DEADLOCK IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH UNDERMINES ARMENIAN NATIONAL SECURITY IN
THE CAUCASUS
EÅ?ref Yalınkılıçlı
The Southern Caucasus basin might be said to have constituted one of
the “regional security complexes” in post-Cold War era politics. In
this sense, the national security of the three independent post-Soviet
republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are embedded in each
other by their geography. Since Armenia occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan SSR in between 1992 and 1994, peace
and stability in the Caucasus have been the most needed values,
particularly when the region came to prominence once again as the main
battleground of great power politics soon after the sudden collapse of
the Soviet Union.
However, Russia’s reluctance to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem
also creates some pressures on regional security, from which Armenia,
foremost, is heavily influenced in terms of its realpolitik, although
the Armenian state does not have a territorial connection with the
Russian Federation anymore. Therefore, Russia’s use of the long frozen
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to maintain the status quo in
the South Caucasus endangers Armenian national security the most over
the course of time.
Seemingly, as much as this problem has been left unresolved, Armenian
security sectors will continue to be affected negatively, hereby the
whole regional security complex of the Southern Caucasus will collapse
sooner or later. Hence, the post-Soviet Caucasian republics, most
notably Armenia, will remain as an object of the great power politics
in the international arena. As will be remembered, the likelihood of
war and conflict was tragically witnessed in Georgia when Russia
attempted at a military campaign in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in
August 2008 upon Georgia’s warming relations with the U.S., which then
had a potential to change the balance of power in reverse of Russian
interests in the region.
Regarding the Armenian geopolitical situation in the Southern
Caucasus, military conflict should not be kept away from our strategic
calculations as well. Contrary to its geopolitical raison d’etre,
Armenia’s foreign relations in the region are very paradoxical and its
position vis-a-vis Azerbaijan and Turkey jeopardizes not only its own
national security, but also the collective security of the Caucasus,
where the small post-Soviet states have no luxury to fight
unilaterally against each other. The same criterion is also valid for
Azerbaijan and Georgia, so they should always cooperate so as not to
engage in conflicts at any cost considering all the issues for the
sake of the regional security complex of their geopolitics.
At the present stage, Armenia and Azerbaijan perceive themselves as
sworn enemies due to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and continue to
mobilize against each other. Needless to say, Azerbaijan is by far the
champion of this armament race with the help of its oil and gas
revenues and further triggers Armenia’s security dilemma day by day.
In return, the Yerevan leadership has invited more Russian military
supplies and deployment in Armenian territory, which is also annoying
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Russian deployment to the 102nd
military base in Gyumri can be regarded as a source of distrust, with
this understanding, between the parties, and Armenia’s membership in
the Collective Security Treaty Organization always worries Azerbaijan
and Georgia, the two former Soviet republics that are opposed to any
kind of military or political association with Russia as a necessity
of their post-Soviet independence and sovereignty.
Because of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, landlocked Armenia has become
very isolated inbetween Turkey and Azerbaijan when both countries
closed their borders to Armenia since the conflict erupted during and
soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Since independence,
Armenia has tried to balance the Turkish-Azeri axis through
Russo-Persian financial-economic support, but the country has become
an economic backyard for both countries with overwhelming economic
dependency.
Hence, Armenia’s economic dependency, particularly on Russia in terms
of infrastructure, energy and military, asymmetrically caused the loss
of its economic independence. As the massive international blockage
over Iran has also been considered, Armenia has no option other than
mending its relations, especially with Turkey, in order to open up to
the Western world.
Also because of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, Armenia has been
bypassed by the energy corridor, even though it exists in the middle
of the energyrich Trans-Caspian-Caucasus route. In this regard,
Armenia missed a historic economic opportunity when the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Project was inaugurated in 2006. Instead
of Armenia, Georgiahas taken the advantages of pipeline politics and
intensely improved its political and commercial relations with Turkey
after the fall of the Shevardnadze regime during the Rose Revolution
in November 2003. In brief, Armenia could not have used its chance in
the New Great Game of geopolitics that has institutionalized a
new-born Turkish-Georgian-Azerbaijani partnership while exempting
Yerevan from the blessings of cooperation.
In addition, this problem not only triggers a military security
dilemma between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but has also caused some sharp
declines in the Armenian population and accelerated massive labor
migration flows out of the country in the wake of economic
underdevelopment. Many young Armenians have recently left the country,
more often to Russia and Europe and to some extent Turkey, in order to
find employment and sustain their livelihoods.
In this context, Armenian societal security is also alarming and this
situation frequently enhances non-security threats like cross-border
problems, smuggling, human and arms trafficking and other organized
crimes originating from the Armenian border and spreading through
Russia, Turkey and continental Europe. We can augment the numbers and
facts that constitute the main sources of political-military tension,
discontent and disarray in Armenian politics presently.
In brief, the current trend of Armenian foreign policy always creates
some problems and continues to undermine the military capacity of the
country in the Caucasus. Besides that, its domestic politics have been
nurtured by the catastrophic environment in which the ‘otherization’
of Azerbaijan and Turkey is generating the backbone of ethno-centric
Armenian statehood and populist nationalism. Allegedly, all of these
problems that the Armenian public faces are today somehow related,
directly or indirectly, with the long frozen and unresolved conflict
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Therefore, the main question comes to mind immediately regarding
Armenia’s anti-realpolitik attitudes toward its geopolitical and
geo-economic existence within the clear borders of Southern Caucasia.
It is very questionable whether Armenia will be able to stand (or not)
by maintaining its current foreign policy, which might be said to have
been settled redundantly on a frozen conflict in the post-Soviet era.
But its unilateral pro-Russian stance obviously poses challenges to
its national and then to regional and international security in the
long run. Thus, from a realist point of view, one can easily
understand how a region’s security is sacrificed through an irrational
insistence on deadlock considering the most emergent political problem
that is waiting to be solved for the sake of a Caucasian peace
process.
It might be said that the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Eu rope Minsk Group has so far remained very insufficient in
conflict resolution and peace-making initiatives concerning the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Russia, France and the U.S. cannot pass beyond
their-own geopolitical agendas concerning the Caucasus conundrum that
renders Armenia and Azerbaijan as the perpetual belligerents in the
basin. Especially Russia’s pro-Armenian reserves paradoxically damage
Armenia and its integration with the coterminous peoples and states as
if the Russo-Armenian military partnership is perceived of as being
favor of Armenia in the current stage.
Thereupon, a possible Turkish-Armenian rapprochement in the future
could be a political panacea for the Armenian predicament caused by
the aforementioned side effects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Turkey seems to have the ability to mediate between Armenia and
Azerbaijan if some conditions are fulfilled by the parties,
particularly during the centenary anniversary of the Armenian
incidents in the coming year. In this respect, Turkey’s recent
endeavors led-by President Gül, Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an and Foreign
Minister DavutoÄ?lu regarding bilateral relations with Armenia should
be considered by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan as an indicator of
goodwill and regional diplomacy.
Besides, ErdoÄ?an’s latest official condolences on the mass deportation
of Ottoman Armenians during World War I can also be thought of as
Turkey’s eagerness to build up a prospective Turkish-Armenian dialogue
and mutual trust that will be able to melt the current hostile
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Caucasia.
* Freelance Eurasia Analyst, MSc, Center for Russian & Eurasian
Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden
http://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/2014/07/31/deadlock-in-nagornokarabakh-undermines-armenian-national-security-in-the-caucasus