IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT — BAKU, THE HIDDEN PRESSURE POINT IN THE IRAN WAR? Brig PS Gothra (Retd)

I watched the movie Guns of Navarone in 1977. In those days watching Inglish movies was fashionable. The routine was simple. Laugh when others laughed, clap when something exploded, and later discuss the great fights and blasts as if we had understood everything.

Looking at the map was never part of the exercise. Not entirely my fault though. I was only twelve and studying in a Hindi-medium school where the Mediterranean Sea was known only as Bhumadhya Sagar. Geography meant remembering rivers and capitals, not understanding why countries fought wars.

Years later I learnt something interesting: wars are rarely about anger. They are almost always about geography. In one of those strategic lectures I heard,“Baku is one of the most important places on earth.”

I opened the map. And immediately dismissed the idea. Baku looked like a small projection sticking into the Caspian Sea. It hardly looked like the centre of global strategy.

But war has a strange way of teaching geography.

Recently someone gave me a very rustic piece of advice. If an animal bites you badly, rather than grappling with its teeth and neck, grab its balls or poke it in the rear. Pain travels faster than logic.

That is precisely what Iran is doing today by threatening to choke the Strait of Hormuz. Hormuz is the narrow gate through which a large part of the world’s oil travels. If Iran squeezes that gate, oil prices jump and the world becomes nervous.

But then I began to think. If Hormuz is Iran’s hand on the world’s throat, where are Iran’s own sensitive points? Where does one poke? My crude military thinking brought me back to Baku, the place I had once dismissed.

Now Baku is important because of where it sits on the map. It lies on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, almost exactly between Russia, Central Asia, Iran and Europe.

Think of it like a railway junction where trains from four directions meet. Whoever influences that junction can influence the entire network.

When the Persian Gulf becomes risky during conflict, alternative routes become valuable. One such route runs across the Caspian Sea.

Goods can travel from Russian ports across the Caspian to Baku, and from there move southwards into Iran. If wheat and machinery can move along that route, it is not difficult to imagine that electronics, drones or other dual-use equipment can quietly follow the same path. In simple terms, Baku becomes a logistics bridge.

But there is more. Baku also lies on the International North–South Transport Corridor, a major trade route linking Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and India. At the same time China’s Belt and Road networks also pass through the region.

In other words, Baku sits right at the intersection of Russian, Chinese and Iranian trade routes. That alone makes it strategically important.

There is another layer. Because Iranian airspace is contested and Russian skies are restricted, many flights between Europe and Asia now pass over the South Caucasus. That turns Azerbaijan into a useful observation platform between Iran, Russia and Central Asia.

And finally there is politics. Millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis live inside Iran, which means developments in Baku are watched carefully in Tehran.

Slowly the map begins to look different. Baku no longer appears like a meaningless projection in the Caspian Sea. It begins to look like a strategic nerve point.

Which brings me back to my crude wisdom. If an animal bites you badly, poke it where it hurts.

Iran may squeeze the world through Hormuz. But if larger powers ever decide to respond seriously, they may not strike the hand at all. They might simply press the nerve behind the elbow.

And somewhere on the map, that nerve looks suspiciously like Baku.

I finally understand something I missed in 1977. In wars, geography writes the script.

The rest of us are merely the audience — laughing when others laugh, and only later realising what the movie was really about.