An Analysis Of Azerbaijan’s Hedging Strategy Against Russia （1993-2021）

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union,the former Soviet Republics began to seek a new way of development.After more than 20 years of transformation,Azerbaijan has become a well-developed country in transition.At the same time,Azerbaijan has become one of the few countries in the post-Soviet space that can perfectly deal with Russia,Europe and the United States.The success of Azerbaijan is inseparable from its foreign strategy,and how to develop the relationship with Russia plays a particularly important role in Azerbaijan’s foreign strategy,which is the most important part of Azerbaijan’s foreign strategy.This paper argues that since the current President of Azerbaijan Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev came to power,Azerbaijan has adopted an intermediate strategy between balancing and bandwagoning towards Russia,which we call "hedging strategy".Hedging strategy consist of two policy options:"maximization of returns" and"minimization of losses".Azerbaijan’s hedging strategy towards Russia is embodied in two aspects:on the one hand,it seeks to maximize national political,economic and security interests by making good relations with Russia through limited followings and some binding contact policies;On the other hand,Azerbaijan has also sought to weaken Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus by rejecting policy options such as domination and indirect checks and balances.The hedging strategy adopted by Azerbaijan is shaped by the systemic pressures in the South Caucasus region,which is further strengthened by Azerbaijan’s own energy wealth and geopolitical environment.Russia’s "neutral position" in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War proved the wisdom of Azerbaijan’s "hedging" strategy against Russia.In the foreseeable future,Azerbaijan will continue to implement the hedging strategy against Russia,but the increasingly fierce geopolitical game in the post-Soviet space will increase the difficulty of its hedging strategy.