Turan Research Center

On the day after the Taliban seized Kabul in 2021, a Turkish Airlines flight carrying 234 passengers arrived in Istanbul. Among them was Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan’s Second Vice President, and two members of President Ashraf Ghani’s fleeing cabinet.

Danish, became the highest-ranking Hazara official of the Afghan government to flee the Taliban without seeking refuge in Iran, despite having lived and studied there for many years. Like many educated Hazara elites, he spent much of the 1980s and 1990s in Iran, pursuing religious studies in Qom, home to the world’ s largest Shiite theological seminary.

Hazara Shiites and Iranian Shiites share the Twelver branch of Shia Islam but differ ethnically. The Hazaras have Mongol-Turkic roots and speak Hazaragi, a Farsi-based language. Iranian Shiites are ethnic Persians who speak Farsi.

Iran’s deepening relations with the Taliban convinced Danish that it was too risky to seek refuge there. Ultimately, he resettled in New Zealand.

In the aftermath of 9/11, U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom brought about the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. The subsequent Bonn Agreement established a power-sharing framework that reshaped Afghanistan’s political order. Within this arrangement, the Hazaras — the second most powerful opposition to the Taliban after the Tajiks — secured 20 percent of Cabinet positions. Their representation was led by Islamic Unity Party (Hizb-e-Wahdat) leader Mohammad Karim Khalili, who assumed the role of Second Vice President Today, Khalili lives in exile in Turkey.

Following the U.S. intervention in 2001, the Hazaras community has pursued gradual yet consistent efforts to define an identity that extends beyond its Shiite religious affiliation. This process has contributed to a degree of distancing from Iran’s Islamic regime. In their search for a broader cultural and political framework, Hazara political and academic elites have taken tangible steps to cultivate ties with Turkey, positioning themselves as leading actors within the Turkic world. Such outreach has resonated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s promotion of Pan-Turkism.

Within this context, Turkey’s reception of prominent Hazara political leaders such as Khalili and Mohammad Mohaqqiq, the long-time leader of the People’s Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan (PIUPA), appears strategically coherent. Both figures, together with Danish, have played active roles in exile politics, most notably through the establishment of the National Resistance Council for Salvation of Afghanistan in Turkey in 2022. The council has formed a political opposition coalition against the Taliban. Both Mohaqqiq and Danish are the among the organization’s founders.

Iran’s relationship with the Taliban has steadily deepened over the past decade, diminishing its appeal as a refuge for Hazara leaders. From 2015 onward, reports indicate that Iran began engaging both diplomatically and militarily with the Taliban, with some analysts noting the establishment of Taliban training infrastructure inside Iran. This alignment was not merely pragmatic but political: Iran appeared intent on cultivating influence with the Taliban, even at the expense of marginalized Afghan groups. In return, Iran secures its eastern border, gains access to the Afghan market, uses the Taliban’s anti-West sentiments as its global P.R., and can stay influential in regional dynamics. In 2023, the relationship was formalized further when Tehran transferred control of the Afghan embassy to Taliban-appointed diplomats.

The Hazara community’s historical experience with Iran is more complex than shared Shiite identity might suggest. During the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, Iran provided support to Hazara jihadist groups, but this assistance weakened Hazara political cohesion after the Soviet withdrawal, some analysts argue.

Moreover, within Hazara narratives, Iran is remembered as having prioritized other Afghan factions — such as the Tajik mujahideen group, Jamiat-e Islami. during the early 1990s civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, offering more military support, while limiting aid to Hazara groups. Although archival evidence remains sparse, these perceptions left a legacy of mistrust among some Hazara elites toward Tehran.

One of the most significant sources of Hazara mistrust toward Iran stems from Iran’s use of Hazara refugees in its regional military engagements. The Fatemiyoun Brigade, backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), recruited large numbers of Afghan Hazaras — including minors — to fight in Syria. Human Rights Watch documented cases of Afghan children as young as 14 who were deployed and killed in Syria under Fatemiyoun’s banner.

