[Richard]

Prospects of war in Transcaucasia and Central Asia
Regnum News Agency, 31 Aug 2010
Part 2 of 3

3. Kosovo forever[/B]

The precedent of Kosovo independence recognition, as expected, resulted in radical change of the situation in Transcaucasia, where three territorial conflicts involving ethnic and religious elements have been smoldering.

Despite the fact that before the declaration and recognition of Kosovo independence, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia announced that conflict settlement in the region was developing irrelevantly to the outcomes of the developments in Kosovo, their behavior after the Kosovo precedent showed the opposite. In particular, the Kosovo independence was not recognized by Azerbaijan despite the contrary decision made by Turkey. Even the pro-American Georgian government refused to follow the example of Washington and recognize Kosovo. Meanwhile, the Armenian authorities did not rule out recognition of Kosovo, despite the unambiguously negative attitude of Russia and Iran. There is direct evidence of a situational behavior of Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Denying the precedent nature of Kosovo by word of mouth, the Transcaucasian nations treated it as precedent, each deciding to fill it with the contents the needed. Tbilisi is against Kosovo, as it does not want it to repeat globally in Abkhazia and South Ossetia; Baku opposes Kosovo as it does not want the same recognition of Karabakh; Yerevan backs it, as it is fighting for at least preserving the legal personality of Karabakh.

Kosovo rid the West of time, space for maneuver and pure political influence in Transcaucasia. Everyone here has no place to retreat; everyone has to hurry and substitute the voluntary “allied relations” with the West by primitive bargaining: it is evident to everyone that after Kosovo there won't be enough security for all.

After withdrawing the regime of economic sanctions against Abkhazia and deciding to render economic support to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia, although it did not declare its readiness to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, is bringing about integration of the two protectorates: when Georgia enters NATO, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are supposed to be fully secured from a possible aggression from Georgia.

Nevertheless, with direct military assistance of the western allies, Georgia has been intensely preparing itself for military settlement of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi are getting closer, Georgia will be increasing its military pressure in the conflict zones, blackmailing Russia with possible derailment of the Olympics (and renewal of the ethnic conflict in North Caucasus by expelling Ossetian population from South Ossetia).

Simultaneously, the USA and the European Union have stirred their activity in “peaceful” entrance to the settlement processes in Transdnestr, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, by offering to regional elites humanitarian, political and economic gains from the cooperation with the West, while counterweighing Russia's role at the same time. Top officials in Transdnestr and Abkhazia, the opposition in South Ossetia have already picked up the Western rhetoric of multipolar foreign policy as their official doctrines. Thus, there are trying to reduce their dependence from the changing Russian-American and Russian-European relations. At that, however, the West has not envisaged practical mechanisms of guaranteeing the capitulated nations and elites from Yugoslavia-style purges. All this is pushing Georgia and Moldova to give up peaceful settlement.

At the same time, the whole Georgian military and NATO military assistance are guided by not only offensive (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), but rear role of Georgia in future US activity against Iran as well as in activity of radical Muslims in Russia's North Caucasus.

Azerbaijan has been torpedoing the many-year effort of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the USA and France) in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. During a severe domestic crisis in Armenia, it persuaded the UN to adopt a resolution that weakened dramatically Armenia's positions in Karabakh, announced a possibility to dissolve the Minsk Group and warned that recognition of Nagorno Karabakh by Armenia would result in a war.

Meanwhile, the level of threats (from Georgia) and the weight of security guarantees for Abkhazia, South Ossetia (from Russia) cannot be compared with the realities of Nagorno Karabakh. While the former Georgian territories are under supervision of the CIS peacekeeping forces, are populated by Russian citizens and have common borders with Russia, Nagorno Karabakh is falling out of Russia's sphere of control. The only security guarantor of Nagorno Karabakh is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia. In recent years, Moscow has taken action to engage Nagorno Karabakh into the common political context with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr, but this was met with aversion by Armenia (in particular, representatives of Stepanakert were invited to hearings at the Russian State Duma on prospects of conflict settlement, but decided not to come under recommendation from Yerevan). Russia has already made it public that a war of Azerbaijan against Nagorno Karabakh would not serve as a reason for Armenia's CSTO partners to get into the operation.

The USA has made significantly active its effort in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. Within frameworks of the Minsk Group, basic settlement principles were elaborated: the Armenians agree to return to Azerbaijan five of the seven occupied territories around the territory of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Republic, into which Azerbaijani refugees return, peacekeepers from countries that are not members of the Minsk Group are deployed there, communications restored. Only after that a stage-by-stage settlement of the question of the status of Nagorno Karabakh will be started: Nagorno Karabakh is proposed to be granted postponed status that would be finally formalized after a referendum in 10-15 years (the format of such a referendum was not specified). It is evident that the settlement scenario proposed by the USA in the current situation can suit only Armenia. Together with the format of settlement with participation of the OSCE Minsk Group the plan was torpedoed by Azerbaijan as well, which pushed Armenia towards NATO even more.

After the Russian military base was withdrawn from Akhalkalaki (a southern Georgian territory populated mostly by Armenians), Armenia started having serious concerns about a prospect of establishing a base for soonest deployment of the “northern front.” Implementation of the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway construction project will contribute to it as well. A possible blockade from the north (from Georgia) would assign the position of a communications dead-end to Armenia even taking into account the still existing route via Megri, Armenia, to Iran. All this helps popularizing among the Armenians the idea that only Armenia can become an effective partner for NATO in the region, as Georgia's joining NATO would deteriorate the situation around Abkhazia and South Ossetia, increase the confrontation between NATO and Russia, and Azerbaijan's membership to NATO will only help strengthening Turkey's stance in the region.

The USA will be increasing its pressure upon Armenia (where social protest is still active and the level of confidence in the government is low) in order to withdraw it from the orbit of Moscow's influence. In the near future, the USA and the EU will take part in construction of a new nuclear power plant in Armenia, which will allow influencing the energy security of not only Armenia but the rest countries in the region as well, they will also actively promoting ex-foreign minister Raffi Hovhannisyan for the presidential post. Further deterioration of the domestic political situation in Armenia (and upcoming election of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the second term) will have as a result destabilization in Karabakh. So, Armenia is interested in the settlement under the patronage of the United States, as it has no economic capabilities to maintain the status quo around Karabakh, while Azerbaijan and Turkey, Iran and Russia are not interested in the settlement under the American scenario.

This makes Russia engaged into regional conflicts in Transcaucasia, however, without providing acceptable starting opportunities for it in the region. Meanwhile, technically military preparedness of Georgia and Azerbaijan for conflicts is very high, however, it is low motivated among the troops. When Chechen units joined Russian peacekeepers changed dramatically the psychological portrait of the seat of war to Russia's benefit, but it does not change its passive defensive conception. Understanding disastrous outcomes of a future war in Karabakh also affects readiness of Armenia for a war with Azerbaijan. Such “war of nerves” puts the prospect of war in the extremely militarized Transcaucasia into dependence not on strategic, controllable factors, but rather upon a poorly controllable spontaneous “ignition” in front of which interests of regional powers and transregional communication projects are equally vulnerable.

(cont'd)