This week, Vice President JD Vance made a historic visit to the South Caucasus. He became the first sitting vice president to visit Armenia and, shortly thereafter, one of the highest-level U.S. officials to travel to Azerbaijan in decades. The timing of the trip was critical, coming amid a fragile but active peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and a broader effort by Washington to reassert leadership in a region long shaped by Russian influence.
Last August, President Donald Trump hosted a meeting at the White House that launched the most serious attempt in decades to end the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Fighting between the countries over territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan has cost tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than a million people since the early 1990s. While that process created genuine momentum, Vance’s visit underscored both how far the parties have come and how much remains unresolved.