Beyond such recruitment, reports highlight coercive practices: Hazara refugees allegedly pressured through economic vulnerability or promises of legal residency for fighting in the Fatemiyoun. Human Rights and migrant-rights groups argue that the IRGC exploited refugees’ precarious lives for geopolitical gain. In a 2020 report by the Ceasefire Center for Civilian Rights, IRGC Qud’s Force recruited thousands of Afghans Shias mainly from the Hazara community to fight in Syria. One Afghan described being approached at a mosque in Efsahan, “They suggested we go to Syria to help defend the Shi’a holy shrines from Daesh’, adding that ‘we’d get passports and have an easy life afterwards. We’d be like Iranian citizens and could buy cars, houses…”

For Hazara leaders, these practices transformed Iran from a potential sanctuary into a place of exploitation, casting serious doubts about Tehran’s willingness to protect the broader Hazara community.

Throughout the two-decades of the Afghan Republic, Western governments played a dominant role in the nation’s political institutions, development funding, and security architecture. Hazara leaders actively cultivated these relationships to avoid political marginalization and to ensure external backing. During this period, hundreds of Hazara youth obtained scholarships to leading universities in the U.S. and Europe, with many returning to Afghanistan to occupy senior positions within the Republic’s bureaucracy.

Following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, Western actors continued to influence Afghan realities primarily through humanitarian aid. According to a UNOCHA, approximately $6.7 billion in humanitarian funding was directed to Afghanistan between 2021 and 2024. This sustained support reinforced the perception that Western countries would remain influential players in any future Afghan political landscape. For Hazara leaders, relocation to the West offered not only physical safety but also continued political relevance and access to resources.

Over the past two decades, Hazara diaspora communities have flourished across Western countries — particularly in Europe, Australia, and Canada. These communities have become hubs for political mobilization, advocacy, fundraising, and civil society initiatives. For exiled Hazara leaders, relocation to these countries provides access to established networks, enabling them to maintain influence and engage in transnational activism.

 By contrast, the political space for Hazaras in Iran has remained considerably more constrained limiting the role of any diaspora there as a platform for political leadership. Iran’s domestic political system imposes strict limits on independent political organizing, particularly for refugees. Hazara leaders attempting to operate politically in Iran risk surveillance, repression, and legal obstacles. It is highly unlikely that figures like Mohammad Mohaqqiq, Sarwar Danesh, or Karim Khalili could freely participate in anti-Taliban groups if based in Iran.

Moreover, Iran’s political climate is far less permissive toward the formation of independent political parties or coalitions — especially those that might challenge Tehran’s strategic interests. For Hazara leaders seeking political agency and a long-term voice, Western democracies offer far greater freedom and opportunity than Iran’s restrictive environment.

Hussain Ehsani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center. He previously was as a senior researcher at the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Tehran.

Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center, a Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute, and a Research Fellow at Bar Ilan University's Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

The idea of reconnecting world’s largest democracy with Central Asia carries deep civilizational resonance. For centuries, merchants, monks, and monarchs traversed the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush and the plains of Bactria, linking the subcontinent to the great cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. Today, that geography survives only in memory. The modern state system — shaped by partition and rivalry — has severed those routes. Despite its significant economic size and cultural reach, India remains effectively walled off from a region with which it shares both history and strategic interests. Persistent hostility with Pakistan, compounded by instability in Afghanistan, has transformed what should be a natural corridor into a geopolitical cul-de-sac.

At first glance, the logic of the partnership between India and the five Central Asian republics — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — appears natural. Central Asia is rich in hydrocarbons, uranium, and fertilisers; India needs all three. India, in turn, produces pharmaceuticals, machinery, textiles, and IT services that the Central Asian economies cannot supply in sufficient quantity. On paper, the relationship should be mutually reinforcing: resources for technology, raw materials for finished goods. In reality, the commercial relationship remains stubbornly modest. India’s total trade with the region barely exceeds $2 billion, representing less than half a per cent of New Delhi’s global trade. The promise exists, but geography and politics have denied it substance.

A Geography of Constraint

The principle obstacle is physical access. India shares no direct border with Central Asia, and its only practical land route passes through China or Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although India’s Himalayan frontier intersects the wider region leading toward Central Asia on the Chinese side, there is currently no usable or politically open land corridor that would allow India direct access through China. Beijing has developed Xinjiang as its own controlled gateway to Central Asia under the Belt and Road Initiative, and granting India transit would undermine China’s strategic advantage in the region.

The Aksai Chin area, where old trade routes once connected Ladakh with Xinjiang, is not feasible today because India still claims the territory while China exercises firm control over it. This ongoing dispute, combined with tense political relations, effectively eliminates any prospect of a functional route through that region.

