Once again, the United States has shown that in its foreign policy lexicon, peace is not the product of dialogue but the result of crisis management and profit from insecurity. One of the main layers of Vance’s visit to Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan is the activation of the arms market and the escalation of military competition in the Caucasus. The official announcement of military drone sales to Armenia, alongside continued arms cooperation with Baku, reflects a familiar strategy: creating an artificial balance by arming both sides to secure the interests of U.S. weapons manufacturing cartels.

This pattern, previously tested in West Asia, Europe, and East Asia, has not produced sustainable security. Instead, it has generated a cycle of mistrust, rising military expenditures, and the security dependence of countries on Washington. In this framework, American officials effectively appear as brokers of crisis—actors who sacrifice stability for the short-term profits of the military-industrial sector.

Nuclear Double Standards and Nonproliferation Scandal

Vance’s trip also exposed another layer of U.S. nuclear double standards. While Washington targets Iran’s nuclear program with sanctions, threats, and even the prospect of military action under the banner of nonproliferation, it simultaneously signs a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with Armenia in Yerevan.

Vance’s remarks about “creating a $9 billion opportunity for American businesses” clearly indicate that the U.S. issue is not nuclear security, but rather control over knowledge and the economic and political exploitation of it. Nuclear independence, when it becomes a model for liberation from dominance, is intolerable from Washington’s perspective. This contradictory conduct further undermines the legitimacy of U.S. claims against Iran’s nuclear rights and reveals the instrumental and unprofessional nature of American nonproliferation policy.

Caucasus: A Laboratory for Regional Destabilization

Available evidence suggests that Vance’s trip is part of a predesigned U.S. plan to destabilize the Caucasus—one aimed at expanding NATO, militarizing the region, and paving the way for the influence of the Israeli regime. The use of labels such as the “Trump Corridor” serves as cover for imposing external security models and weakening indigenous mechanisms for dispute resolution.

Experience in other regions of the world has shown that U.S. presence has not led to security but has deepened ethnic, political, and geopolitical divides. From this perspective, the Caucasus and Central Asia stand at a decisive juncture: they can either choose stability through regional convergence and dialogue among neighbors, or, by playing on Washington’s field, bear the heavy costs of instability and isolation.

Caucasus in Puzzle of Countering the New World Order

At a broader level, Vance’s trip should be understood as part of a U.S. strategy to counter the emerging new world order—an order centered on China, Russia, Iran, and BRICS that challenges Washington’s traditional unilateralism. Simultaneous crisis-making in West Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and now the Caucasus represents pieces of a single security-eroding puzzle.

These maneuvers stem not from a position of strength, but from concern over the decline of U.S. hegemony. In contrast, independent countries, relying on endogenous self-sufficiency and regional convergence, are shaping new structures that render external intervention costly and ineffective. The future of the Caucasus, more than ever, hinges on the choice of regional actors between “crisis-inducing dependency” and “sustainable indigenous cooperation.”