Le strategie di adattamento dell'Azerbaigian alla competizione di potenza nel Caucaso meridionale

The Southern Caucasus is a power competition arena, a regional chessboard where the challenge posed by the Russian Federation to the US primacy is both reflecting and being played out. The resulting fluid and uncertain regional competitive scenario impinges upon local actors' foreign policy by restricting their freedom to maneuver. That is, the increasing Russian-US strife requires minor powers to make a clearer “battlefield choice” which, in turn, reinforces the trend towards regional and sub-regional strategic polarization. However, by deepening its “balanced” course of foreign policy, Azerbaijan seems to offer an exception to this trend. Starting from the features of the regional power competition, the article aims to highlight the essential characteristics of Azerbaijan's "balanced" foreign policy, demonstrating how the increasing power resources translated into greater resilience to environmental conditioning and into increasing margins of regional influence