\n
Dear Reader,<\/p>\n
In military history, bastions were defensive strongholds offering perfect combat emplacements for crossfire. Nowadays the term is used to describe Russian forward deployed military nodes with robust anti-access\/area denial and power projection capabilities. These nodes are not simply military bases but represent the Kremlin\u2019s geopolitical outreach assets and have recently become a serious concern for the Alliance.<\/i> <\/p>\n
The latest Research Paper by the Research Division focuses particularly on the Russian bastion in Armenia, which is a determining factor in the strategic balance of the South Caucasus. The region deserves NATO\u2019s strategic awareness and attention for several key reasons: the South Caucasus is now the scene of three concurrent frozen conflicts (South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh); Russian military activity in the Caucasus has been militarizing the region\u2019s agenda for a long time. In the course of the deterioration in Turkish-Russian relations Moscow boosted its forward-deployed military presence in Armenia, where they play an important role in the Azerbaijan-Armenia military strategic balance, since these two NATO partner nations are technically at war with each other over the protracted Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.<\/i><\/p>\n
The Russian military footprint in the South Caucasus remains a geopolitical barrier for NATO\u2019 s potential opportunities in the region.<\/i><\/p>\n
We hope you enjoy this paper by a former Research Fellow in our division.
\nRegards,<\/p>\n
Jeff<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Jeffrey A. Larsen, PhD, Director Research Division\n<\/p>\n More Research Division Publications…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n NDC Public Affairs Office<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Research Paper 143: "Russian Forward Military Basing in Armenia and Moscow\u2019s Influence in the South Caucasus", by Can<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"post_badge":[],"class_list":["post-12557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"NDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/author\/admin_3rwqf6tj\/"},"modified_by":null,"author_meta":{"display_name":"NDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/author\/admin_3rwqf6tj\/"},"featured_img":null,"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","trp-custom-language-flag":"","morenews-featured":"","morenews-large":"","morenews-medium":""},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":0,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]}},"relative_dates":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 9 ans il y a","modified":"Mis \u00e0 jour 6 mois il y a"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 le d\u00e9cembre 7, 2017","modified":"Mise \u00e0 jour le janvier 15, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 le d\u00e9cembre 7, 2017 10:52","modified":"Mise \u00e0 jour le janvier 15, 2026 09:21"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12557"},{"taxonomy":"post_badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_badge?post=12557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}