Russia’s relations with the Caucasian republics are obviously in crisis. The Ukrainian conflict is drawing resources away from other directions, including Transcaucasia. The resulting vacuum is rapidly filled by Russia’s geopolitical competitors: Europe, Turkey, and now also the United States.
But whereas previously Georgia was US’s favorite in the Caucasus and even being promised admission to NATO, in recent years Washington’s relations with Tbilisi have been significantly overshadowed. This despite the fact that without Georgia, Europe’s transport corridors with Central Asia falls apart. A 2026 European Commission study claimed that there are no alternatives for the EU to a strategic corridor through Georgia. However, the current Georgian regime has no desire to surrender its national interests for nothing, and therefore, while Europeans are trying to intimidate the Georgian authorities, the US administration is seeking alternative routes in the Caucasus to implement their logistics corridor project, also known as the “Trump Route.”
On February 9, US Vice President JD Vance and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation, the so-called 1-2-3 Agreement. The document stipulates the conditions for implementing joint programs between US and Armenian companies. According to Vice President Vance, initial investments will amount to about $5 billion, with an additional $4 billion planned for the future.
“This is a beautiful country. A country that the President of the United States [Donald Trump] is very proud to partner with, the President of the United States is very proud to have great relationship with, and I know President Trump sends his best regards to you personally, but also to the people of Armenia,” Vance noted.
As the American outlet Bloomberg lets slip, Washington views the signed agreement as strategic rather than purely commercial. The fact is that the document establishes the legal framework for exporting US nuclear technologies, fuel, and services to Armenia, in particular small modular reactors. According to Washington’s logic, these are meant to replace the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant built back in Soviet times and, accordingly, further reduce Yerevan’s dependence on Moscow.
In other words, Washington is implementing in the South Caucasus a strategy of creating long-term Armenian dependence on service maintenance and technologies from the United States. And Armenia will voluntarily become the world’s first testing ground for testing new US technologies — that is, it will assume the risks (and they are possible!) of bringing modular nuclear power plants to operational status.
So what will Armenia receive in addition to these risks, besides US money?
First and foremost, the status of a US ally, which for Pashinyan’s openly pro-Western regime is even more important than money, the notorious $9 billion, which still has to be obtained.
Second, during Vance’s visit, a contract worth $11 million was signed for the supply of US reconnaissance drones to Armenia. For Armenia, this is a significant sum; for the United States, given the cost of its military equipment, it is not even pocket change, but merely enough for a soda. Yet symbolically, this fixes Armenia’s final departure from military cooperation with Russia and Iran. Discussions about Armenia’s formal withdrawal from the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] have been ongoing for a long time and will continue, while American reconnaissance drones in the region will do their job — monitoring Iran and Russia.
Third, the United States granted Yerevan export permits of NVIDIA Blackwell processors, for exportation in Armenia for a data center under construction in Hrazdan. “These are chips that simply do not exist in most countries of the world,” Vance emphasized. Here it is appropriate to speak of “chip diplomacy,” rather than formal membership in one or another Western structure under US patronage.
The data center in Hrazdan is medium-sized by global standards — only 100 MW (for comparison, Microsoft’s campus in Virginia is 300+ MW, and the Stargate project is up to 1 GW) — but for the Caucasus it is the largest regional project, involving thousands of Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs). The first phase will be commissioned by June 2026.
Any data center is a major consumer of energy, which is why Hrazdan was chosen due to the presence of Soviet-era power plants. Now, in addition to this “legacy,” the United States is promoting its modular nuclear power plants. In order to have a certain degree of autonomy in the event of a conflict with the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. Plus sanctions-related matters and other strategic considerations. One should not give an adversary any levers of pressure, including power grids. Incidentally, in November 2025, Pashinyan’s regime effectively “seized” from Russian businessman Samvel Karapetyan the company Electric Networks of Armenia that belonged to him (it served about 1 million people out of the country’s total population of 3 million).
It was no coincidence that Vance bundled drones, chips, and energy into a single package.
In May 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump abolished the chip allocation system created by his predecessor, which categorized countries according to their degree of allied closeness to the United States. Like a seasoned dealer, Trump turned chips into an instrument of bargaining and pressure. Want to obtain the “super-duper” Blackwell chips? Then do what Washington says: sign a peace agreement on terms we require, create all the conditions for laying a transit corridor (let us at least recall the “Trump Route”), begin nuclear negotiations, and so on.
Saudi Arabia, for example, received 70,000 GB300 systems in exchange for investing its petrodollars in the US economy, while China was allowed to purchase “downgraded” H20 chips on the condition that 15% of the revenue goes to the US Treasury. And so on. What are you to do if, without chips, you instantly become technologically backward, whether in the military or civilian sector, and you have no domestic developments of comparable quality?
Next comes the natural transition of document management and the entire digital system to Western hardware and Western software. In other words, all sovereign data become the property of the USA. What sovereignty, what shadow schemes and sanction circumvention — you are all under the hood of the collective US Big Brother.
Vance’s visit to Armenia formalizes a model in which chips become an instrument of influence, and access to AI capacity becomes a strategic resource, like oil, gas, or uranium.
The following day, February 10, Vance visited the capital of Azerbaijan, where he also signed a strategic cooperation agreement and promised to transfer ships to the Azerbaijani Armed Forces to protect their territorial waters.
It should be noted that Vance does not travel abroad particularly often; this is usually the prerogative of State Department officials. Yet here we see heightened attention from the US administration to the region (for obvious reasons) and at the same time a certain balancing within the competing pair of Vance and Rubio. This in itself is interesting, especially in the context of the recent Munich Security Conference, to which Rubio, rather than Vance, was sent this year. But more on that below.
The “Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America,” signed by Vance and Aliyev in Baku, has not been published, and for now one can only guess at its contents.
However, in general, US interests in Azerbaijan are no secret.
First, there is the energy sector (a constant in US policy). The Trump administration is constructing a new configuration of energy flows in the context of anti-Russian sanctions and the removing of Russia out of the EU energy market. Moreover, as specialists note, Trump and his family have their own small personal “business” in hydrocarbon trade. So it is not excluded that Vance was negotiating on this matter as well.
Second, there is the projection of power in the region. This primarily concerns Azerbaijan’s neighbors, Iran and Russia.
Third, there are the same “corridor wars,” intended to undermine China’s economic power and help the United States establish control over key cargo routes. And this is a pan-US strategy that will continue regardless of who wins the next US presidential election.
This is a translation of an expert from The power of words and the word of power article by Dmitry Vetchinkin, Maksim Karev, Olga Levandovskaya, first published in The Essence of Time newspaper, issue 661.
