Higher Education on joint training of engineers and research, alongside a separate memorandum on personnel training and technology for the defense industry.

The largest localization project announced at the show came from Central Europe. The Czechoslovak Group said it will form a second joint venture in Azerbaijan in December 2026 for the gradual local production of self-propelled howitzers, with manufacturing to start in 2027 and business worth €1.8 billion ($2.03 billion) over seven years. It follows VEXA DS, a venture set up earlier this year to repair and modernize armored vehicles.

Uzbekistan signed a Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2027 with Azerbaijan the same day, with Defense Minister Shukhrat Khalmukhamedov signing on behalf of Tashkent. ADEX 2026 took place in parallel with the “Power of Unity 2026” joint exercise of Azerbaijan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan, which opened on September 22 in the Karabakh region. According to the Ministry of Defense, its large-scale phase on October 1 involved 3,579 military personnel, 135 unmanned aerial vehicles, 27 aircraft, and 25 naval assets, and was monitored by observers from nine different countries, including Pakistan, Georgia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The ministry described it as the first exercise of its kind and scale held on Azerbaijani territories liberated from Armenian occupation.

Baku’s New Jet Fighter: China’s J-10CE in Azerbaijani Colors

One of the most widely discussed objects at ADEX 2026 was the display of a full-scale model of the Chinese-made J-10CE fighter, the export variant of the Chengdu J-10C, which was displayed by China’s AVIC in Azerbaijani Air Force insignia. The presidential press service of Azerbaijan confirms that China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation, AVIC’s export arm, is among the exhibitors.

The display did not come out of nowhere. In November 2024, Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Namig Islamzade inspected the J-10CE at the Zhuhai Airshow and met his Chinese counterpart; the Ministry of Defense reported that they discussed the state and prospects of military-technical cooperation between the two air forces. Since then, Baku has acquired the Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 Block III, and its neighbor Uzbekistan has publicly unveiled its own J-10CE into its air fleet. In late August 2026, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Defense released footage of the jets, which it described as modern fighters guarding the country’s air borders, making it the aircraft’s second foreign operator after Pakistan.

The J-10CE would be a major qualitative improvement and sit above the JF-17 in Azerbaijan’s fleet, not replace it. Baku is already the largest export customer of the JF-17: the Government of Pakistan announced in June 2025 that Azerbaijan expanded its order from 16 to 40 aircraft in a deal valued at $4.6 billion. Moreover, in a sign of their military significance, the Chinese-made fighter jets flew over Baku in the November 2025 Victory Day parade.

A two-tier fleet of JF-17 Block IIIs and J-10CEs would give Azerbaijan its most capable air force since obtaining independence in 1991. The JF-17s would carry the bulk of routine air policing and strike missions at an affordable cost per flight hour, while a smaller J-10CE force would cover the JF-17’s weaknesses in speed, payload, and air combat. Operating two aircraft from the same Chinese-Pakistani industrial and weapons ecosystem, including the PL-15E and PL-10E missiles, would also simplify training, logistics, and munitions stocks.

The geography of that capability matters. With the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process advancing, Baku’s air power planning is no longer framed solely by the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan’s energy platforms, pipelines, and the Middle Corridor ports on the Caspian Sea form some of the most valuable infrastructure in the wider region. Protecting that airspace requires fighter aircraft with the range and speed to reach threats quickly outside Azerbaijan’s national airspace. Moreover, the addition of the J-10CE fighters would be a meaningful step forward for Azerbaijan in obtaining regional air superiority over its sector of the Caspian.

Outlook

In conclusion, ADEX 2026 suggests that Azerbaijan’s defense industry is moving beyond its traditional role as a buyer of foreign equipment toward becoming a producer, exporter, and increasingly sophisticated partner in international defense cooperation. The financial commitment is quite robust: the draft 2027 state budget, for example, allocates 8.8 billion manats (about $5.2 billion) to defense and security, a 1.1 percent increase over 2026, and the Prime Minister has said these items will remain among the largest expenditures next year.

Should this trajectory continue, Azerbaijan’s defense industry will become an increasingly important component of its broader foreign policy and regional security posture, linking domestic production, military modernization, exports, and partnerships across the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Türkiye, Europe, and the wider Caspian region.

Author’s Bio:

Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Hi everyone,

The Saratoga Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of a new report by Pavel Luzin: Learning from Failure: Russian Space Lessons Learned from Operational Setbacks in the Ukraine War.

Russia entered the full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022 with significant weaknesses in its military space capabilities, particularly in satellite communications and reconnaissance. Four years of war have exposed these shortcomings and forced Moscow to adapt its approach to military space operations. Rather than simply attempting to rebuild Russia’s former status as a space power, Moscow is increasingly pursuing a more flexible, opportunistic, and asymmetric strategy.

Luzin identifies nine important lessons that Russia has drawn from its operational experience in Ukraine:

1. Russia’s military satellite communications were inadequate for high-intensity warfare.

The war demonstrated that Russia’s existing military and dual-use communications constellations could not support operations across a vast battlefield. Moscow has consequently been forced to seek foreign assistance, commercial space services, and alternative technologies—including efforts to develop its own Starlink-like capabilities.

2. Small satellites cannot completely replace large, traditional reconnaissance satellites.

Micro- and small satellites can provide high-resolution imagery and rapid revisit rates, making them valuable for tactical operations. But their narrow swath widths prevent them from providing the broad theater-wide picture required for large-scale military operations.

3. Russia’s shortage of reconnaissance satellites limits its ability to conduct precision strikes.

Without near-real-time intelligence, Moscow has struggled to track highly mobile Ukrainian forces and update targeting information. This has contributed to a greater reliance on attacks against known stationary targets and civilian infrastructure rather than on precision-guided strikes.

4. The boundaries between military, civilian, and commercial space systems are disappearing.

Russia is increasingly integrating military, government, civilian, commercial, and foreign space capabilities. Its recent experience with Starlink demonstrated both the importance of commercial space services and the vulnerabilities created by Moscow’s dependence upon foreign providers. Moreover, Russian military thinking is consequently moving toward an architecture that fuses information from multiple sources rather than relying exclusively on dedicated military satellites.

5. Space vulnerabilities are driving Russia toward terrestrial and atmospheric alternatives.

Moscow is pursuing ground-based navigation, mesh networks, relay UAVs, tropospheric communications, high-altitude balloons, and high-altitude pseudo-satellites as backups to vulnerable orbital systems. These alternatives cannot fully replace satellites, but they can offer additional resilience and support asymmetric approaches to space warfare.

6. Launch capacity may matter more than satellite production.

The ability to rapidly replace destroyed or degraded satellites depends not only on manufacturing but also on rockets, launch pads, and launch infrastructure. The war has exposed how susceptible Russian infrastructure is to drones, sabotage, and asymmetric attacks.

7. Electronic warfare is far less effective when employed in isolation.

Russia’s experience demonstrates that ground-based systems designed to jam satellite communications and navigation cannot by themselves neutralize modern space capabilities. Moscow is therefore moving toward integrating electronic warfare with space-based intelligence, communications intelligence, and other capabilities to improve the precision of counter-space operations.

