Investigating the militarization of Caspian Sea countries and Iran's geopolitical challenges

After the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea is considered the most important geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economics region of Iran. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran, which had maritime borders with four countries in this sea, has always openly and practically pursued the policy of demilitarizing the Caspian Sea. Despite Iran's efforts, the movement of countries in the Caspian Sea has been towards militarization and equipping more military infrastructures in the Caspian Sea, which can be the basis for Iran's geopolitical challenge in this field in the future. Therefore, this research with a descriptiveanalytical method and using up-to-date foreign sources, while examining the process of militarization of countries in the Caspian Sea, seeks to answer the question what are the most important geopolitical challenges of Iran caused by the growth of militarism in Caspian countries. The results of the research indicate the movement of the countries surrounding the Caspian Sea in order to strengthen their military base in the Caspian Sea after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This militarization, especially on the part of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, is considered a geopolitical and geostrategic challenge for Iran, considering their sea and land borders. In addition to the militarization of the Caspian Sea, the military cooperation of Israel and NATO with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the field of buying and selling weapons, Azerbaijan's disputs with Iran over oil fields, Azerbaijan's efforts in line with ethnicism; Israel's use of Iran's borders with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan for eavesdropping and espionage relations, the possibility of a war among Russia and Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan due to the Trans-Caspian pipeline are other geopolitical challenges for Iran due to the militarization of the Caspian Sea.