Meanwhile, Pakistan does not permit Indian cargo to transit through its territory, effectively cutting India off from its northern neighbourhood. Shipments that could travel just over a thousand kilometres instead traverse over five thousand kilometres via Iran and the Caspian Sea. Freight costs through these alternative corridors are estimated to be thirty to forty per cent higher, and delivery times often double. Initiatives such as the development of Iran’s Chabahar Port, the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and India’s accession to the Ashgabat Agreement in 2018 are important diplomatic signals, but they cannot erase the structural disadvantage of distance.

The economic consequences are measurable. Research by the Institute of Economic Growth suggests that if India had unimpeded access through Pakistan and Afghanistan, trade volumes with Central Asia could be five to ten times higher. The trade potential index — a model that estimates potential trade based on distance and GDP — ranks trade through a direct route from 10 to 15, but with detours through Iran or China, it collapses to just two or three. In concrete terms, the difference between potential and actual trade represents billions of dollars lost annually. India’s exports to Uzbekistan, for instance, are dominated by pharmaceuticals, worth approximately $167 million, as well as machinery and medical equipment. With a viable corridor, those numbers could multiply several times over. Similarly, trade with Turkmenistanstands at a mere $41 million, and with Tajikistan at around $42 million, figures that remain absurdly low for economies of this size and proximity.

The unrealised potential is most visible in the energy sector. The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline, once hailed as a flagship of regional integration, was expected to transport 33 billion cubic metres of gas annually to India’s northern markets. Three decades since its conception, it remains unfinished — a monument to regional distrust. A volatile security situation in Afghanistan and the lack of political trust between India and Pakistan has frozen the route, causing Turkmenistan to turn east instead, supplying gas to China through operational and conflict-free pipelines.

China’s ability to move swiftly within the same geography has reshaped regional alignments. Between 2018 and 2023, Chineses trade with Central Asia increased from $40 billion to almost $70 billion, while India’s trade remained stagnant at around $2 billion. The gap is not only one of resources or ambition, but of connectivity. Beijing built the infrastructure — via the Belt and Road Initiative and Central Asia–China gas pipelines —to become the region’s immediate investor and transporter. India remains a distant but friendly partner with limited physical reach.

Diplomatic Pressure Without Strategic Depth

This asymmetry also constrains India’s diplomatic posture. Within multilateral platforms like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, where both India and Pakistan sit alongside the five republics, New Delhi’s political bandwidth is often consumed by managing its rivalry with Islamabad rather than cultivating deeper partnerships. Central Asian states — cautious by necessity — avoid choosing sides. For countries like Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, alienating China or Pakistan is riskier than neglecting India. The result is polite stagnation: strong communiqués but limited implementation.

The gap between potential and reality is evident across sectors. India is among the world’s leading suppliers of affordable medicines; its generics already dominate parts of the Uzbek and Tajik markets. Demand for Indian pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, and educational services could expand tenfold with better logistics. Thousands of Central Asian students study in Indian universities, mostly in medicine and technology but the number could be much higher with cheaper travel. Meanwhile, Central Asia could supply India with oil, gas, uranium, and potash at competitive rates. Since 2015, Kazakhstan has supplied over 5,000 metric tons of uranium to India under a long-term contract, demonstrating that where connectivity exists, cooperation flourishes.

Defense partnerships demonstrate a similar paradox. India has established defense agreements with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and maintains working groups on security cooperation. Yet exercises and exchanges require circuitous routing through Iran or Russia, making sustained engagement slow and costly.

For Central Asian republics, strategic balancing remains paramount. India’s trade potential, educational capacity, and restrained diplomacy are appreciated. But economic and infrastructural dependence lean toward China, Russia, and — via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — increasingly Pakistan. Access to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar offers what India cannot: a functional maritime outlet. While New Delhi’s initiatives on digital technology, renewables, and training are well-received, they occupy a secondary layer in the regional hierarchy of partnerships. The Delhi Declaration of 2022, issued at the first India–Central Asia Summit, captured this reality diplomatically, calling for “peaceful resolution of regional conflicts” as a prerequisite for deeper connectivity — a clear reference to South Asia’s unresolved instability.