8. Russia is likely to rely increasingly on gray-zone and deniable counter-space operations.

Luzin argues that Moscow can exploit on-orbit concealment and ambiguity to conduct counter-satellite activities while maintaining plausible deniability. The objective may be less the physical destruction of satellites than the degradation of an adversary’s communications, navigation, command-and-control, and reconnaissance capabilities.

9. Russia’s relative dependence on space may make it more willing to accept extreme risks.

Because Russia is less dependent on space-based systems than the United States and its allies, Moscow may calculate that it can tolerate greater disruption and take greater risks. This has contributed to Russian military discussions of increasingly radical counter-space options, including the possibility of using nuclear weapons against large commercial satellite constellations.

Taken together, these nine lessons suggest that Russia’s future military space strategy will be less about restoring uncontested great-power status and more about taking risks, learning to adapt, deepening Russian resilience, maintaining dependence on foreign systems, commercially integrating, while leaning more on asymmetric disruption. In sum, Luzin concludes that Russia’s approach has become considerably more flexible and opportunistic than during the period from 1992 to 2021—and that this approach is likely to continue into the 2030s.

Please download the full report 👉 here:

Enjoy the report!

Glen E. Howard
President
The Saratoga Foundation

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By Vasif Huseynov

👉The Azerbaijan-Türkiye energy partnership is entering a new phase, moving from oil and gas toward electricity and renewable power. Three projects under development could extend their energy network to Europe, while a Nakhchivan connection could provide the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace corridor with a new economic and strategic dimension.

By Vasif Huseynov

Baku hosted the fifth Azerbaijan-Türkiye Energy Forum on September 11, bringing together Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar for a review of hydrocarbons, energy efficiency, the electricity market, renewables and mining under the two countries’ Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, a format that was launched in 2021. It was on the margins of that forum that Bayraktar confirmed what regional energy officials have been signaling for months: after three decades of building oil and gas infrastructure together, Azerbaijan and Türkiye are now planning to move electricity across the same network of relationships. Bayraktar noted that the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) has carried a cumulative 100 billion cubic meters of gas since entering service, calling it a major contributor to Europe’s energy security.

He then set out, for the first time in detail, three electricity projects the two countries are pursuing in parallel.

The hydrocarbon foundation beneath that announcement remains substantial in its own right. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is currently carrying about 600,000 barrels a day against a capacity closer to a million, headroom Bayraktar said Ankara wants filled with Central Asian volumes moving through the same corridor. On the gas side, Türkiye’s state pipeline operator BOTAŞ signed a 15-year agreement with SOCAR, TotalEnergies and ADNOC in June for 33 billion cubic meters of gas tied to the second phase of Azerbaijan’s Absheron field, with production due to begin in 2029, according to the Turkish Energy Ministry’s statement on the signing.

Electricity is the addition to that picture. “We are working specifically on three projects,” Bayraktar told the reporters. The first is a transmission line bringing electricity from Azerbaijan to Türkiye via Nakhchivan; the second is a four-country “green energy corridor” linking Türkiye, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria; and the third is a high-voltage line running under the Black Sea to Europe. He described the Türkiye-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Bulgaria project in particular as “the TANAP of electricity,” and said the two governments hope to move it to the next stage soon, potentially through an intergovernmental agreement signed by the two presidents at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya.

The most geopolitically sensitive of the three is the Nakhchivan line, because Azerbaijan’s exclave has no land connection to the rest of the country, except through Armenian and Iranian territory.

Any electricity link that reaches both Nakhchivan and Türkiye points toward the same corridor now being rebuilt for rail traffic under the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), the transit framework that the United States, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to in their August 8, 2025 Joint Declaration at the White House. President Ilham Aliyev gave a detailed public account yet of that corridor’s physical progress while in Tashkent on August 23, informing the third meeting of the Azerbaijani-Uzbek Supreme Interstate Council that the Horadiz-Aghband railroad on Azerbaijan’s mainland side is already largely complete and is set for completion next year, that construction inside Nakhchivan itself is already underway, and that on the Armenian side, work is expected to begin by early next year. He also said Baku is assembling an international consortium to help finance the Nakhchivan section.

None of that construction is designed to carry electricity. But it establishes, quite literally, the corridor along which the Nakhchivan-Türkiye transmission line would run. It also means that the project would be one of the first pieces of TRIPP-adjacent infrastructure whose purpose is neither symbolic nor purely commercial, but operational: to interconnect the two national power grids. A corridor negotiated in Washington specifically to end a conflict would in all likelihood become the route that keeps electricity flowing between Azerbaijan and one of its own regions. That is a different, and arguably stronger, form of American stake in the peace process than a declaration alone provides.

The other two projects carry less political weight but have more direct relevance on Europe.

The Türkiye-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Bulgaria corridor is explicitly designed to carry renewable generation rather than fossil-fuel electricity, positioning Baku as a producer of green power rather than only oil and gas. The Black Sea subsea cable is the most technically ambitious of the three, delivering Caspian-basin electricity directly into the European market, the electricity equivalent of what TANAP and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline already do for gas, and a hedge against the same overland chokepoints that have periodically complicated Middle Corridor freight traffic.

According to Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov, the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye-Bulgaria corridor is also significant for linking into Europe’s energy system, and that work on a technical-economic feasibility study and a joint venture for the project is already under way. He has also said that Türkiye’s participation in a separate Caspian-Black Sea-Europe Green Energy Corridor, planned to be phased into operation starting in 2032, would be a natural extension of the two countries’ energy partnership.

Electricity also serves Baku and Ankara differently than oil or gas ever could. Hydrocarbon pipelines lock in a commodity that Europe’s own climate targets are designed to phase down; transmission lines let Azerbaijan monetize the wind, solar and hydro capacity it has been courting foreign investment to build, without depending on European gas demand staying high indefinitely. For Türkiye, it extends the hub ambitions already visible in Middle Corridor freight and TANAP transit into the power sector. Shahbazov also noted that Turkish companies' participation in Azerbaijan’s green energy projects has been growing, and said that artificial intelligence and digitalization in the energy transition should become one of the new priority areas of Azerbaijan-Türkiye energy cooperation.

Whether that ambition attracts financing is an important question in bilateral discussions. President Aliyev told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government during his July 21 visit to Berlin that with TANAP and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline already running at full capacity, any further gas deliveries to Germany depend on new interconnectors, and that financing for them from the European Investment Bank has largely dried up under the institution’s own green-transition mandates. A renewable-carrying electricity corridor, unlike a hydrocarbon pipeline, sits more comfortably inside the mandate European lenders have used to justify walking away from oil and gas projects.

Outlook

The emerging electricity architecture therefore suggests that the Middle Corridor is becoming more than a route for moving goods between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan and Türkiye are gradually adding an energy layer to the corridor, moving from oil and gas to electricity and from conventional hydrocarbons to renewable power. For Brussels, this emerging architecture could provide additional momentum for diversifying Europe’s energy supplies and strengthening its energy security through the Caspian region. If the three projects now under discussion are brought to completion, the result would be a network in which Caspian energy resources reach Türkiye and Europe through multiple channels, while the Nakhchivan connection could give the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace framework a tangible economic and infrastructural dimension.

