ABSTRACT
The EU, United States and NATO have all made several inroads into south Caucasus after 11 September, and while the three south Caucasus countries have all to various degrees welcomed it, it was basically Russia’s own better relations with the United States and NATO after 11 September that ‘opened the gates’ for these ‘Western’ actors into the region. The USA sent military advisers to Georgia and lifted its arms embargos (since 1993) on Armenia and Azerbaijan (Torbakov 2002b; Danielyan 2002c). NATO had flirted with all three Caucasus states since 1997 (Black 2004: 229), and both Georgia and Azerbaijan are heading for NATO membership. The desire for membership was boosted by NATO Secretary-General Robertson’s comment that NATO’s doors ‘remain open’, although the road ahead was ‘long and tough’ (Derdaraini 2003a). Of course, Russia has been worried about the possibility of actually ‘losing’ Georgia and Azerbaijan to NATO (Torbakov 2003c). Below, I describe these ‘Westernization’ developments in Armenia, Azerbaijan and in Georgia.