Time magnifies the challenge. Every additional border and detour not only raises costs but slows delivery. Studies on the INSTC and trans-Iran routes suggest that while these alternatives can reduce transit time by roughly 30–40 per centcompared to traditional Suez-based sea routes, shipments to Central Asia still take several weeks. For example, multimodal services from western India to hubs like Tashkent typically take between two to three weeks, depending on the route and the reliability due to political, security, and infrastructural uncertainties of links via Iran and the Caspian. By the time Indian goods arrive, Chinese or Turkish goods often already stock regional markets. Counter-terrorism and narcotics control cooperation are similarly constrained. While drug trafficking and cross-border extremist movements originating in Afghanistan are a shared concern, yet India’s participation in joint monitoring or training is limited to symbolic exchanges.

Can New Delhi Pursue a Continental Vision While Secluded?

India has responded to a lack of connectivity with creative alternatives. While New Delhi invests in Chabahar and deepens the INSTC through building links through Iran and Azerbaijan, it has also sought to create “digital corridors.” Through tele-education, tele-medicine, and e-governance initiatives, India has found a way to bypass connectivity issues. These initiatives matter, however they cannot substitute for the movement of goods, energy, or large-scale infrastructure. Without even minimal technical dialogue with Pakistan on transit, India’s northern horizon remains closed. Periodic crises — whether the 2019 Pulwama attack, the 2025 Pahalgam incident, or renewed ceasefire violations — only reinforce the perception that South Asia is too volatile to serve as a transit route. For investors and logistics firms, that perception translates into risk premiums and missed contracts.

The strategic price is as much in influence as it is in dollars. Central Asia could have served as India’s strategic depth in the continental balance with China; instead, it is increasingly becoming Beijing’s economic backyard. Each year of inaction entrenches new dependencies that India will struggle to unwind. The contest is not simply about pipelines and trade routes but about whose narrative of connectivity will define Eurasia in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, the struggle is about which great power will set the rules, select the partners, and shape the strategic direction of Eurasian connectivity in the twenty-first century. Connectivity is therefore not merely about infrastructure or trade; it is a vehicle for influence, trust, shared norms, and the broader balance of power across Eurasia. The contest, in essence, is about who will shape the region’s future order as much as about how goods move across it.

A Frontier of Lost Opportunity

India’s exclusion is not dictated by nature but constructed by politics. The Himalayas are real barriers; the Indian-Pakistan border is a chosen one. If even partial normalization were achieved, the geometry of Eurasian trade could shift dramatically. Containers that now take a month to travel from Kandla to Tashkent could arrive in under two weeks. Energy pipelines could flow south. Educational and digital exchanges could scale. Central Asia would gain further diversification beyond China and Russia; India would gain continental reach.

Until that possibility emerges, India’s engagement with Central Asia will remain an exercise in compensating for geography. Trade volumes will remain small, corridors incomplete, and partnerships largely declaratory. Central Asia will continue to view India as a friendly presence in diplomatic forums but an absent partner in markets and infrastructure. The cost of that absence is borne not only by India but by Central Asia itself, deprived of balance and competition.

History offers a quiet irony: lands once united by commerce, culture, and movement are now divided by modern borders. The enduring hostility between India and Pakistan has frozen not only their bilateral future but also the regional one. The numbers are unambiguous: trade that could be ten times larger, routes twice as fast, and energy networks capable of transforming economies all remain unrealized. Until the politics of hostility yield to the pragmatism of connectivity, Central Asia will remain a frontier of lost opportunity — a neighbor that India can see on every map, but cannot yet reach.

Arun Anand is a New Delhi-based author, columnist, and strategic affairs analyst whose work focuses on geopolitics, security, and civilizational studies. His work has been published across leading research platforms and media outlets.

Kazakhstan is actively pursuing a multi-vector approach to foreign policy and has so far succeeded in maintaining a careful balance in its international relations. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s recent visit to Moscow stands as a clear testament to this strategy.

On November 12, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev concluded a two-day state visit to Russia, which he described as “perhaps the main event of this year.” His remark underscored the continuing strategic importance that Astana places on its relationship with Moscow.

During the visit, the two sides signed a declaration elevating their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and alliance. This new framework is notable since Russia maintains such strategic relations with only a small circle of states - China, India, Iran, Belarus among them – and now Kazakhstan formally joins that select group. The declaration commits both countries to deepening cooperation across all sectors and as well as providing mutual support in international forums.

Kazakhstan is pursuing a multi-vector foreign policy aimed at balancing relations with major powers while safeguarding its own strategic interests. This approach enables Astana to maintain respectful ties with Russia even as it expands economic and diplomatic cooperation with China, the United States, and Europe, thereby avoiding overdependence on any single nation. The strategy underpins Kazakhstan’s ambition to serve as a middle power and a key transit hub—a geopolitical bridge linking major economic centers across Eurasia.