Author’s Bio:

Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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By Sergey Sukhankin

The establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai on July 16, 2026, provides Russia and China with a new institutional framework for technological cooperation. The organization brings together 29 founding members—mostly non-democratic regimes from the Global South—to provide Beijing with another institutional platform for shaping an alternative to Western AI cooperation and governance.

The more consequential question for Moscow, however, is not participation in another multilateral technology forum, but whether AI can become a new pillar of bilateral economic interdependence with an economically and technologically stronger, and demographically larger, neighbor. Russian commentary points toward a prospective ‘division of labor’ intended to compensate for Moscow’s disadvantages vis-à-vis China. Namely, MTS Web Services CEO Pavel Voronin argued that in the scope of this “AI Alliance” Russia could provide Russian-language and sector-specific training data and expertise in industry, energy, finance, science, education, and public administration, while China can offer model architectures, computing resources, equipment, and training technologies.

Leverage Through Infrastructure

This proposition reflects Russia’s technological limitations vis-à-vis China: for instance, InfoWatch President Natalya Kasperskaya has argued that Russia is unlikely to catch the United States or China in large foundational models and should concentrate its scarce resources on applied AI instead. In other words, Moscow has an incentive to seek leverage in the physical infrastructure underlying AI, and this asymmetry helps explain the growing Russian focus on Siberia and the Far East, where Moscow’s potential contribution to an “AI alliance” could take the form of physical inputs on which large-scale computing increasingly depends: electricity, land, cooling, fiber connectivity, and geographically distributed data-center capacity. Indeed, Siberia and the Far East offer substantial hydroelectric resources and a cold climate that can reduce cooling costs. Russia is effectively seeking to convert these factors into a higher-value export (computational capacity) and bind part of Chinese demand to Russian territory and power systems, creating a new form of infrastructure interdependence.

Additionally, for Moscow, locating compute capacity east of the Urals supports a broader effort to redirect infrastructure and investment toward its Asian-facing regions that have historically suffered from geographic distance, thin markets, and population outflow. Clearly, data centers alone will not reverse those structural problems, but they can anchor power, telecommunications, engineering, and cloud-service investment around existing industrial centers. This makes AI infrastructure attractive as an instrument of territorial development as well as foreign economic policy. For Moscow, AI infrastructure could therefore serve three objectives simultaneously: developing Russia’s eastern regions, strengthening their economic integration with Asian markets, and fostering interdependence with China.

This operational model has clear precedents: the first steps in this direction occurred well before the current AI boom. For example, in 2015, Russia’s En+ Group discussed Siberian data-center cooperation with Huawei, targeting approximately $5 billion in Chinese investment over five years. By September 2015, En+, Huawei, LANIT, Centrin Data Systems, and Irkutsk regional authorities signed a framework agreement in Beijing for a major Irkutsk Oblast data center. In May 2017, En+ launched the first module of its “Clouds of Siberia” (Oblaka Sibiri) network at the Novo-Irkutsk CHP plant. En+ said the facility would serve Russian and Chinese customers and highlighted two advantages: company-supplied electricity and year-round natural cooling. It estimated that electricity accounts for 50–70 percent of cloud-processing costs and noted it was considering additional projects with Russian and Chinese partners.

The significance of these earlier projects lies less in their scale than in the model they anticipated: converting Siberia’s inexpensive electricity and climatic advantages into data-processing capacity partly oriented toward meeting Chinese demand. What is new in 2026 is the convergence of this older infrastructure logic with rapidly expanding AI-related compute demand. MTS and China Mobile International signed a memorandum to establish a new cross-border internet route – as of now the route is planned rather than already completed – at Pogranichny–Suifenhe using DWDM equipment capable of 48 channels at 200 Gbit/s each. If completed, the project would strengthen the digital backbone required for cross-border cloud and compute services.

Seeking AI Capacity in the East

Russia is simultaneously building domestic AI capacity in the east, which (as of now) should not be treated as direct evidence of Chinese participation. Rather, it should be interpreted as a sign that Moscow was preparing the necessary infrastructure for the purpose of attracting Chinese interest. The specific steps include:

· On August 19, Sakha (Yakutia) disclosed plans for a Far Eastern AI cluster based on a new data center.

· On August 31, it was reported that En+ affiliate Cloud X is constructing a 154-megawatt AI/cloud data center near the Ust-Ilimsk hydroelectric plant, targeted for launch in May 2029 and envisioned as the first of three facilities totaling roughly 462 MW.

Importantly, a recent study by the Stolypin Institute argues that Eastern Siberia could support 150–200 MW-class facilities and potentially develop data infrastructure into an export industry. Taken together, these developments suggest that Russia is expanding the supply side of a prospective AI-compute relationship before corresponding Chinese demand has been publicly demonstrated. Political signaling is also intensifying. At a recent Russia–China session in Beijing (August 12), officials and companies discussed cooperation in AI, e-commerce, and the green economy; the following day, a Chinese delegation visited the Russky Innovation Science and Technology Center in Vladivostok to discuss links with Chinese technology clusters.

Outlook

For the time being no publicly confirmed Chinese company has committed capital or long-term compute demand to the new Russian-backed Siberian AI projects. However, the absence of commitments points to a deeper structural problem for Moscow. From a purely economic and technological perspective, China does not need Russian territory to expand its domestic AI-compute capacity. Beijing’s nationwide “East Data, West Computing” (东数西算) program, formally launched in February 2022, already shifts suitable workloads toward western and northern regions with abundant land, massive renewable energy, favorable climate, and extensive domestic fiber. Regions such as Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Guizhou already offer many of the same advantages while remaining inside Chinese jurisdiction and purview. Consequently, China already possesses domestic substitutes for most of the physical advantages Russia is offering. It also maintains a detailed regulatory regime for cross-border transfers of personal and important data, adding compliance friction to any model that relies on moving sensitive datasets into Russia which could become a matter of vulnerability for China should relations between Moscow and Beijing change their current vector.

This creates a tactical contradiction for Moscow. If Chinese companies eventually commit substantial AI workloads to Siberia, their participation would validate Russian efforts to convert energy and geography into digital leverage. Paradoxically, it could also deepen Russia’s technological dependence on China. Russian companies could provide electricity, land, cooling, and physical infrastructure while Chinese partners supply advanced computing hardware, networking equipment, model architectures, cloud technologies, and potentially the anchor demand determining the facilities’ commercial viability. Russia could therefore capture part of the infrastructure rent while remaining dependent on China for higher-value technological inputs and customers. This also raises the question as to why Beijing would place substantial compute capacity in Russia when comparable domestic locations are already available. Any eventual Chinese investment would therefore merit scrutiny for actual Chinese motivations—such as expanding its data and technological footprint in Russia—extending well beyond basic economic considerations

In sum, the energy constraint ultimately limits Moscow’s leverage. Siberian electricity consumption rose 4.7 percent in 2024, with data centers, mining, and industry contributing to demand growth. If no additional electricity production powers enter into the picture, AI facilities would start competing with (and potentially cannibalizing) aluminum production, cryptocurrency mining, electrification, and other industrial loads for low-cost power. The strategic question is therefore not whether Siberia can host AI data centers – it almost certainly can – but who would control the hardware, demand, data, and economic rents generated by them. The emerging pattern is best understood as a Russian attempt to convert Siberia’s traditional resource geography into digital leverage. Ultimately, the decisive indicator will be a prominent Chinese firm committing capital, equipment, or contracted compute capacity to Russian facilities. Until then, Moscow continues to build the infrastructure for strategic interdependence faster than Beijing can demonstrate it requires it.

