from Russia with Love

This time around President Putin huddled with the Prime Minister of Armenia and President of Azerbaijan, and in a few hours hammered out a peace agreement to stop the month-long Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The peace deal is incredibly short, explicit and to the point. Azerbaijan did well. Armenia was spared a total defeat. And Russia won.

Armenia has agreed to retreat. Pashinyan sent a cryptic message to his nation over Facebook, where he expressed sadness and regret over ending the war, but said this is the best logical choice. Naturally so. The Armenian forces were losing multiple villages a day, including Susha, a strategic town along the corridor connecting Stepanakert, the Nagorno-Karabakh capital, to Armenia.

Less easy to understand are President Aliyev’s calculations. Baku was on a roll. Militarily superior to their Armenian counterparts. Backed by Turkey, and in good grace with Russia. From a military and strategic point of view Azerbaijan could have gone for a total military victory.

So why the peace deal now? And why did Aliyev agree to Russian peacekeepers on his territory? According to the agreement, Russians military personnel are due to camp out in Azerbaijan for the next 5 years with a possibility of extending their stay for another 5.

Notwithstanding this unknown, the deal is quite alright for Aliyev. And it comes at the right time. Over the past month, he did manage to show Armenian that Azerbaijan is militarily superior, and not just by a little bit, but by a huge margin. The military victories scored are a vindication of sorts, payback, for the brutal defeat Azerbaijan suffered at the hands of the Armenian forces in the 1992–1994 war when they lost Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Aliyev received a clear commitment from Armenia for a full military withdrawal, with timelines. He is getting all adjacent territories back, spare Nagorno-Karabakh which will be protected by the Russian peacekeepers until a final settlement is reached. The peace agreement recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan which is a moral and a legal victory for the Azeris.

The one big loser of this outcome is Europe. The EU has failed, yet again, and in a spectacular fashion, to be a relevant player and a peace maker on its eastern periphery. Having watched Russia dice up Ukraine, we now watched Putin score another geostrategic prize. With Russian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh Putin has made himself the de-facto custodian of the South Caucasus corridor which links Europe to Central Asia, Persia and Russia’s hinterland.

The corridor was always a relevant trading throughway for goods coming and going between Europe and Asia. Today major energy lines pass through here carrying Caspian oil and gas to Europe and world markets. Alexander the Great understood this. So did the Ottomans. Putin took note of history and played his cards perfectly.

Since the fighting broke out European foreign policy managed no more than a few statements urging all sides to lay down weapons and return to the negotiating table. The head honcho of EU foreign policy, Mr. Borell, obsessively talked about the OSCE Minsk Process. President Macron couldn’t get past a bickering fest with Turkey over its backing of Azerbaijan. And nobody, nobody heard what President Aliyev had to say from the very start of the war: we are not going back to the negotiating table until we have our land back, or at the very least a timetable from Armenia for a full withdrawal of its forces. Europe underestimated Aliyev’s resolve and his military’s readiness. A spectacular failure of intel.

While it is true that by staking a foothold in the South Caucasus Europe would take on the burden of a regional peace maker. The long-term benefits however, namely confronting China’s growing influence deep in Central Asia rather than on our eastern and southern peripheries, make the short-term pains well worth it.

How do we fix this strategic mess up? The Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is a done deal. Russia bagged this one. The OSCE Minsk Process is dead. Georgia on the other hand is still in open play. The EU must urgently reach out to Tbilisi and strike a strategic, economic and a military partnership with Georgia, which would in the not-too-distant future convert to full integration of the country into the Euro-atlantic family. From there, the EU can structure and develop a comprehensive regional engagement policy able to compete head on with Russian and Turkey over strategic influence and control in the entire South Caucasus corridor.

Anything short of a grand ambition at this point is synonymous with Europe’s capitulation to Russia once again. European geopolitics is bankrupt. If Brussels wants to be a player on the global stage this is our final chance to swap words for action and start swinging the bat like we mean to hit a home run.