This marks a significant evolution from previous bilateral relations when Kazakhstan and Russia relied on such key documents: as the 1992 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance; the 1998 Declaration on Eternal Friendship and Alliance Oriented to the 21st Century and the 2013 Treaty on Good-Neighborliness and Alliance in the 21st Century. While the former documents stressed a general between the countries, the latest agreement highlights the strategic nature of bilateral relations.

Additionally, the November visit resulted in the signing of 13 more documents covering cooperation in transit transportation, including flight tests of the Soyuz-5 and Baiterek space rocket systems, the opening of a Russian consulate general in the western port city of Aktau, and collaboration on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The latter point is particularly important for both Moscow and Astana, as it paves the way for the future construction of a nuclear power plant built by Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom. This follows the June decision in which Astana granted Rosatom the rights to build what will be Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant (NPP) since the 1990s.

Moreover, the trip underscored Russia’s enduring influence over Kazakhstan. Moscow remains Kazakhstan’s second largest trading partner. By the end of 2024, bilateral trade has neared $30 billion. According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, in 2024 foreign direct investment from Russia to Kazakhstan totaled approximately $4 billion, accounting for nearly a quarter of all investment inflows into the country. Some 20,000 companies with Russian participation now operate in Kazakhstan and 175 major joint projects are currently underway.

Wider Geopolitical Context

The deepening Russian-Kazakh cooperation also reflects a broader geopolitical landscape. Globally, the strategic alignment of the two nations is reinforced through their joint participation in such multilateral organizations as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Moreover, Russia and Kazakhstan agree on limiting military presence of non-Caspian Sea states in the Caspian Sea – a stance that underscores their common security outlook.

Tokayev’s visit to Russia is also notable given its timing. It came shortly after the Kazakh leader’s early November trip to the United States, where he and other Central Asian leaders met with President Donald Trump within the C5+1 framework. In Washington, Astana signed several investments agreements and announced its intent to join the Abraham Accords, an American initiative aimed at facilitating normalization between Israel and the Arab states as well as the wider Islamic world.

Tokayev’s visit to Moscow is particularly important for Russia, whose influence in Central Asia has been increasingly tested since its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Kazakhstan is a key state for Moscow’s projection of regional power, yet a growing number of external powers have been moving to fill the geopolitical vacuum created by Russia’s preoccupation in Ukraine. China, the European Union, United States, and to a lesser degree, Turkey, are all actively expanding their economic and political influence in Central Asia with Kazakhstan at the center of their strategies. Indeed, China has already surpassed Russia in terms of its economic presence in Kazakhstan. Washington is seeking a larger role in the development of Kazakhstan’s critical minerals and rare earth mining sector to reduce its reliance on Chinese rare earth exports.

Therefore, Tokayev’s trip is seen as a testament that Moscow’s still retains powerful political and economic levers in the region. Russia may lag behind China’s economic potential and the U.S. may appear more attractive in certain sectors such as rare earth extraction or oil and gas deposits exploration, but Moscow still benefits its geographic proximity and decades of cooperation. Russian and Kazakh political elites have also maintained close ties since the 1990s, and despite leadership changes in both nations, this continuity remains a core pillar of their relationship.

Perfect Case of Multi-Vectorism

Central to Kazakhstan’s multi-vector strategy is its role in competing transport corridors. The Russia-sponsored International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) — especially its eastern branch — runs through Kazakh territory. This route allows Russia not only access to Central Asia and Afghanistan, but also connection with markets in South Asia.

At the same time, Kazakhstan plays a pivotal role in the China-Europe east-west network often referred to as the Middle Corridor. Astana is actively investing in the corridor’s expansion and has improved ties with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey to that end. For Kazakhstan, the Middle Corridor is a means of deepening engagement with global markets while facilitating China-EU trade flows that bypass Russia.