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Roger N. McDermott

20 August 20267 Minute Read

More than a century ago, Aleksandr Svechin warned against mistaking formations that still existed on paper for units that retained real fighting power. Ukraine shows why that distinction still matters.

War is full of formations that exist more convincingly on organisational charts than on the battlefield. Ukraine’s struggle to regenerate brigades, Russia’s repeated rebuilding of depleted units and both armies’ dependence on replacement personnel have revived an old military problem: when does a unit cease to be a genuinely effective fighting organisation even though it continues to exist administratively?

The question has become particularly relevant for Ukraine. A recent RUSI assessment by Jack Watling described an audit of the country’s roughly 120 brigades in which around one-sixth were judged to be suffering disproportionately from poor leadership and sustained underperformance. One proposal was to consolidate weaker formations and transfer their personnel to better-performing brigades rather than continually replenishing organisations that remained ineffective. The same assessment highlighted another corrosive factor: units unable to rotate personnel adequately, leaving some soldiers in combat areas for periods of up to 200 days.

Svechin’s Command of the 6th Finnish Rifle Regiment

This sounds like an intensely contemporary military-management problem. Yet Aleksandr Svechin confronted its essentials more than a century ago. While commanding the 6th Finnish Rifle Regiment during Russia’s Great Retreat of 1915, Svechin became fascinated by the difference between the nominal existence of a military formation and its actual ability to fight. His remarkable account of that experience, now available in English as The Art of Regimental Command: Lessons from World War I, is not simply a memoir of frontline service. It is an anatomy of what prolonged war does to military organisations.

Svechin organised part of his account under the striking heading ‘Extinct Volcanoes’. The phrase was not a decorative metaphor. It drew on Clausewitz’s image of battle as something that gradually burns itself out, leaving commanders to discover which forces still retain effective fighting energy. Svechin applied the image to formations that might continue to exist in orders of battle, personnel returns and headquarters calculations while having been hollowed out by casualties, exhaustion, weakened leadership, declining morale and prolonged friction. The volcano remains visible on the landscape. The fire inside it has gone out.

Treating what is easy to count as more important than what is difficult to measure is precisely how extinct volcanoes remain hidden inside an order of battle

That distinction is worth recovering because modern militaries have become exceptionally good at counting forces and not always equally good at determining what those forces can actually do. When Svechin assumed command of the 6th Finnish Rifle Regiment in August 1915, its official returns provided impressively precise numbers. There were officers, more than 1,600 bayonets, hundreds of unarmed personnel, non-commissioned officers, telephone operators, scouts, machine-gun personnel, medical staff and supporting troops. The apparent precision concealed the real problem.

The regiment had been subjected to prolonged fighting and retreat. Its original machine guns had been lost. Its replacement weapons depended on ammunition for which there was no assured future supply. Personnel numbers alone could not capture the accumulated effects of exhaustion, losses, uneven replacements, disrupted organisation and declining morale. Svechin described taking over a very exhausted regiment while observing that many other Russian formations were in little better condition.

His insight was simple but important: strength is not the same as combat power.

This has direct relevance to assessments of the war in Ukraine. Analysts understandably track personnel numbers, brigades, battalions, vehicles, artillery systems, drones and ammunition. These are indispensable measures. But they can create an illusion of precision if detached from the quality and condition of the organisations in which those resources are employed. Two brigades of similar nominal size may possess radically different military value. One may retain experienced commanders and non-commissioned officers, functioning communications, cohesive sub-units, confidence and the ability to integrate fires and unmanned systems. Another may contain comparable numbers of personnel but lack the accumulated competence necessary to employ them effectively.

A Repository of Relationships

Recent Ukrainian experience illustrates this variation. Watling’s account of the debate over consolidating underperforming brigades matters precisely because it recognises that adding replacement personnel to a weak organisation does not necessarily repair that organisation. Modern armies often discuss regeneration through the language of replacement: replacing casualties, replacing equipment, restoring authorised strength and rebuilding stocks. These things are necessary. They are not sufficient.

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A military formation is also a repository of relationships, experience and accumulated knowledge. Soldiers learn the habits of their commanders. Commanders learn the limits and strengths of their subordinates. Staffs develop procedures. Units acquire confidence from previous success or anxiety from previous failure. Informal networks emerge that enable organisations to continue functioning when formal mechanisms break down. Casualties consume this capital as well as manpower. Svechin’s writing repeatedly returns to precisely these human and organisational variables. His concern with officers, non-commissioned officers, morale, discipline, training and exhaustion was not an excursion away from tactics. It was his explanation of what made tactics possible.

This is also why prolonged exposure to combat matters so much. RUSI’s recent reporting on Ukrainian force-management problems notes the difficulty of rotating formations and the extremely long periods some personnel have consequently spent in combat areas. More broadly, the war has become one in which manpower challenges and prolonged attrition remain central pressures on both sides. Replacing losses may restore a figure in a personnel return. It does not instantly reproduce the knowledge of a veteran platoon commander, the confidence within a company, or the capacity of a battalion staff to interpret fragmentary information under pressure.

There is therefore a point at which repeatedly filling a damaged formation with replacements can become less effective than reorganising, consolidating or rebuilding it. Svechin’s extinct volcano is useful precisely because it forces commanders and analysts to ask when that threshold has been crossed. Svechin believed this could not be understood from headquarters returns alone. When his regiment was in position, he made a practice of moving among its companies and talking to the soldiers. He wrote that he concentrated on studying the men as much as the ground. The purpose was not paternalism. He needed to understand the instrument he was being asked to employ.

To read the original article published by RUSI please visit:

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/extinct-volcanoes-problem-why-unit-strength-not-combat-power

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By Andrew McGregor

A growing dispute in the eastern Mediterranean over control of significant and recently discovered offshore energy reserves is aggravating already-tense relations between Türkiye and Israel and creating divisions within NATO while simultaneously assisting the unification of Libya’s rival governments. At the center of these developments is the pending implementation of the 2019 Turkish-Libyan Eastern Mediterranean maritime boundary memorandum.

After the fall of Mu’ammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya became divided between the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) of Prime Minister ‘Abd al-Hamid Dbeibah in the west (supported by the GNU’s Libyan Army) and the administration of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (a long-time CIA asset), his so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) in the east and south. The greatest obstacle to unification is the 82-year-old Haftar’s desire to establish a ruling family dynasty with his son Saddam next-in-line to rule Libya. In the meantime, Türkiye and the US continue to encourage a pathway to full Libyan military and economic integration. A unified Libya would easily become an attractive and embargo-free market for Türkiye’s rapidly expanding arms industry, estimated to be worth nearly $11 billion.

