Key regional allies in Trump’s new geopolitical world

The Trump administration’s goal to reformulate approaches to the architecture of international security will change geopolitical dynamics in many regions, especially in Eurasia, the Black Sea region, and the South Caucasus. Since its badly planned 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia is on the defensive, losing its influence in Eurasia to the West and the Greater Middle East to Turkey and the US. On 24 February, the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, only Belarus among the fourteen non-Russian successor states of the USSR voted with Russia at the United Nations (UN). Meanwhile, Russia is losing influence to Türkiye and China in the Greater Middle East, South Caucasus and Central Asia, writes Taras Kuzio.

Dealing with Iran

The Trump administration is prioritizing ending the Russia-Ukraine war but will soon take on Iran. Trump first term in 2016-2020 showed how he is staunchly opposed to Iran’s regime, wants regime change and an end to its nuclear weapons programme. Trump’s allies in countering Iran are Türkiye, Israel, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan who all have difficult - if not antagonistic - relations with Tehran’s regime.

Türkiye and Iran are long-term rivals in the South Caucasus, Ukraine, and the Greater Middle East. Türkiye has been in confrontation with Iran, Iranian funded and trained proxies and terrorist groups in the South Caucasus, Libya, and Syria. In Eurasia, Türkiye supports Ukraine and Azerbaijan while Iran backs their relative opponents, Russia and Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s bilateral relationship with Iran experiences occasional periods of tension, especially over Tehran’s support for Islamic terrorist groups. Iran harbours irredentist claims towards Azerbaijan which Persian nationalists view as a renegade lost province of the old Persian empire. Azerbaijan’s strategic and military partnerships with Türkiye and with Israel are important in providing the country with the ability to defend itself from foreign threats.

As both Russia and Iran deepen their military alliance, as evidenced by the recent signing of a strategic partnership, counterbalancing in the region is likely to result in closer cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Israel. This, a priori, would serve a Trump Administration that seeks to weaken Iran and support regional counter-weights.

It would therefore be in the interests of the US, as well as NATO, to support regional cooperation between countries that prevent Russia’s resurgence and Iran rebounding from its military and strategic defeats in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon. The Trump administration’s foreign policy is likely to be pragmatic, prioritising cooperation with countries that bring benefits and add value to overarching geopolitical aims and thus weakening Iran and Russia by partnering with countries that prevents their resurgence serves the Trump administration’s objectives.

Deepening the Israel-Azerbaijan partnership will pose a major strategic challenge to Iran, especially given Azerbaijan’s extensive border with the country. Israel has long been a close ally of the US and Europe. In October of last year, the US provided military assistance to Israel to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones that had been launched against it. Israeli counterattacks against Iran assisted in preventing Iran from intervening to defend its Syrian ally, the dictator Assad. Israel has begun to provide defensive military equipment to Ukraine.

On the periphery of Europe

Türkiye, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan are on the peripheries of Europe and have experienced similar difficulties in their relationships with Europe and the West more broadly. Türkiye had been seeking to join the EU since 1987 but since 2016 these talks have stalled. Instead, Türkiye established a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan, expanded ties with the Turkic World, and become a geopolitical actor in the Greater Middle East.

It took the EU five years after the Orange Revolution to offer Ukraine the prospect of only integration through the Eastern Partnership. It then took the EU nearly a further two decades until the full-scale invasion before offering Ukraine membership. Azerbaijan has never sought EU membership, preferring instead to integrate into the non-aligned and Turkic worlds.

Despite its relatively free elections, Türkiye has been maligned as an authoritarian regime when in fact it would be best described as a hybrid regime, or in the discourse of the US human rights think tank Freedom House, ‘partly free.’ Ukraine has pursued three decades of democratisation and yet was only given a membership path into the EU two tears ago and is denied membership of NATO.

Erdogan – like Trump - pursues a pragmatically driven foreign policy and maintaining stable relations with Türkiye, which is a NATO member, should be a priority for the US. The Trump administration’s review of US foreign and security policy, as demonstrated by the suspension of USAID, suggests a new period of American transactional and pragmatic cooperation as opposed to the traditional support for the spreading of liberal values and international rules which have underpinned the US-led unipolar world. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supports what he views as Türkiye’s right, as a middle power, to act and intervene in Eurasia and the Greater Middle East in support of its national interests.

The EU will remain supportive of assistance to Türkiye because of migration. The EU has provided over €11 billion to Turkey to assist in housing three million Syrian refugees which is likely to continue given the rise of populist nationalist leaders in Europe who spread anti-immigration and racial attitudes. The anti-immigrant far-right AfD (Alternative Germany) came second in this month’s German elections.