Pursuit of a multi-vector foreign policy is also rooted in Kazakhstan’s size, resources and geopolitical position. When relations between Moscow and Astana experienced moments of tension because of war in Ukraine and the expectation that Astana as an ally would support Russia, Kazakhstan moved to strengthen ties with China and the West, effectively declaring a position of neutrality regarding the conflict. Tokayev publicly referred to the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics — Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia — as quasi-state entities and ruled out recognizing them. Reasons vary from pragmatism to actual fear of potential separatism in the northern part of Kazakhstan, mostly populated by ethnic Russians. These reasons led Kazakhstan to expand diplomatic and economic ties with Ukraine, signaling a calibrated balancing act between Kyiv and Russia

Multi-vectorism remains the defining feature of Kazakhstan’s international identity and its primary tool for preserving sovereignty amid intensifying geopolitical competition throughout Eurasia. But the idea of multi-vectorism is also intricately related to Kazakhstan’s ambition to position itself as a middle power —an actor garnering the respect and capable of influencing larger powers’ behavior. Astana thus aspires to join a club of other middle powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE and others.

Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.

Over the past few years, Azerbaijan has dramatically scaled up its military, setting a 2025 record of roughly $5 billion in defense spending. This build-up includes modern multirole jets like the JF-17 Block III, upgraded land forces, enhanced air-defense networks, advanced drones, precision artillery, and missile systems.

Azerbaijan’s modernization has been strongly supported by Israeli systems. This November, Dr. Daniel Gold, the architect of many of Israel’s most advanced systems, made a high-level visit to Baku, signaling what Israeli publication Maariv described as “cooperation at the deepest levels.”

According to the Israeli media Gold’s visit is connected to Azerbaijan's major tender to build a high-end communication satellite, potentially worth up to $800 million. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is a finalist, alongside SpaceX, Thales Alenia, and Turkish Aerospace (TAI).

During a Victory Day parade on November 9, Azerbaijan unveiled Rafael’s Ice Breaker long-range stand-off missile, which boasts AI-assisted precision and bolsters maritime and coastal deterrence.

In the past decade, Israel has increasingly intensified its defense cooperation with Azerbaijan, solidifying Baku’s position as one of its most important security partners. Azerbaijan has acquired an expanding range of Israeli systems—especially drones, loitering munitions, surveillance platforms, and air-defense technology—that have helped modernize its armed forces and strengthen its strategic posture. This deepening partnership reflects converging geopolitical interests, sustained energy ties, and Israel’s broader effort to maintain reliable partners along Iran’s periphery. As a result, the Israel-Azerbaijan military relationship has become an increasingly influential factor in the evolving security landscape of the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan’s 2025 military parade in Baku showcased the growing share of Israeli high-tech systems in its arsenal, from loitering munitions such as Harop and SkyStriker to long-range missile systems like Ice Breaker and LORA. Complementing these are MALE-class drones (Hermes 900, Heron) and advanced air-defense systems including Barak-8 and Barak MX, integrated with sophisticated radar networks. Beyond conventional weaponry, Baku has expanded into space-based reconnaissance and cybersecurity, in cooperation with Israeli institutions, highlighting that the partnership extends well beyond a traditional buyer-seller relationship and reflects strategic, technological, and geopolitical considerations.

While Azerbaijani military buildups are often chocked up to preparations against Armenia, when viewed through the lens of technical characteristics, geographic logic, procurement patterns, and regional strategic incentives, Azerbaijan’s force development since 2020 points overwhelmingly in a different direction. What emerges is not an Armenian-focused war plan, but a broader transformation: a shift toward a precision-driven, multi-domain deterrent posture designed to manage the challenges posed by Iran, protect critical infrastructure in the Caspian Sea, and secure the emerging Middle Corridor that links Central Asia to Europe through Azerbaijani territory.

Understanding this requires disaggregating political narrative from empirical military analysis. Armenia-centered interpretations rely heavily on the visibility of the Israel–Azerbaijan relationship and on memories of Israeli drones used in the 2020 Karabakh war and following 2023 offensive. But they fail to engage the reality that the overwhelming majority of new systems Azerbaijan has acquired since that conflict are not relevant to the Armenian theater. no plausible application in a campaign to seize Armenian territory. Instead, they map neatly onto Azerbaijan’s anxieties about Iran’s expanding role in the Caspian, the vulnerability of offshore energy assets, and the geopolitical value of trans-Caspian infrastructure.