Ankara’s principal aim in shifting its sole support from the Tripoli-based GNU to a broader embrace of both the GNU and its LNA/HoR rivals in Benghazi and Tobruk is to encourage HoR ratification of the 2019 Türkiye -Libya Maritime Agreement. Despite having the largest oil reserves in Africa, Libya’s divided rule has inhibited attempts to increase foreign investment and raise daily production of oil from 1.4 million barrels per day to 2 million barrels per day within the next four years. Most of the oil fields and export terminals in Libya remain under the control of the Haftar family, which has received support from the UAE, Egypt and Russia.

The maritime agreement would see most of the offshore energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean split between Libya and Türkiye, to the immense discomfort of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, all of whom have their own economic interests in the region.

Israel and Türkiye

Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler informed Türkiye’s parliament on August 10 that the military was preparing for “possible crisis, tension and war” with regard to the growing military alignment of Israel and traditional rival Greece in a Mediterranean region Ankara increasingly views as its own.

Allegedly acting on intelligence that suggested Türkiye’s army was preparing to station troops and weapons at Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase (70 km from the Turkish border), Israeli jets bombed the dormant base on August 18.

After the strike, Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu told an army podcast: “”We will not tolerate a Turkish military entrenchment moving southward, because it threatens us,” adding that an earlier warning against a Turkish military presence at the mostly empty base was ignored: “Apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly.” Israel opposes any move that could restrict the ability of Israeli warplanes to operate freely in Syrian airspace. According to Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani, the base had been visited by a delegation of Turkish military officers several days before the strike, but this was only in the context of “training and an exchange of expertise.” Other officials claimed that only a Turkish technical team was present at the base, charged with repairs to a runway and the control tower.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested the strikes were linked to upcoming elections in Israel but would not deter Ankara’s cooperation with Damascus: “We will not stop supporting our neighbours in getting back on their feet merely because it unsettles murderous networks with the blood of innocent people on their hands.” Netanyahu in turn has accused President Erdoğan of accommodating “Iran’s terror regime and its proxies” as well as “massacring his own Kurdish citizens.” The Israeli attack, carried out without prior US notification, was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on Syria since the overthrow of former Syrian president Bashar al-Asad.

Turkish Involvement in Libya

Türkiye’s connection to Libya stretches back to 1551, when Libya was added to the Ottoman Empire. It remained so (with an interlude of independent rule by the Karamanli Turks, 1711-1835) until the 1911-1912 Italo-Ottoman war led to the territory coming under Italian control. Over a century would pass before Turks would once more make their presence felt in their former African colony.

Khalifa Haftar’s Egyptian-backed 2019 LNA offensive on Tripoli came to a shuddering halt when Türkiye intervened on Tripoli’s side. Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones inflicted terrible damage on LNA formations while LNA Russian air-defense systems were jammed by Turkish electronic counter-measures. Ankara’s commitment increased with the deployment of troops and trainers, eventually leading to a Turkish naval presence at Misrata and an airbase at al-Watiya. Türkiye’s military support of Tripoli has also been followed by hundreds of projects in the energy, construction and infrastructure sectors.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan visited Khalifa and Saddam Haftar (deputy commander of the LNA) in Benghazi on August 12, the latest in a series of moves establishing closer ties between Türkiye and the Benghazi-based Haftar regime that began in the spring of 2025. Fidan noted Türkiye’s “One Libya policy,” which “makes no distinction between Libya’s west, east and south.”

To avoid accusations of favoring one side over the other, Fidan first visited GNU prime minister ‘Abd al-Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli before visiting the Libya Mission Group Command of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Saddam had earlier been Fidan’s guest in Ankara on July 24, his third visit in a year. The latest discussions appear to have been aimed in part at addressing eastern Libya’s concerns about its prior exclusion from revenue streams and other financial benefits of enhanced oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

*Image above: Hakan Fidan visiting the mausoleum of ‘Umar al-Mukhtar.

On August 12, Fidan visited the mausoleum of Libyan independence hero ‘Umar al-Mukhtar, who at one point in his long career fought in Libya alongside Ottoman volunteers including the Ottoman officer Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk, founder of modern-day Türkiye), after the official Ottoman surrender in the Italo-Ottoman war of 1911-1912 (al-Mukhtar was captured and executed by Italian forces in 1931).

In a sign of the growing military cooperation between Türkiye and Libya, Turkish chief of staff General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu hosted his Libyan counterpart, Lieutenant General Salah al-Namroush, in Ankara on August 30. The meeting focused on air force and special forces operations as well as means of improving Libyan military performance. Ibrahim Kalin, head of the Turkish Millî İstihbarat Teşkilati (MIT - National Intelligence Organization), also met Saddam Haftar in Benghazi in late August.

Ankara pursues a “One Army, One Libya” approach to Libya’s divided military. To this end, Türkiye facilitated the April-May Efes-2026 military exercise involving the cooperative participation of troops from both sides of the Libyan divide. Türkiye has also begun training of troops from both the GNU’s Libyan Army and the LNA inside Türkiye.

Ankara’s shift to more equitable dealing with both Libyan factions is a sensitive undertaking; the Haftar clan is only onside so long as they see unification leading to their domination of a restructured Libya, while Dbeibah and the GNU watch closely for signs of Turkish backsliding.

The Mediterranean Energy Scheme

Türkiye’s assertive approach to the eastern Mediterranean has its roots in the Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) maritime doctrine, which was developed in 2006 by senior commanders of the Turkish navy. The doctrine enables claims to roughly 178,000 square miles of maritime territory and its hydrocarbon resources, including large parts of the Black Sea, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, all without regard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), never ratified by Türkiye, the United States or Israel.

At the core of the regional dispute is Türkiye’s establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), defined under UNCLOS as maritime regions extending as far as 188 nautical miles beyond the traditional 12-mile national territorial limit. An EEZ does not grant full sovereignty, but allows for sovereign rights over economic resources below the surface. This includes the exploitation of oil and gas resources. The eastern Mediterranean is believed to host significant offshore reserves of natural gas.

The 2019 Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement ignores certain Greek and Greek Cypriot claims in the Mediterranean. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 following a coup by Greek Cypriot nationalists and a subsequent Turkish military intervention in the northern half of the island.^[1] Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel all reject the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement as a violation of their own maritime claims in the region. Also in play is the proposed, but now stalled, East Med Pipeline that would ship natural gas from Israel’s offshore fields through Cyprus to Greece and Italy.

Greek opposition to the maritime agreement is focused on its failure to recognize the EEZ boundaries of Crete and the Greek Island of Kastellorizo, which lies one mile off the southern coast of Türkiye. Questions have been raised in the Turkish parliament regarding the alleged militarization of Greek islands in the eastern Aegean close to Türkiye, including the deployment of Israeli anti-aircraft systems, including Patriot missile batteries. Türkiye maintains that under the 1923 Lausanne Agreement (Article 4 and Article 13), these islands should be demilitarized due to their proximity to the Turkish mainland to prevent them from being used for potential military action against Türkiye. On the other hand, Athens claims the right to self-defense in the militarization of the islands, particularly in regard to “Turkish threats.”

