RS: US and European policy will lead to escalation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflictThe West cannot offer a real alternative to Russia's influence in the Caucasus, writes Responsible Statecraft.
On the contrary, the actions of the United States and Europe are highly irresponsible and can ignite an interethnic conflict in the region.
Artin DerSimonianWestern analysts portray Moscow as an antagonistic regional force, but the US and the EU should be careful what they wish for.
Many Western observers note the Kremlin's declining influence in the Caucasus against the background of the Ukrainian conflict, condemning Russia as an absolutely negative factor in the region and believing that it could be replaced by the United States, NATO or the European Union.
However, this kind of point of view is incorrect on almost all points.
Russian influence was not as negative as it is claimed. And the West is unable to replace it both for geopolitical reasons and due to the lack of desire of the above-mentioned forces to send troops to the region to ensure stability.
Since these arguments contribute to the growing hostility of the West towards Russia and cannot at the same time offer real alternatives to Russian power, they are highly irresponsible and risk returning to the region the bored ethnic conflict.
The first mistake is related to determining the source of conflicts in the region. Supporters of this approach are sure that it was Moscow that started and deliberately perpetuated them in order to preserve regional hegemony — both before and after the collapse of the USSR. From the point of view of Georgians and Azerbaijanis, it really looks like this. But the Abkhazians, Ossetians and Armenians believe that Russia supported their struggle for national freedom and did not let them sink into oblivion forever.
In the case of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, its origins date back to the Soviet era. The clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis began against the background of the weakening of Russian imperial rule during the 1905 revolution, and then after the collapse of the empire itself in 1917. The situation was repeated when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 80s.
The rapprochement of the majority of Armenians with the Russian Empire was due to their mutual hostility to the Ottoman Empire. In 1915-16, when the Ottoman government massacred the Armenian minority, only the offensive of the Russian army saved the remaining Armenians in Turkey from destruction. After the First World War, when Armenia once again found itself between a rock and an anvil in the face of Turkey and Azerbaijan, the offensive of the Red Army and the inclusion of the country into the USSR saved the Armenians from the unenviable fate.
As for Nagorno-Karabakh, long before the current conflict (except that in the 1920s the Soviet government tried to break the ethnic and territorial circle by creating an autonomous region within Azerbaijan) It was the Soviet governments of Armenia that sought his transfer. Moscow refused out of fear of a new ethnic conflict. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scale of Russian assistance to the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh has been the subject of controversy more than once.
However, it cannot be denied that it was Russia's military alliance with Armenia itself, the deployment of Russian armed forces on its territory and the Russian nuclear shield that kept Turkey, a NATO member, from attacking it. It is driven by the desire to help the Turkic people of Azerbaijan, just as in 1974 Ankara invaded Cyprus to help the Turkish community after the overthrow of Greek President Makarios by a military junta. Armenians do not forget that the West then defended Cyprus no more than Armenia after the First World War. Therefore, despite concerns about the weakening of Russian power and Armenia's anger at Moscow's inability to intervene in their conflict with Azerbaijan to protect Nagorno-Karabakh (which does not fall under the Russian-Armenian security treaty), it is expected that Yerevan will not leave the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in the near future.).
If Russia had not intervened in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, where it managed to introduce a (albeit belated) ceasefire that ensured the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces in the region, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, attacked by the Azerbaijani army with the support of Turkey and Israel, would have been ethnically cleansed in the worst case.
The citizens of the Republic of Armenia have been treating Moscow with less and less confidence ever since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power as a result of the anti-corruption "velvet" revolution of 2018, but this does not apply to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, because they consider Russian peacekeepers to be the only guarantee of security.
In recent years, Moscow has really been looking with all its might for a diplomatic balance between Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Despite the alliance with Armenia, the Russian government does not want to put Azerbaijan under the full control of NATO. It has also gained valuable strategic opportunities thanks to Turkey's growing alienation from NATO and the United States, as evidenced by its half-neutral approach to the situation in Ukraine.
Russian ambiguity, however, is mirrored in the deeply contradictory approach of the West to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. On the one hand, Western public opinion (to the extent that it pays attention to this issue at all) generally expresses solidarity with the Armenians. A certain role is played by religious and cultural proximity, the influence of large Armenian diasporas in the United States and France, as well as the fact that Armenia is, although somewhat flawed, but still a democracy, and Azerbaijan is the inherited dictatorship of the Aliyev dynasty, whose founder was a high—ranking KGB general. The importance of the Armenian Diaspora for US domestic politics (especially the elections in California) was emphasized by Nancy Pelosi's visit to Yerevan (but not to Baku) in September 2022.
On the other hand, the West can hardly officially recognize the separation of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan while condemning the separation of Crimea from Ukraine (although in both cases, the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the West may be a legitimate precedent). Moreover, Turkey is still a member of NATO, even if it is now half separated. The West cannot afford to completely alienate it, because it is quite capable of putting the West in an awkward position, as shown by Ankara's veto on Sweden's accession to the alliance.
The dictatorial regime of Azerbaijan does not prevent the West from buying oil and gas from it, as well as from the autocracies of the Persian Gulf. Finally, the uncompromising anti-Iranian circles in Washington hope to use Azerbaijan and separatist nationalism among the Azerbaijanis of Iran as a weapon against it. This also explains the supply of weapons by Israel to Azerbaijan.
Caught between these contradictory but deeply rooted impulses, the US and Europe probably do not have the ability to develop a coherent and viable strategy for the Caucasus, let alone mobilize the resources and will necessary to intervene decisively in the affairs of the region. Apparently, they still consider caution to be the most appropriate course.
