Volume 12 Issue 1 2011
CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS
52
The Region’s Strategic Dimensions
For centuries, great powers like the Roman and Persian Empires,
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the Caliphate, the Persian and
Byzantium Empires,
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and the Ottoman, Persian and Russian Empires
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struggled to control the South-
ern Caucasus. Since the time of the Great Silk Road, the Southern Caucasus has undoubtedly played
an important role and is the shortest land route from China to Europe. The region is also a land bridge
between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and a gateway to the Middle East and Central Asia. In this
light, the Southern Caucasus has strategic geographical and transportation dimensions.
In the era of industrialization and the world’s economic dependence on oil and gas, the Southern
Caucasus has gained an additional strategic dimension—the energy dimension— specifically in terms
of Azerbaijan’s huge hydrocarbon reserves and production. At the beginning of the 20th century,
Azerbaijan produced more than half of the world’s oil production and 95% of Russian oil (11 million
tonnes/per year).
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And nowadays, the Southern Caucasus is a neighboring region of the oil-rich Per-
sian Gulf and of multi-dimensional strategic importance for the global and regional powers. The re-
gion’s strategic significance has been brilliantly described by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski (former na-
tional security adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter) in his well-known book The Grand Chess-
board.
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