In July, Greece approved the purchase of a €3.5 billion ($4 billion) AI-based radar and missile air defense system from Israel to form the core component of the so-called “Achilles Shield” system. The Israeli technology is already proven through use in Israel’s “Iron Dome” aerial defense system. The deal, which breaks from a larger European reticence to interact with Israel following its devastation of Gaza, was signed in Tel Aviv on August 31. As part of a broader military modernization (with one eye on Turkish military improvements), Greece is also preparing to buy as many as 40 American-built F-35 fighter jets as well as frigates from Italy and France. Popular opposition to Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank is strong in Greece , making Israel an unlikely ally in Greece’s long-standing rivalry with Türkiye, its NATO ally; former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described the deal as part of “the transformation of Greece into an Israeli satellite.”

Containing Israel

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged President Trump to prevent Türkiye’s return to the Lockheed Martin F-35 development program on the grounds that Türkiye is “a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘Death to America.’” Left unsaid is that a fleet of Turkish F-35s could challenge Israel’s aerial dominance in the region, a necessary component of Israeli defense and expansion efforts.

Having so far failed in its ongoing effort to crush the Iranian threat or even to eliminate the menace of Hezbollah along its northern border, Israel is particularly sensitive to the danger posed by a Syrian-Turkish alliance against Israel. The promise of the Abraham Accords, once so favorable to Israel’s long-term security, has been shattered by regional opposition to Israeli methods in Gaza. Further challenges to Israel’s economic prosperity posed by the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement have created alarm in the Israeli media, which has accused Ankara of seeking “to delegitimize the Israel Defense Forces, isolate Israeli officials, and erode Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense” while serving as “a political, logistical, and financial sanctuary for senior Hamas leadership.”

A report by Israel’s Dor Moria think tank described Türkiye’s moves in the region (including its activities in Libya) as a “strategic encirclement” of Israel, confining its operational space and its development of an independent energy sector. In the interim, Türkiye claims its chief motivation in Syria is to assist in rebuilding the country—a goal supported by the United States and the wider international community—and ultimately to bring an end to the Syrian civil war that has devastated the region for more than a decade.

Conclusion

Türkiye is a challenge to Israel’s plan to become the dominant regional power in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean. In the last three decades, Türkiye’s post-WWI embrace of the secular, Western-oriented ideology of Mustafa Kemal has been steadily challenged by neo-Ottomanism and a revival of Türkiye’s Islamic identity under President Erdoğan leadership. These trends, endorsed by Türkiye’s ruling party, recall that Palestine, Libya, Egypt and Syria were all once part of the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire. While a return to imperial status is out of the question for a host of reasons, Ankara sees these nations as potential partners for a post-Iran War regional realignment independent of superpower dominance. The Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement, signed on August 7 by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, is a major step in this strategic realignment.

Working in Ankara’s favor is Washington’s growing interest in Libyan unification and stability; Chevron and Exxon Mobil have obtained contracts this year to extract oil in both offshore blocks and in the Sirte Basin. Washington is nonetheless finding itself trapped in an uneasy situation as Israel’s principal ally and a NATO ally of both Greece and Türkiye, the latter still fielding the second-largest military in the alliance. The Erdoğan government may see opportunities in the US administration’s increasing disinterest in the NATO partnership that would allow Ankara to abandon its long and fruitless attempts at European integration in favor of a return to regional leadership in a community of Islamic nations rather than its ongoing role as the West’s perennially spurned suitor.

^[1] The island has been divided since 1974 following a military coup in Cyprus backed by a military junta in Greece, which sparked a Turkish military intervention in northern Cyprus to protect the rights of its Turkish minority under Article IV because it is a guarantor power under the Treaty of Guarantee signed in 1960 with Greece, and the United Kingdom.

About the Author:

Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in the security issues of Africa and the Islamic world.

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September 10, 2026 at 6:15 a.m. EDT Today at 6:15 a.m. EDT

By Glen E. Howard

Glen E. Howard is president and chairman of the Saratoga Foundation.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine enters its fifth year, North Korea’s involvement has reached an unprecedented scale — marking Pyongyang’s largest foreign military deployment in its 78-year history.

Under a 2024 mutual defense pact, North Korea sent over 10,000 troops from its elite 11th “Storm” Corps to Russia’s Kursk province to help repel a Ukrainian offensive in the fall of that year. They have been there ever since. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kim Jong Un plans to significantly deepen this commitment by dispatching as many as 40,000 additional troops to the Ukrainian theater in time for Putin’s rumored mobilization drive.

Ukrainian intelligence estimates that more than 25,000 North Korean soldiers have rotated through Kursk since 2024, turning the conflict into a high-tech battle lab that offers Pyongyang invaluable exposure to modern combined-arms warfare. The former head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, highlighted the gravity of this development, noting that “there are currently only three countries in the world with the experience of waging a modern war on a very long front line using virtually all available conventional means — Ukraine, Russia and North Korea”

North Korean units are deployed primarily to secure rear echelons and free up frontline Russian units for offensive operations elsewhere in Ukraine. A recent BBC analysis, estimating the size of a freshly erected public monument in Pyongyang, found that North Korea may have lost as many as 2,300 soldiers. South Korean intelligence estimates the number of wounded and dead to be as high as 6,000.

Meanwhile, Russian technology transfers are modernizing Pyongyang’s defense industrial base, improving the targeting accuracy of its KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles while advancing its air defense systems, nuclear submarines and satellite launch capabilities. And earlier this year, North Korean units also started to become operationally integratedinto Russian formations, firing tube artillery, coordinating multiple launch rocket systems and conducting aerial reconnaissance.

North Korea is leveraging battlefield lessons to mass-produce short- and medium-range attack drones. Specialized forces, including 400 drone operators and a 90 missile operators, have been deployed to rear staging grounds in Voronezh and Kursk to execute strikes against the Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Kharkiv. Pyongyang can apply this tactical experience to the Korean Peninsula. The Seoul-Kharkiv analogy is glaringly obvious: Sitting roughly 30 miles from the DMZ, the South Korean capital shares Kharkiv’s exact geographic vulnerability to cross-border strikes.

North Korea is contributing its industrial capacity to Putin’s war effort. It has supplied, by some recent estimates, as many as 15 million artillery shells. According to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, North Korea’s contribution accounts for up to 50 to 70 percent of all ammunition fired by Russian forces in key frontline sectors of the Ukraine war. Moscow plans to bring 12,000 North Korean drone assemblers to the Alabuga drone plant in Tatarstan to mass-produce the next generation of Iranian-designed Shahed strike drones at a rate of 3,000 a month. In total, the Ukrainian military estimates 20,000 North Korean laborers are deployed across Russian industrial sites to sustain Moscow’s war effort. In exchange, Moscow provides critical energy supplies and delivers 600,000 to 700,000 tons of rice annually, single-handedly offsetting more than half of North Korea’s chronic food deficit.

Moscow and Pyongyang are also expanding border infrastructure, completing a two-lane road bridge over the Tumen River capable of transiting 300 heavy vehicles daily. They are also modernizing the neighboring Korea-Russia Friendship Bridge rail link. These improvements connect to Russia’s own vast transcontinental railway system, providing a logistical corridor largely impervious to Western sea power.

The Russia-North Korea alliance is evolving into a permanent operational axis, and Pyongyang likely expects direct Russian assistance in any future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. This emerging reality exposes the failures of the Asia First doctrine, championed by a faction of Republican foreign policy experts and government officials who urged the United States to deprioritize Europe and focus exclusively on countering China. While these proponents sought to compartmentalize the two theaters, Kim Jong Un had other plans and executed his own pivot toward Europe.

