By Stephen Blank
On July 12, fighting broke out again in Nagorno-Karabakh. This war between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains unresolved. Thus, fighting periodically breaks out, causing loss of lives and property and inflaming the ever-tense political situation in the Caucasus. Predictably, once the latest episode of firing began, both sides blamed the other as has always happened. But beyond these negative outcomes, a return to outright war could bring Russian forces further into the Caucasus and lead to serious challenges involving Turkey who supports Azerbaijan and Iran who supports Armenia. Indeed, in 1993 when Turkey threatened to intervene. General Evgeny Shaposhnikov, President Yeltsin’s military advisor, warned that it could unleash World War III. The periodic resumption of fighting also reflects the utter impotence of the so-called Minsk Group, established by the OSCE and comprising the U.S. France and Russia, to achieve anything.
Negotiations remain quite stalled. Indeed, Azerbaijan's President, Ilham Aliyev, threatened on July 9 to leave the negotiations because nothing is happening there. From here, it looks like Aliyev had good reason for making this statement. Previously analysts tended to agree that neither Baku nor Yerevan was prepared to reveal to their domestic constituencies the sacrifices they would both have to make for peace to occur. Neither are the great powers inclined to push them to do so. Clearly, no member of the Minsk Group thought this issue deserved serious priority, so it continued to erupt periodically as it did earlier this month. In fact, Russia continues to exploit the situation, selling arms to both sides, aggravating tensions so that it can pose as Armenia's only loyal defender, exercise a chokehold on its economy, and obtain a permanent base there at Gyumri for its own purposes.
However, the Armenia revolution of 23018 that overthrew an autocratic, corrupt government, led by people who won their spurs conquering Azeri territory in the 1990s, should have offered an opportunity for negotiation. Whereas previous Armenian regimes had been hijacked by this war and consequent refusal to negotiate about the future of Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjoining, purely Azeri territories Armenia had won, the new regime's leaders had no connection to the war. Moreover, they were fervent Democrats, pledged to reform. In fact, Azerbaijan’s government gave them the benefit of the doubt for some time and refrained from criticizing them, a clear signal of an openness to talk.
Yet nothing happened. Instead, the new government doubled down on support for the province of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian) and has refused to enter into serious negotiations. In conversations with this author and other American observers, leading members of the ruling party stated that they believed in the self-determination of peoples because they were Democrats. Therefore, since Nagorno-Karabakh’s population had declared its independence, Armenia could not negotiate on their behalf. Moreover, the negotiations could only proceed further if representatives of that government participated fully as independent participants. This self-serving attempt to prejudge the negotiations over territories still recognized by the international community as Azerbaijani is either incredibly naïve or incredibly disingenuous. And it is also an obvious effort to torpedo any negotiation.
This approach also is wholly negative beyond the fact that Azerbaijan naturally would never negotiate on that basis and refused to play along. More seriously, it perpetuates this war; it lets it exercise too great an influence upon Armenian politics and benefit those elites who have done well out of it. They have established ties with Moscow and also have, as does Moscow, no interest in democratic reforms in Armenia, which have been slow to materialize. Indeed, occupying foreign lands has always been regarded as contrary to the progress of democratization. And by preserving the state of war, these elites ensure Russian domination and a semi-exclusion from Europe that can only continue to cripple Armenia’s economy. Thus, this negotiating stance works to undercut Armenia’s prospects for democracy and security, not to mention genuine independence in foreign policy and economics. Certainly, the government is not trying to hide its disingenuous approach to negotiations as President Pashinyan’s son has just completed his military service in Nagorno-Karabakh. Moreover, Yerevan was complicit with Iran in obtaining Iranian energy supplies for Nagorno-Karabakh while Iran posed as a mediator. So, President Aliyev’s anger at the failure of negotiations’ is well deserved.
It is not too late for the great powers to put their foot down and help bring about genuine negotiations. Moscow surely will not do so. That leaves the U.S. Washington needs to realize just how dangerous this region that abuts the Middle East and could bring Turkey, Iran, and Russia into confrontation can be. And Washington should use its power to convene a Camp David negotiations and be ready to help them by making what political scientists call side payments to help uphold a new local political order, induce a settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh’s disputed status, compensation to refugees, and a return of non-Karabakh lands to Azerbaijan in return for peace and security for both belligerents. The principles that will allow for such an outcome were already agreed to by both sides. These so-called Madrid principles offer a basis for moving forward, but someone has to push Armenia and Azerbaijan hard to do so, especially Armenia, for its position is particularly self-defeating and disingenuous. We cannot pretend to ourselves anymore that this unfrozen war can be allowed to erupt every 12-18 months and that nothing will change because of it. Years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski called this area and the greater Middle East, of which it is a part of the Eurasian Balkans. Just as in 1914, some damned foolish thing in the Balkans ignited a World War, failure to address this conflict crates the basis for another such confrontation. And when that happens, what will we say then?
Stephen J. Blank, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow at FPRI’s Eurasia Program. He has published over 900 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian, and European military and foreign policies, testified frequently before Congress on Russia, China, and Central Asia, consulted for the Central Intelligence Agency, major think tanks and foundations, chaired major international conferences in the U.S. and in Florence; Prague; and London, and has been a commentator on foreign affairs in the media in the U.S. and abroad. He has also advised major corporations on investing in Russia and is a consultant for the Gerson Lehrmann Group. He has published or edited 15 books, most recently Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command (London: Global Markets Briefing, 2006). He has also published Natural Allies? Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005). He is currently completing a book entitled Light From the East: Russia’s Quest for Great Power Status in Asia to be published in 2014 by Ashgate. Dr. Blank is also the author of The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin’s Commissariat of Nationalities (Greenwood, 1994); and the co-editor of The Soviet Military and the Future (Greenwood, 1992).
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