Caspia presents an interview with Frank Umbach, International Consultant and expert on global energy security, geopolitics and security policy, Head of the EUCERS/CASSIS Research Department at the University of Bonn and NATO consultant.

-How do you assess the strategic significance of Azerbaijan’s participation in the Davos Forum amid today’s global uncertainty and the ongoing shift toward a multipolar world?

- Azerbaijan plays an important role in Central Asia as well as the wider Eurasia region as well as an important European gas supplier as part of the EU's gas import diversification policy. From a European and international standpoint, the signed but not ratified bilateral peace agreements between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a positive development in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape. 

-Do you see a tangible shift in the center of global political and economic gravity from the West toward Eurasia? If so, what role does Azerbaijan play in this broader transformation?

- There is a certain shift and pivot of global and geo-economic power from the European countries and Russia away towards East Asia and particularly China. Alongside the growing European-East and South East Asia ties, Azerbaijan and Central Asia can build an ever more important bride and trade route between Europe and East Asia. In addition, the new EU-India free trade agreement of January 2026 will not only boost the bilateral trade, but other countries alongside old and new trade routes may also benefit from this Free Trade Agreement such as Azerbaijan.

Furthermore, as I highlighted in my presentation at the last Azerbaijan-NATO-conference in November 2025 in Baku, the EU has become more interested at a further gas import diversification - partly also as the result of the ambivalent transatlantic relationship and the European mistrust in the Trump administration and the growing EU LNG import dependency on the U.S. up to 60-70%. Thus the doubling of the TANAP-TAG pipelibe supply capacity to Europe (as envisioned in the EU-Azerbaijan memorandum of understanding of 2022) up to 20 bcm/a might become more realistic with the changing geo-economic conditions and by the fact that the EU targets for green hydrogen of 2030 have become very unrealistic.

-Many media outlets at Davos have stated that Baku and Yerevan have “closed the chapter on the war.” In your view, how sustainable is the current peace process, and what concrete factors can guarantee its long-term stability?

- Both side still need to clarify some important details of the peace agreement. But a peaceful developement would certainly not only benefit both countries, but also the wider Eurasia region and being an import pre-condition for growing trade ties between the EU and Azerbaijan.

-What message does the joint participation of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia at a high-profile international platform like Davos send to the global community, given the recent history of confrontation?

- Given the international turmoil - Russia's war in Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran vs. Israel and U.S., civil wars in Africa - the participation of both Presidents have been a rare positive example in international relations nowadays and highlight the improved bilateral relationship between Azerbaijan and Armenia due to the bilateral signed peace agreement.

-From your perspective, what do global leaders and institutions represented at Davos most want to see from Eurasian countries in the coming years—economic resilience, regional security, investment opportunities, or something else?

- First and foremost, signals of economic and political stability in the rapidly changing geo-economic and geopolitical arena as it is the pre-condition of regional investments and a growing interregional trade in an ocean of international instability 

-Looking ahead, what key geoeconomic trends do you believe will shape the development of the South Caucasus region over the next five to ten years?

- if the region remains economically and politically stable, it will also offer numerous new international investment opportunities and growing trade opportunities along both geographic axis: East-West and North-South. But the region also needs to improve the investment conditions for new technology supply chains such as green energy, batteries, electrification of industries, AI and others, whcih also need an ever increasing demand of critical raw materials the region has in Central Asia.

-How do you assess NATO's strategic future in the context of the changing global security architecture? Does the Alliance remain an indispensable instrument of collective defense, or does it require profound transformation?

- For Europe, NATO remains an indispensable instrument of collective defence, but it requires a much greater contribution from its European allies by taking over to defend Europe largely by itself

-What factors pose the greatest threat to NATO's internal cohesion today: external challenges or internal disagreements among Allies? 

- Internal disagrrements present the bigger threat such as special bilateral relations of individual countries (such as Hungary, Slovakia - likewise in the EU)  with Russia at the expense of the agreed common positioning towards Russia of the large majority of NATO members.

Furthermore, if the Trump-Administration follows an individual course towards Russia (with a special, albeit unrealistic, deal of supposedly 12 trillion US$ trade deal), it undermines and threatens NATO's common defence planning against Russia. Furthermore, Trump's Greenland policies with a direct military threat against an ally is underming NATO's Art 5 of collective defense and the U.S. defence obilgation for its NATO allies. 

-To what extent do NATO's internal bureaucracy and consensus-based approach limit the Alliance's ability to respond quickly to crises? Is institutional inertia becoming one of NATO's key weaknesses in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment?