At this summer’s NATO summit in Ankara, leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand urged the creation of a “Korea-NATO Defense Industry Partnership 2.0,” which could anchor a new Eurasian security framework to counter the Moscow-Pyongyang axis. The U.S. should embrace such initiatives. And it should stop undermining its existing alliances in the region. Recommitting to exercises with South Korea would be a good first step.

As then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned when North Korean troops first arrived in Kursk, co-belligerency in Europe “will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific.” Indeed, the front lines of both theaters are now one and the same: For both Kim and Putin, the Indo-Pacific begins in Ukraine.

Glen E. Howard is president and chairman of the Saratoga Foundation.

Full text found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/09/10/how-north-korea-is-using-ukraine-prepare-war/

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Hi Everyone!

We are delighted to announce the release of a new special report by Senior Fellow Roger N. McDermott: “The Last Mile of Adaptation: How the Russian Military Is Turning Combat Experience into Reproducible Capability,“ which examines how the Russian military is attempting to institutionalize lessons learned from the war in Ukraine to bridge the “last mile of adaptation.”

Ten takeaways from the report include:

• Reproducibility is a separate strategic variable. Innovation, diffusion, and codification are intermediate states; the decisive test is whether new people and formations can regenerate the military effect without the original innovators.

• Russia is building four overlapping mechanisms of force reproduction. Procedural, human, organizational, and material pathways connect battlefield experience to guidance, education, permanent structures, industry, maintenance, and force generation.

• The Russian lessons system is a network, not a single pipeline. Redundant links among command bodies, scientific committees, research institutes, universities, training organs, and industry can make learning uneven but resilient and difficult to suppress at one node.

• Human transmission remains the critical bottleneck. Combat-experienced instructors, mentors, specialists, and commanders carry tacit knowledge that documents cannot fully preserve, while casualties, rotation, and rapid technological change continually erode it.

• The “Last Mile of Adaptation:” Combat experience alone does not equal durable power. The central strategic challenge for Moscow is whether it can detach wartime knowledge from individual commanders and reproduce those military effects across new personnel, doctrine, and force generation.

• Reproducibility as a Strategic Variable: A military achieves true institutional capability only when it can regenerate battlefield innovations following heavy casualties, rotation, and organizational turnover. Without this, even sophisticated tactical advances remain institutionally fragile.

• Institutional Architecture for Learning: Russian General Staff leadership—led by Colonel General Vasiliy Trushin—is using military-scientific committees as “transmission belts” to systematically collect, study, and convert frontline experience into force-wide guidance and updated military science.

• Massive Scale of Adaptation Efforts: Since February 2022, Moscow has issued over 450 methodological recommendations and amendments to combat regulations, conducted more than 400 military-technical experiments under combat conditions, and analyzed roughly 500 weapon types to modernize over 190 systems.

• Force Generation & Education as the Critical Test: Following directives from Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Russia is mandating combat experience across all officer training programs, doubling faculty battlefield placements, and introducing new military specialties to shorten the gap between frontline lessons and institutional training.

• NATO should develop force-generation intelligence. The most useful warning indicators increasingly lie in schools, training centers, curricula, instructor pipelines, qualifications, organizational standards, and the performance of newly generated formations: the institutions that determine what Russia can reproduce after the war.

You can download the full report here 👉 here.

Enjoy!

Glen E. Howard

President, Saratoga Foundation

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By Paul Goble

The Crimean Tatar underground organization, Atesh – “spark” in that national language -- is playing an increasingly important role in providing intelligence to Kyiv about Russian aggression and carrying out sabotage against Russian targets not only in Crimea but inside the Russian Federation as well. Because of the nature of its work, most of the actions Atesh has claimed or been blamed for cannot be independently corroborated and thus are often dismissed either as self-promotion in the first case or disinformation in the second.

As it enters the fifth year of its existence, Atesh and its role are becoming clearer, especially in the wake of Ukrainian attacks on targets within the Russian Federation. These developments justify the conclusion that this Crimean Tatar underground organization is a serious ally of Kyiv, and suggest that no discussion of Ukraine’s order of battle or its ability to inflict harm on Russian targets should take place without reference to Atesh and its actions.

After Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, more than 50,000 Crimean Tatars fled their homeland but others formed a series of small underground groups inside Russian occupied Crimea to harass Russian forces there. They had some success in the following years but did not come together to form a unified command until after Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in February 2022. Then, in the fall of that year, many in these groups united and formed Atesh both to continue their campaign inside the Crimean homeland and to assist Ukrainian forces elsewhere, something they viewed as central to the achievement of their own goals.

The group’s actions in 2022 through 2023 attracted relatively little attention because they were concentrated in Crimea and seldom could be independently confirmed; but by the start of 2024, its attacks had increased to the point that they attracted more attention, a trend that intensified as the group provided intelligence to Kyiv that allowed Ukrainian forces to sink Russian ships on the Black Sea and attack Russian positions in Ukraine itself. (For more information on the organization in that period, see CEPA. Feb 8, 2024 and the files for those years of Atesh’s own telegram channel, ATESH UA, one that now has almost 50,000 subscribers.)

Operations Inside Crimea

Over the last year and especially this summer as Kyiv has pounded Russian targets with drone attacks, however, far more information about Atesh has come out about its role acting in support of what the Ukrainian military is doing inside Crimea and also inside Russia, such as in Kursk both by its own attacks and by providing intelligence that a fuller picture of Atesh has emerged.

Among the most important features of this picture, some but not all of which have been picked up by Western outlets media outlets, are the following:

· First, Atesh operates on the basis of its leaders’ understanding that in the current war, there is no chance that Ukraine will disappear but there is a very real risk that Russia could succeed in destroying the Crimean Tatars in their homeland, a possibility that compels the Crimean Tatars to form their own organization of self-defense.

· Second, the group has succeeded in attracting what its leaders claim are 1800 to 2,000 members, although it acknowledges that only a fraction of these is actively engaged in sabotage or intelligence operations. Most, its leaders say, actively support the goals of Atesh but aren’t taking actions that could bring Russian retribution.

· Third, Atesh has always identified itself as a Crimean Tatar operation; but it includes within its membership and supporters may ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians opposed to Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine. That multi-national composition gives it advantages it would not have had if it had remained purely Crimean Tatar.

· Fourth, as the war has evolved, Atesh has assumed an ever-larger role as a source of intelligence about Russian positions that Kyiv can use for targeting and about Russian plans in Crimea and the Black Sea where Crimean Tatars have the ability to gather information.

· And fifth, as Moscow has stepped up repression in Crimea and forced other groups which have spoken out for the Crimean Tatars to disband, Atesh is thus likely to assume an ever more important role as far as the future of the Crimean Tatars are concerned.

Outlook

Like other Crimean Tatar organizations, Atesh seeks international recognition that the 1944 Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars was an act of genocide—a step over the last decade that seven countries have done. Furthermore, Atesh shares the commitment of other Crimean Tatar leaders and groups and is committed to the expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine and ensuring Crimea remains within the restored borders of the Ukrainian republic.

