FOR MOST people, geopolitics is an abstraction. For those living in the south Caucasus, which consists of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, it is a daily experience. The region between the Black and Caspian seas, Europe and Asia, sits at the crossroads of old empires: Ottoman, Persian and Russian. Situated alongside the belligerents of today’s most dangerous wars—Russia’s against Ukraine and the Iranian-Israeli conflict—it illustrates like few other regions the rise of middle powers and retreat of big ones.