-The consensus-based approach is certianly limiting the alliance policies to some extent. But the "coalition of the willing"-approach is to some extent an alternative approach but has also its limits,

-How do you assess the European Union's desire to develop its own security system and strategic autonomy? Is this a complement to NATO or a potential alternative? Is there a risk of fragmentation of European security between NATO and EU structures?

-The strengthening of the European pillar of NATO is enhancing NATO's capabilities and is in the U.S. interest as Trump has demanded the 5% target of defence spending. Strategic autonomy, however, is needed for the EU, but may complicate its economic and trade ties with the U.S.  But ultimately, the U.S. needs NATO and its European allies for supporting its global defence policies and its pivot to Asia, Domestically, a big majority of the U.S. population and the U.S. Congress is still favoring NATO and close transatlantic U.S.-European  security and defence ties - much more than the Trump administration. And even for a bilateral ceasefire and peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine for the Ukraine war, the Trump administration ultimately needs its European allies.

-How do you assess Turkey's role in NATO, given its increasingly independent foreign policy and regional ambitions? How important is Turkey for NATO's energy and southern flank security?

- No doubt, Turkey's role in NATO and the region has grown over the last 2 decades, including of the regional and European energy security nexus and NATO's southern flank.  But Turkey needs to balance its policies between defining a national foreign policy with collectibe approaches such as closer NATO and EU ties.

-Is NATO's enlargement policy still an effective tool for strengthening security, or has it already reached its structural limits? Are there alternative partnership formats for non-NATO countries that play an important regional role? Is further expansion of the Alliance planned?

- Yes there is no willingness to expand NATO at the present situation, particularly not in the U.S. (such as Ukraine). However, below an official full membership, other countries (such as Azerbaijan) can expand and deepen their relations with NATO as some countries did it during the last decade (even from the Middle East and the Gulf Region with NATO)

-How do you assess the current level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO within the Partnership for Peace program? How realistic are scenarios for deepening NATO's institutional interaction with Azerbaijan without formal membership?

- In my opinion, the relations between Azerbaijan and NATO had been closer 10-12 years ago. Last November, NATO and Azerbaijan organized a joint conference on energy security in Baku (in which I myself participated) - the first one after a longer time (if I remember correctly). Thus both sides have cerfainly a lot of potential for expanding and enhancing their bilateral ties if their is sufficient political will on both sides. And a final ratification of the peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia also offers additional positive perspectives for NATO-Azerbaijan relations. 

-Do you consider a direct military clash between NATO and Russia likely in the medium term, or are both sides still interested in avoiding direct confrontation? Why do you think NATO is acting with restraint toward Russia, despite the harsh rhetoric and increased military activity on its eastern flank?

- NATO cannot exclude this scenario. In the Kremlin's view,  Russia is already fighting against Europe (before Trump, it was also NATO) as Russia could not explain domestically why the "special operation" with the world's most powerful amred forces (so its official propaganda) was not successful against a much weaker Ukraine with its Nazi-regime. Russia also conducts a hybrid warfare against NATO which is continously  intensifying. Also the production of weaponry is not alone dictated and explainable by the Ukraine-war. And giving Trump's erratic security policies and Russia relations, European NATO allies fear that Putin may test Art. 5 by starting a smaller aggression against a weaker and smaller NATO country such as a Baltic state or in the Arctic (for example, an occupation of Spitzbergen) - particularly when the Ukraine war would have finished.

Thus European NATO countries are reluctant to take  a more resilient approach of deterrence as they don't want become directly involve in the Ukraine war, which often leads to  some kind of self-deterrence rather than deterring Russia's confrontational policies towards the EU and the European NATO allies. Russia, however, perceives these often weak and ambivalent European security and defence policies as appeasement policies of Europe, lacking any real political will for a more assertive security and defence policy - and, accodingly, does often take Europe's policies not very seriously.

That, however, is another wrorng-headed assumption and the result of its own propaganda and becoming a victim of its own propaganda - a similar strateghic miscalculation as by assuming in 2022  that a military invasion into Ukraine will last just few days before Ukraine's defence will collapse and can be replaced by another vasalle regime in Kyjiw (similar like in Belarus) and subordinate its political will to the Kremlin's strategic interests. Europe needs to understand that Russia is a non-status quo power, which has defined its major concepts such as "Russia's world (Russkij mir)" and the Putin defined "historic Russia" back in 2014 for legitimizing Crimea's annexation without any clear definition of borders. Last year, at its St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Putin himself declared Russia's territorial ambitions no longer with the protection of "ethnic Russian" in neigboring countries but with "as far as the boots of Russian soldiers extend".