A New Great Game in the South Caucasus

I have decided to publish an article I wrote back in October. Since then, Armenia and Azerbaijan have made positive hints about a permanent peace treaty, but here is the article anyway. Enjoy!

Perhaps you may have heard at some point in your life, likely in your childhood, the term Starving Armenian.  For those who have not, the term originates from the First World War as the two empires who ruled over the Armenian people, the Ottoman, and the Russian, were spiraling downward into a state of implosion and disintegration.  To make matters worse for the Armenian people, their masters to the west, the Ottoman Turks, were coming around to the conclusion that the Christian Armenian people, many of whom were joining the enemy Russian army, were an existential threat to the future of the Muslim Ottoman state.  Thus, armed with a zealous hatred of all things Armenian, the Turks designed a systematic extermination of the Armenian people, today known as the Armenian Genocide. 

More than a million Armenians were killed, usually with brutal methods such as crucifixion, being burned alive, and left to starve in the desert.  More than half of all Armenians perished.  (Ironically, the death squads involved in this gruesome operation were labeled by the Turks as Special Organizations.  Sound familiar?)  The word spread far and wide of these atrocities coining the term Starving Armenian.  This phrase even spread to northwest Iowa, where my mother grew up.  Whenever she would lose her appetite, my great-great-aunt scolded her as spoiled, since unlike those starving Armenians, my mother had plenty of food to eat.  From then on, this expression moved its way down three generations, until my mother, in a gentler, less scolding way, used it on me. 

Now, more than a hundred years later, Armenia, now a full-fledged nation in the southern Caucasus mountains between Russia, Turkey, and Iran, could be on the verge of a similar struggle.  Instead of Turkey, today’s enemy of the Armenian nation is the oil and gas-rich former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.  Ruled with an iron fist by the Aliyev family since 1993, Azerbaijan has, become a significant oil and natural gas exporter to other countries in the region.  Casting off Russian influence, Azerbaijan has chosen to move closer to its natural partner Turkey, with whom Azerbaijan shares a similar language and culture.  This partnership culminated in a 2021 Turkish pledge to assist Azerbaijan against external attack.

Now for some recent history.  The already strained intra-Soviet relationship between the Azeri and Armenian peoples began to deteriorate in the 1980s, as internal problems in the Soviet Union created optimal conditions for ethnic violence in the southern Caucasus mountains, in particular around the majority-Armenian region of Nagorno Karabakh inconveniently situated within the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic.  Following the formal break-up of the Soviet Union, the two newborn nations descended into an all-out war over Nagorno Karabakh that would last until 1994 and permanently rupture the relationship between Armenians and Azeris.

Since 1994, the two peoples largely do not speak to each other, nor trade with each other, or even have a diplomatic relationship with each other.  Opposition the other nation has become the crucial feature of both Armenian and Azeri national identity.  There is still one major difference between the situation now vs. in 1994.  Today, Azerbaijan has become the dominant party in this dysfunctional relationship.  According to the CIA, Azerbaijan has a population 3 times larger and a GDP 4 times larger than Armenia.  Thus, Azerbaijan now has the confidence to settle the conflict on its own terms- with predictably devastating consequences for Nagorno Karabakh. 

Meanwhile, the old regional power Russia has shifted its focus away from the southern Caucasian mountains and toward its self-destructive confrontation with the West- a trend accelerated by the ill-advised invasion of Ukraine.  Thus, over the last several years, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has ordered several incremental military operations intending to restore Azerbaijan’s control over Nagorno Karabakh, culminating in the complete military takeover by the region by Azerbaijan in September.  Since no country, not even Armenia, has recognized Nagorno Karabakh as Armenian territory, the international pushback against Azerbaijan’s military campaigns has been practically non-existent. Azerbaijan has now formally dissolved Nagorno Karabakh as a legal entity and most of the Armenians in the area have now fled to Armenia proper. 

Even though Russia has long formally pledged to assist Armenia in case of an external attack, today’s circumstances mean that Russia will not do so, and for several reasons.  The most obvious are Russia’s military losses in Ukraine.  However, the second, and overlooked reason is related to the internal political situation in Armenia.  Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, is reputed to hold pro-Western views and has refused to support Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.  Naturally, for President Vladimir Putin, these sins are unforgiveable.  In fact, recent comments from Russian officials indicate a stronger anger with Armenia than Azerbaijan, even though legally Russia is obligated to defend Armenia.  Thus, Armenia can no longer count on Russia’s support for the foreseeable future.

We also cannot ignore Azerbaijan’s legitimate security concerns.  Sandwiched between Russia and Iran, two imperial powers who both in the past controlled the land that today comprises it, Azerbaijan feels insecure.  Azerbaijan has concerns that either Russia or Iran could attempt to reclaim it again in the future.  So long as Russia and Iran both have imperial beliefs toward Azerbaijan, it remains a security imperative that Azerbaijan overcome the lack of a land border between it and Turkey- and do so through a strip of land currently located on the territory of Armenia.  This strip of land- called Zangezur by the Azeris and Syunik by the Armenians, will certainly become the next stage of the conflict between these two mutually hostile tribes.

Source- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

As the West has bigger priorities and Russia focuses its vengeance on Armenia, Ukraine, and NATO, the greatest threat to Azerbaijan’s grand ambitions and security interests remains the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Even though Armenia is Christian and Iran is ruled by hardline Muslims, the two countries have cultivated a surprisingly fruitful diplomatic and security partnership.  Iran’s absolute red line, as stated by multiple Iranian officials, is a redrawing of borders in the southern Caucasus.  Most Iranians, not just the hardline clerics ruling the country. see any manifestations of “Pan-Turkism”, or alliances between nations with Turkic languages (such as Turkey and Azerbaijan) as intolerable threats which must be opposed- by force if necessary. 

So we must ask ourselves the question- how does this all end?  With so many competing interests in the southern Caucasus mountains all shaped by centuries of conflict and bad blood, it is unlikely that we will find any sort of stable, let alone sustainable solution to the conflict anytime soon.  Even if Pashinyan is overthrown by overtly Pro-Russian political actors in Armenia and Russia chooses to re-assert itself again in the region, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran will still have their paramount national security interests that will never coincide.  While so far, the Armenians have survived without “starving” or succumbing to 1915 or 1992-like episodes of ethnic cleansing, Armenia’s future, and even somewhat the future of Azerbaijan, will remain uncertain and precarious for a long time.  Just like the one fought between Britain and Russia in the 19th century, we now see the beginnings of a new Great Game that will decides who controls this region strategically located on the trade route between China and Europe.