Atesh’s contribution to the Ukrainian cause now almost certainly in the future will give the Crimean Tatars a greater voice in what the role of Crimean Tatars within Ukraine will be, something that along with its current military contribution makes it a group to watch rather than to dismiss out of hand as something marginal.

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By Vasif Huseynov

Trade volumes along the Middle Corridor — the rail and sea route linking China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus — have roughly quadrupled since 2022. Transit times have been reduced from 53 days to between 18 and 23 days, as shippers are being forced to reroute their products around a sanctioned Russia and a volatile Red Sea, where up to 90 percent of shipping has been diverted since 2024. Beijing and Brussels are now competing openly for a stake in that realignment. China committed some $23 billion to Kazakhstan’s side of the route in 2025 alone, while the EU has answered with €12 billion ($13.94 billion) in the form of the Global Gateway package and a dedicated coordination platform meant to keep European financing in the race.

Azerbaijan is currently routing nearly all of that corridor traffic through Georgia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which entered full-scale operation in June following years of upgrades, remains the corridor’s only functioning rail link to Türkiye and the Black Sea coast, bypassing Armenia entirely while a parallel line through Armenian territory has remained dormant since 1993.

A second route is taking shape further south, functioning as an alternative rather than a substitute to the Georgian passage: the Zangezur corridor. Framed under TRIPP—the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a U.S.-brokered initiative designed to restore transport links between mainland Azerbaijan to Türkiye via Armenia and the Nakhchivan exclave. Ongoing railway reconstruction in Nakhchivan will effectively extend TRIPP onto Azerbaijani soil as corridor construction transitions from a declaration to project physical implementation.

Narrowing the Rail Gap in Zangezur

The clearest recent progress report on that project came from President Ilham Aliyev himself. Speaking in Tashkent on August 23, at the third meeting of the Azerbaijani-Uzbek Supreme Interstate Council, he gave a clear public accounting of where the Zangezur Corridor stands: on the Azerbaijani mainland side, the 110-kilometer Horadiz-Aghband railroad is already roughly three-quarters complete and due for full completion next year. Across Armenia, under that same TRIPP framework, only 42 kilometers of track are required, with construction expected to begin by early next year. Meanwhile, inside Azerbaijan’s own Nakhchivan exclave, reconstruction covers 194 kilometers of main line — 264 kilometers counting sidings, where the sections nearest the border are already under construction.

While in Tashkent, Aliyev noted that Baku is now assembling an international consortium of companies and states willing to invest in the Nakhchivan section in exchange for guaranteed transport volumes and returns. He also noted that work on the Armenian side is proceeding as well, as American partners are keeping Baku regularly informed about progress on the project. Once joined, the three sections are projected to carry 5.5 million passengers and 15 million tons of cargo a year, threading together east-west and north-south transport routes in a way that has not been physically possible since the railways of the South Caucasus suspended operating in the early 1990s.

The Zangezur corridor sits inside a much larger contest for the Middle Corridor’s future capacity, and disruption elsewhere has done as much as construction crews to raise its standing. For example, the near-collapse of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz this past March turned a route once seen as a niche alternative into what one recent assessment described as “a vital insurance policy for the European economy.” Against that backdrop, the EU’s recent outreach to Baku appears less like Brussels conferring a favor and more like a deliberate move to secure a footprint in a corridor defined by Azerbaijan and its partners.

Earlier this year the EU and the EBRD agreed to fund a feasibility study for the Nakhchivan railway, a step that followed a January visit to Baku by the European Commission’s Gert Jan Koopman and reflects the Commission’s own stated goal of reducing transit times between Europe and Central Asia to roughly 15 days — a target that depends on exactly the link Baku is building. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, applied that same logic during her July 1-2 visit to Baku and Yerevan, unveiling a €200 million ($232 million) Global Gateway package to establish greater South Caucasus connectivity. While modest relative to the total capital the corridor demands, the commitment signals Brussels’ determination to claim a seat at a table it did not build.

German engagement follows the same pattern, and came just weeks after the EU visits. President Aliyev traveled to Berlin on July 20-21, producing the most institutionalized bilateral step in the relationship to date which included a Joint Declaration on a Strategic Partnership Agenda and the creation of a new German-Azerbaijani Economic Council. Moreover, Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the South Caucasus as an increasingly vital connective hub between Europe and Asia, framing emerging transport and trade corridors as a shared source of economic potential. This wording positioned Berlin less as a patron granting Baku access to European markets and more as an equal partner seeking to integrate German capital, engineering, and manufacturing expertise into a corridor strategy Azerbaijan has already set in motion. It also comes at a crucial time for Germany, whose export-dependent economy—accounting for roughly 41 percent of GDP—requires precisely the type of supply-chain diversification promised by the Middle Corridor.

The same capital gap runs through Azerbaijan’s energy relationship with the EU, where the need for investment has grown considerably more urgent. Under a 2022 memorandum with the European Commission, Azerbaijan committed to doubling gas exports to the bloc to 20 billion cubic meters a year by 2027. Azerbaijan’s total exports reached 25.2 billion cubic meters in 2025, with more than half flowing into the EU and gas now reaching sixteen countries, up from twelve the year before. Meeting the 2027 target, however, depends on projects still working their way through construction and financing — the second stage of the BP-operated Shah Deniz field, full-scale development of Absheron, the Umid Phase 2 and Babek gas projects targeted for the end of the decade, and an expansion of Trans-Adriatic Pipeline capacity beyond its current 11.2 bcm/year.

Aliyev Calls for Europe to Back Words with Action

President Aliyev has grown increasingly blunt about where the constraint lies. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he told business representatives that Europe is showing little investment interest in either of Azerbaijan’s energy sectors, noting that the country’s main partners in fossil fuels and renewables alike are American, British, Gulf and Chinese firms rather than European ones. In Berlin six months later, he was even more specific: with TANAP and TAP already running at full capacity, any increase in gas deliveries to Germany and the rest of Europe depends on new interconnectors — and financing for them that European banks, chief among them the European Investment Bank, have largely withdrawn from oil and gas projects under their green-transition mandates.

Azerbaijan brings real assets to that conversation. It is the only post-Soviet nation in the South Caucasus with no Russian military presence on its soil. Moscow completed the withdrawal of its peacekeeping contingent from the Karabakh region in June 2024, some seventeen months ahead of the original November 2025 mandate. Azerbaijani gas began flowing directly into Germany and Austria via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline for the first time this past January, and its transit relevance has only grown as both the Red Sea and the northern route through Russia have become less reliable. It is also spreading its bets well beyond Europe by extending its activities to Central Asia. SOCAR recently signed an exploration agreement with Uzbekistan’s state energy company and an offshore cooperation deal with Israel’s NewMed Energy near the Leviathan field in March 2025.

Outlook

Taken together, these developments suggest that Azerbaijan is increasingly positioning itself not simply as a transit country or energy supplier, but as a strategic platform linking Europe with the wider Eurasian space. If the EU wants the Middle Corridor and Azerbaijani energy to deliver their full potential, Baku’s message is clear: political recognition must now be matched by more tangible European investment, financing and long-term commercial engagement in the region.

Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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