Russia and the South Caucasus

Since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian influence has been on the wane in Eurasia, with Belarus remaining its only close ally. Central Asia is attempting to solidify its relations with the Turkic world while increasingly being drawn into China’s sphere of influence. Moldova and Ukraine, where Russia is waging a genocidal war, are on the path to EU membership. Russia’s new geopolitical reality in Eurasia is especially troubling in the South Caucasus where Armenia is pursuing European integration, Georgia is in turmoil and the pro-Russian regime could be soon overthrown, and Azerbaijan is strengthening its ties with the Turkic and non-aligned worlds. Russian peacekeepers withdrew after Azerbaijan liberated its last occupied territory of Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia have deteriorated since Moscow’s downing of a civilian airliner. Russia’s t Russian hegemony in Eurasia is coming to an end leading to the emergence of new, regional alliances.

The Kremlin’s military and economic over-commitment in Ukraine has resulted in Russia being unable to pursue the foreign and military policies of a great power which would resemble the country President Vladimir Putin pines for – the Soviet Union. Moreover, Russia’s relationship with Türkiye is vulnerable to rapidly shifting geopolitical realities. This is applicable to both the war with Ukraine but also Syria, where the Kremlin suffered a strategic defeat in a country which had been aligned with the Soviet Union since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971 and with Russia from 2000 under his son Bashar al-Assad.

Türkiye and Russia have been on opposite sides in several regional conflicts. In 2019, Türkiye supported the UN-recognised Tripoli government against the Russian-backed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army forces, a warlord from eastern Libya. A year later, Türkiye’s support in the Second Karabakh War assisted in Azerbaijan’s military victory and liberation of the fifth of its country which had been occupied by Armenia since the early 1990s. Türkiye removed the pro-Russian Assad regime in Syria in December 2024.

Meanwhile, Türkiye and Ukraine, as evidenced by the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Turkey this month, have pursued (largely unnoticed) strategic and military ties over the last two decades. Türkiye is a critic of Russia’s war against Ukraine, supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity (including the return of Crimea to Ukraine), and backs Ukrainian membership of NATO. Türkiye and Ukraine are cooperating in several important military projects, including the building of a plant in Ukraine to build the well-known Bayraktar drones.

The West’s conundrum

Under Trump’s predecessors, the US adopted policies towards Türkiye, Ukraine and Azerbaijan which failed to acknowledge their strategic importance. US relations with Türkiye were strained because of the large American-Armenian lobby, US backing for a Syrian Kurdish YPG with links to the PKK, and the purchase of a Russian S-400 air defence system. The US is withdrawing its forces from the Middle East and will no longer back the YPG. Türkiye is purchasing US fighter jets and is contemplating donating its Russian S-400 to Ukraine.

The Biden and Trump administrations have both opposed Ukrainian membership of NATO. Biden never supported Russia’s military defeat and only provided sufficient military assistance for Ukraine to not be defeated, but not to win the war. Trump is agreeable to a European proposal that Ukraine would be automatically given NATO membership if Russia broke a ceasefire and again invaded.

Ukraine’s membership of NATO would add the largest and most battle experienced army in Europe as well as one of the most innovative defence industrial sectors in the world. This month the US and Ukraine will sign an agreement on the joint exploitation of Ukrainian rare minerals, giving the US a long-term stake in Ukraine economy, political stability and security via-vis a future resurgent Russia. Ukraine’s military and economic cooperation with the EU will continue to grow as Trump transfers responsibility for the war in Ukraine to Europe. The EU, which provided greater military and non-military assistance to Ukraine than the US since 2022, is deciding upon the parameters of a Joint Expeditionary Forces (JEF) that would provide security guarantees in the event of Russia breaking a negotiated ceasefire agreement.

The US and European countries, such as France, have traditionally sided with Armenia over Azerbaijan in their three-decade long conflict. This is surprising as Armenia is a founding member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) and EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), two organisations Azerbaijan never joined. Armenia has two Russian military bases. In addition, the US and EU ignore Armenia, and Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan flouting sanctions by re-exporting Western goods to Russia.

The EU’s relations with Armenia will grow as it seeks membership. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is becoming a strategic energy partner for Europe with the supply of its oil and gas through Türkiye likely to grow. Norway, Azerbaijan and increasingly the US have taken over Russia’s former energy supplies to Europe.

Conclusion

The Trump administration is in the process of re-evaluating US foreign and security policies. A priority of this re-evaluation should be enhancing US ties with Türkiye, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The US should view Türkiye as a key geopolitical ally in the Greater Middle East to counter Russian interference and Iranian proxies and in Central Asia to counter China. Türkiye and Azerbaijan should become key US allies in the Turkic and non-aligned worlds, counter-weights to Iran and strategic sources of energy to Europe. Ukraine, perhaps together with Poland, with their large militaries and defence sectors, could well become Trump’s strongest allies in Europe.

The Trump administration should support Türkiye, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan in becoming regional counter-weights to Russia, Iran, and China.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and co-author of the forthcoming book The Four Roots of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.

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