Azerbaijan in the New Geoeconomic Environment The increasing importance of oil and gas in both domestic and international affairs presents Azerbaijan with enormous opportunities—and equally enormous challenges. As a major oil and gas producer in its own right and an important transit country by virtue of its location, Azerbaijan has seen its own economy boom and its importance internationally rise dramatically over the last two decades...

Does GUAM Have a Future? A Personal View As many commentators and analysts have pointed out, GUAM was the brainchild of those countries – Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova – which joined the Commonwealth of Independent States but which were interested in pursuing a more Western orientation than the other eight members. Its birth mother, if you will, was the Conventional Forces in Europe talks, where the four first made a joint declaration about their orientation...