Azerbaijan’s pre-2020 acquisitions from Israel were dominated by precision-strike and reconnaissance systems—loitering munitions like Harop and Harpy, the Orbiter series, SkyStriker drones, and a suite of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) tools. These are instruments of targeted warfare, not the backbone of mass-maneuver operations required for larger territorial conquest. If Azerbaijan had intended to invade Armenia proper, it already possessed by 2020 the tools to neutralize much of Armenia’s air defense and armor, as demonstrated in Karabakh. Yet Baku did not pursue a deep offensive into Armenian territory even at moments when Armenian defenses were disorganized and depleted. This restraint is often explained through political factors, but it also highlights a central analytical point: precision-guided strike systems alone are insufficient to mount and sustain a high-casualty, high-logistics invasion across mountainous terrain. What Azerbaijan possessed, and continues to acquire, are technologies suited to deterrence and defense, not an offensive war.

Importantly, Israeli arms transfers did not stop with the 2023 Karabakh offensive. Open-source reporting indicates that throughout 2024 and into 2025, Azerbaijani cargo flights continued arriving from Israel, delivering drones, munitions, and other advanced military equipment. These post-offensive acquisitions demonstrate that Baku’s military modernization is ongoing and reflect strategic priorities beyond Armenia, particularly maritime security and the protection of critical infrastructure.

Post-2020 acquisitions are even more revealing. Investigations by outlets such as Haaretz, along with open-source analyses of systems displayed at military parades, show that many of Azerbaijan’s new imports emphasize electronic warfare, long-range air-surveillance radars, naval drones, and maritime and coastal and observation technologies. DefenseArabia experts note that Azerbaijan now maintains an unusually robust air-defense network, particularly for a country of its size.

These complement systems optimized for detecting low-altitude aircraft over water, tracking small maritime vessels, monitoring littoral electromagnetic activity, and reconnaissance across the Caspian. Armenia, as a landlocked state with no navy and no coastline, simply does not present a target set for these capabilities. Their operational logic is rooted in the Caspian basin, where Azerbaijan faces both natural vulnerabilities—offshore oil and gas fields, export terminals, and critical maritime trade routes—and an increasingly assertive Iranian presence.

Iran maintains a significant naval footprint in the southern Caspian, has expanded drone reconnaissance, and has introduced new destroyers to the Caspian sea fleet. Just two years ago, tensions between the Islamic Republic and Azerbaijan have risen to the point where analysts openly speculated about the possibility of war. As Baku and Yerevan partner with the Trump administration to implement TRIPP, Iranian senior officials have threatened to turn the region into a “graveyard of the mercenaries of Donald Trump.” In this context, Azerbaijan’s pursuit of advanced coastal radars, maritime-capable ISR, and unmanned surface vessel technologies becomes far more intelligible. They are the essential ingredients of a littoral defense and maritime-denial posture—precisely the kind of force architecture a state would build if it feared asymmetric Iranian pressure, sabotage of offshore platforms, or interference with commercial shipping. None of these systems contribute meaningfully to an Armenian scenario, yet they are indispensable in a Caspian-centered strategic environment.

A second driver is safeguarding the Middle Corridor. As European and Central Asian governments seek alternatives to routes dominated by Russia, Azerbaijan has become the linchpin of a trans-Eurasian trade artery connecting Kazakhstan, across the Caspian, to Baku and then onward through the South Caucasus to Turkey and Europe. Securing this corridor requires more than road and rail protection; it demands full-spectrum maritime situational awareness, cross-Caspian security coordination, and protection of energy nodes that underpin the corridor’s economic viability. Azerbaijan has, for this purpose, expanded cooperation with regional actors such as Kazakhstan, which relies on Azerbaijan’s ports and maritime security for access to Western markets. A significant portion of the systems Baku is acquiring are precisely the tools necessary to guarantee the safety of the cross-Caspian link, not to fight a land war in the mountains of the Armenian plateau.

The mere size of Azerbaijani defense spending also signals deterrence. Baku spends 2.7 times more on its military than Yerevan and has massive qualitative and quantitative edges. But recent purchases are overwhelmingly composed of systems that enhance standoff striking power, electromagnetic dominance, and domain awareness, not the heavy engineering, mechanized lift, armored mass, and logistics infrastructure that any invasion of Armenia would require. A state preparing to occupy another country builds combat brigades, transport and supply networks, gendarmerie forces for post-conflict stabilization, and engineering units capable of sustaining advances through narrow valleys and mountainous passes. Azerbaijan is not doing this. Instead, it is building a force capable of managing escalation with a larger neighbor, deterring maritime threats, and protecting infrastructure far from the Armenian border.

