The South Caucasus war has no spillover effect

The new South Caucasus war raging between Armenia and Azerbaijan for almost a month now has spooked the western analysts and armchair experts into believing that a major regional conflict is on the doorstep. Ready set go.

Not so fast. This conflict is a neighborly matter and it has no potential to really affect the regional power dynamic or alter the balance of power between the east and west, or Islam and Christianity. The amount of nonsense that has gone to print over the outbreak of this war is staggering and misleading.

Let’s start with the facts. There is a legal case which justifies Azerbaijan’s claims to its territory couched in numerous UN Security Council Resolutions, in the UN Charter — the right to self defense against foreign occupation — and in international recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. No country has recognized the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, not even Armenia, though its firebrand Prime Minister likes to provoke publicly by equating Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

There is a humanitarian case for the final resolution of this conflict too. The close to one million IDPs and refugees on the Azerbaijani side, which need closure to their displacement from the area following the 1992–1994 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan which resulted in the Armenian occupation. This occupation continues, despite unequivocal international demands for Armenia to withdraw its forces. Nobody in the international community is endorsing this occupation, not the Americans, not the Russians, not the Europeans. Least of all the Turks.

When Azerbaijan says we want our land back, why would any one of the major powers object, or interfere to try to stop Baku? Especially now. There is a real pandemic engulfing the world — the second wave of COVID looks worse than the first. Europe is locking up, shutting down and looking inward, even more so than before. And Europe has never been particularly involved in this region outside of its energy interests, lobbying Azerbaijan to send its gas to the EU. Security in the South Caucasus has always been a French issue, or rather a French Armenian diaspora issue. But with the pandemic pressing again, France faces a new total shutdown; what will this mean for an already struggling French economy? President Macron has a lot that keeps him up at night, and Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is probably not on his top ten to do list.

The US is in the final stretch of its Presidential election. All eyes are on Biden and Trump, and the last two weeks of the campaign. And no matter who wins, Biden or Trump, US foreign policy in the South Caucasus will not be upgraded anytime soon. The next year will go to managing COVID and mounting an economic recovery. Plus, facing a 3 trillion budget deficit, American foreign policy is likely to be on a tight budget for a while.

Russia for its part has no political interest to help an Armenian Prime Minister which has been openly critical of the Kremlin. It has no extra money to spend, and it is already militarily stretched across three fronts — Ukraine (indirectly), Syria and Libya. For Moscow, Azerbaijan’s victory in this war might even be a good deal. They would improve their relationship with Baku if they stay out of it. And two, Prime Minister Pashinyan will probably be toppled if he loses the war — and he might — and replaced with someone more agreeable and amenable to Russia’s interests in Armenia.

This leaves Turkey, which has been engaged in the Caucasus-Caspian region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Turkey’s role in supporting Azerbaijan is nothing new. It is certainly not new in Baku. It is certainly not an item of surprise to Moscow, which has been eying Turkey’s growing influence in Central Asia for over two decades now. Ankara’s close links to Azerbaijan are of no surprise to the US either. Under Trump, America has openly supported a greater Turkish regional role. Maybe the EU is surprised, which is strange, or rather hypocritical. Fifteen years back, when Erdogan was Turkey’s newly elected Prime Minister, he set his goal and ambition on bringing Turkey into the EU. But the EU said no. Loud and clear. Erdogan spent the next five years begging and pleading, and the EU still said no. Then he gave up, and forged a new regional role for Turkey, which is now on full display. Touché EU.

But in all of this, there is no conflict of interest amongst the major powers in the South Caucasus. There is not even as much as a disagreement on what is politically achievable, legal, and historically just. There is broad agreement amongst all of the above-mentioned external actors that Azerbaijan should get its land back. There is unanimous agreement that the OSCE led peace process was dragging on for too long without results. Nobody is happy about the war. And equally so, nobody is particularly bothered by it either.