Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sent Europeans scrambling to find alternative suppliers of natural gas and severely disrupted commodity supply chains between Europe and Asia. To reduce their dependence on Russia and China and the increasing likelihood of disruptions from confrontations with one or the other, Europeans must now think outside the box and seek new ways to regain energy security and diversify international land freight lines.
One promising alternative is to push export and energy connections through the “Middle Corridor,” which runs from Europe to Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and from there, via the Black Sea, to Turkey. The Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), could serve the Europeans just as well as the Russian-controlled Northern Corridor, which until recently was the preferred route for rail freight between the European Union and Asia.
China had hoped to monopolize the Middle Corridor as part of its expanding Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But countries have grown increasingly wary of participating in it. They’ve seen China leave many of its BRI promises unfulfilled. And they also worry that involvement comes with too many geopolitical strings attached and can lead to debt traps.
The Middle Corridor might never be the cheapest transport route, but in an increasingly raucous world where diversifying supply chains reduce risk, it could be viable and cost-effective.
That said, there are challenges.