IS THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT REACHING A BOILING POINT?
Russia Profile
June 19 2012
By Dan Peleschuk, Russia Profile 06/19/2012
The former Soviet Union’s oldest frozen conflict just might be thawing,
but that’s not for the better. Ahead of a joint statement issued by
world leaders during the G20 Summit, calling on the Armenian and
Azerbaijani governments to mend fences over the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, tensions in the breakaway territory have only been
escalating. Following bloody border shootouts in recent weeks,
observers have been talking of renewed violence that could lead to
another all-out war. Though all signs point to a fresh conflict,
is a large-scale war in the Caucasus really possible?
The U.S., Russian and French presidents came together on the sidelines
of the global summit on Monday to urge a peaceful settlement to the
conflict, which for more than 20 years has kept Armenia and Azerbaijan
at each other’s throats, and the territory itself in a state of
diplomatic limbo. “Military force will not resolve the conflict and
would only prolong the suffering and hardships endured by the peoples
of the region for too long,” the statement read. “Only a peaceful,
negotiated settlement can allow the entire region to move beyond the
status quo toward a secure and prosperous future.”
But despite international proclamations, a serious problem continues
to brew. For weeks, tensions have inched toward a boiling point as
a startling number of soldiers on both sides have been killed in
tit-for-tat small arms exchanges along the border between Azerbaijan
and de facto Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as between Azerbaijan and
Armenia itself – a far more sensitive area, analysts note. Each
time, the story is the same: one side fires on the other, citing
provocations or illegal incursions from the opposing side, and in turn
receives retaliation shots. And each time, the results are the same:
just since the beginning of 2011, more than 60 Armenian and Azeri
soldiers have died from such border skirmishes, EurasiaNet reported
earlier this month.
Perhaps more disconcerting is the protracted arms race that is taking
place between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While around 20,000 soldiers
remain posted on either side of the front line, the respective
governments are leveraging what they can to outgun their opponent:
Azerbaijan its massive oil wealth, and Armenia its cushy weapons trade
with Russia. Even Karabakh’s standing army, according to E. Wayne
Merry, a senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council,
fields around 300 battle tanks – no doubt a curious amount for a
population of only about 140,000.
Writing in openDemocracy last month, Merry also warned of the
geopolitical implications of a renewed Karabakh war not only for
the Caucasus, but for major global players as well. “A significant
armed conflict over Karabakh could be much more serious than the
brief 2008 war [between Russia and Georgia], in part because the two
sides are more evenly matched and in part because of the proximity –
and vulnerability – of major oil and gas pipelines,” he wrote. “Thus,
another Karabakh war could touch Europeans and Americans at one of
their most neuralgic points, the ‘price at the pump.'”
International efforts have historically done little for the Karabakh
conflict, whose 1994 pact institutionalized a shaky and routinely
violated ceasefire. The Minsk Group, chaired by the United States,
Russia and France, was devised by the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe to monitor the conflict and bring both sides
to the table – but has so far failed to produce results. Similarly,
when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Caucasus
earlier this month, not only did her efforts fall by the wayside,
but eight soldiers from both the Armenian and Azerbaijani side were
killed as she toured the two capitals, according to media reports.
Yet despite all the ominous signs, some experts warn against jumping
to such dire conclusions. According to Alexander Iskandaryan, director
the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, neither side can afford to wage
a large-scale war – Armenia and Karabakh because of their relatively
small populations, and Azerbaijan because of the certain destruction
of the lucrative Baku-Ceyhan pipeline a war would deliver. “Armed
skirmishes and a full-blown war are two principally different things,”
he said. “They require their own levels of resources, losses of life,
as well as their own degrees of risk.”
Others agree, but Lawrence Scott Sheets, South Caucasus project
director for the International Crisis Group, added that while neither
side can afford an explosion of the conflict, many tend to forget that
a violent conflict already exists and has never abated – and that the
only next step is war on a massive scale. “We call it a conflict,
but people are killed there all the time,” he said. What’s more,
Sheets noted, ill-fated international efforts have helped drive
both sides to consider a military solution as the only alternative
option. “We’ve never said at the ICG that there’s going to be a war,
but we have said that the conditions are worsening, and as the deadlock
continues, the chances for either an accidental war or a premeditated
conflict from either side increase,” he said.
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