The final piece of the puzzle is political logic. An invasion of Armenia carries risks Azerbaijan has never been willing to accept: driving Armenia back to Russia, unpredictable Western reactions, and the potential for a broader regional conflagration involving Iran. The political costs of such a war dwarf the strategic value of Armenian territory. By contrast, the benefits of securing the Middle Corridor, insulating energy exports, and countering Iranian leverage are substantial and tied directly to Azerbaijan’s long-term economic and geopolitical position. It is therefore rational—indeed expected—that Baku would invest heavily in capabilities suited to these missions.

Azerbaijan’s evolving military posture is shaped by the need to deter asymmetric Iranian pressure, safeguard offshore and trans-Caspian infrastructure, and protect the country’s role as a regional trade hub. The focus is maritime and multi-domain deterrence, not territorial expansion into Armenia. Understanding these acquisitions in their proper strategic context clarifies that Baku is building a modern, precision-oriented force designed to defend its most vulnerable interests—across the Caspian and along critical corridors—not to wage a war across mountainous borders.

Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center, a Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute, and a Research Fellow at Bar Ilan University's Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Research Fellow Hussain Ehsani joins BBC Persia to discuss the US strikes on ISIS position in Syria following the killing of two US soldiers and an interpreter. According to CENTCOM, several militants were killed in the strikes.

Watch the full interview here (Persian).

Hussain Ehsani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.

Azerbaijan sits in one of the world’s roughest neighborhoods, squeezed between Russia to the north and Iran to the south. 

Over the past few years, the small, secular but Muslim-majority nation has faced tensions with both Russia and Iran. Relations with Moscow cooled after Russian air defenses accidentally downed an Azerbaijani airliner last December, killing 38. Meanwhile, repeated Iranian threats—including support for the Husseiniyyun, a radical Shia proxy operating terrorist cells in the country and large-scale military exercises on the border—have kept the nation on edge.

Yet Azerbaijan is more than a country at the mercy of large neighbors. It also offers a rare strategic opening for Washington with immediate payoffs in trade, energy security, and regional deterrence.

Baku controls a key stretch of the Middle Corridor—the only land route from Europe to Asia that bypasses both Russia and Iran. It already supplies natural gas to Europe and has helped ease tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara. It has become a bridge to Central Asia, a region the United States has recently prioritized as it seeks alternatives to Chinese rare earths.

Read the full article on the National Interest.

Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center and a Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute.

Alisher Sultanov was relieved of his post as presidential representative on energy security on December 16, ending some ten years of dubious performance as one of Uzbekistan’s top energy officials. Under Sultanov’s watch as head of the state oil and gas company and then as a top official in Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry, the country’s oil and gas production decreased, and Uzbekistan went from being a gas exporter to an importer.

A Career in the Gas and Oil Sector

Sultanov started working in Uzbekistan’s energy sector in the mid-1990s and gradually made his way through the ranks at the state oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz. In 2015, Sultanov became Uzbekneftegaz’s chairman, serving in that position until 2018.

In 2017, Sultanov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the fuel, energy, and industrial sector, and in February 2019, he was named Energy Minister. He stepped down as Energy Minister in April 2022, officially for health reasons, but by 2023 was back as presidential advisor on oil and gas, chemical, and energy matters, though that title was changed in July 2025 to the president’s representative on energy security.

Read the full article on the Times of Central Asia.

Bruce Pannier is a Senior Fellow at the Turan Research Center.

BACKGROUND: On November 6, Washington hosted a summit between the U.S. and the five Central Asian republics. The meeting was notable for several reasons. It marked the first time such a summit had been held at the White House and it followed President Trump’s recent bilateral meetings with the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Washington approached the summit with a pragmatic agenda. Its priorities were twofold: to secure long-term access to critical mineral resources and to strengthen the Middle Corridor as a reliable route to Central Asia that bypasses sanctioned Russian and Iranian territory.
Notably absent from the discussions were themes that had dominated earlier decades, such as the promotion of human rights, democratization, and the export of Western governance models. This marks a clear departure from the period when the C5+1 format was first introduced under President Obama in 2015. At that time, the initiative was largely designed to counter Russian and Chinese influence, rather than to promote trade and investment from the U.S.
President Trump’s regional policy is explicitly transactional. An agreement with Uzbekistan envisages approximately US$ 100 billion in investments flowing into U.S. industries over the coming years. Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has joined the Abraham Accords and concluded around US$ 17 billion in commercial agreements with the U.S., including a US$ 1 billion joint mining venture.

Read the full article on the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute.

Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.