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Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan
Hacksaw
J. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
J. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
Azerbaijan has started military action against Armenian NK, claiming to be rooting out "illegally-armed Armenian terrorist groups" within the region. Here's a story from CNN with some background (emphasis mine):
More behind the link.
Things aren't looking good for the region, I must say. It seems the conflict in Ukraine is having all sorts of nasty externalities for folks near and far. I hope for a speedy and peaceful resolution to this mess, for the sake of all the people who will otherwise be ground up like meat in the jaws of the war machine should this develop into a full-blown shooting war between two nations.
(CNN) — At least 200 people have been killed and over 400 others wounded in a military operation by Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to an official in Armenian-controlled territory there.
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the region, an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan and which has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.
The office of the ombudsman in Nagorno-Karabakh said at least 200 people had died, including ten confirmed civilian deaths and five children, in a statement online late on Wednesday, after Armenian media and local authorities reported heavy bombardment of the regional capital of Stepanakert.
Tensions have been simmering around the region for months, after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor in December, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and preventing the import of food to its roughly 120,000 inhabitants.
More behind the link.
Things aren't looking good for the region, I must say. It seems the conflict in Ukraine is having all sorts of nasty externalities for folks near and far. I hope for a speedy and peaceful resolution to this mess, for the sake of all the people who will otherwise be ground up like meat in the jaws of the war machine should this develop into a full-blown shooting war between two nations.
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Nagorno-Karabakh Is also recognized by the UN and the West as Azeri territory, so the Armenians can only play the hand they were given: Give up any claims to N-K in exchange for Western help to keep the territory they can defend.
This is the obvious place, but without Russia the former Soviet countries not in the EU/NATO were always going to heat up.
There's still some issues to sort, but deal is: Either accept Azeri rule or leave to Armenia. Plenty of pictures on Twitter of refugees making their way to the Armenian border or the airports because Artsakh is officially dissolved. Oh and pity the poor bastards making their way to Russia, they are likely to get shoved to the Ukranian frontlines.
It's a constant source of cause belle for both sides. Either stoking secessionist movements and the tried and true rhetoric of 'protecting our ethnic brother in neighboring country', or various attempt of exerting control over that territory, across the spectrum from legitimate administration and anti terrorism to genocide.
Their denials aside, the Armenian military has armed forces operating inside another country, that isn't a situation that an Azeri government, or any government, can continence.
Protests in the Armenian capital calling the resignation of the PM, because that's what's happens when leaders sign surrenders, people get mad. And is Armenia Independance Day to boot, so all the "congratulation" posts from countries backing Azerbaijan on this (so, all of them) are coming off as adding insult to injury. They are specially mad at Russia, since Russia was supposed to be their ally and let them to rot, so they had to accept the terms of surrender set by Azerbaijan and the West.
There's reports of Armenian general Karen Javalyan and his soldiers deciding to not obey the surrender, so clashes on Nagorno-Karabakh are going to keep going while that gets handled.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/confidence-and-catastrophe-armenia-and-the-second-nagorno-karabakh-war/
Armenia has been weaker then Azerbaijan for basically always but has postured, internally and externally, for ages now. And relied largely on their ally Russia to keep people from testing them. Until 2020. And now that Russia is weaker then ever, Azerbaijan sees no reason to continue to prop up Armenia's delusions.
(for reference Azerbaijan is allied with Turkey and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is also a Russia-Turkey proxy conflict)
In other words, a bunch of delusion and magical thinking fed by Russia that got out of their control. Now with a weaker Russia, the illusions were stripped away. Or, as Putin himself puts it, from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
Even from Russia, the mood is "let's get this over with", ditto Azerbaijan and the West. That article does show Pashinyan as an imbecile selling bullshit to get votes and then getting put on his place by the bigger countries.
Well its probably ethnic cleansing which is the kind of thing people hold a grudge over for centuries so idk about it being good for long term peace.
"With allies like this", etc, etc. Overall, this is a done thing. N-K residents are, understandably, not wanting to stay in a country that led a siege against them over 9 months after Russia left the Lachin corridor, and with Russia washing their hands off the whole thing, the UN Security Council meeting was about starting a framework to negotiate letting aid through in preparation to the relocation to Armenia.
And so, outside of the region, the whole thing will just be an example of the loss of Russian international influence.
There's pills that can help with that.
The CSTO would need a lot of pills.
The Armenia-Russia relationship had been failing long before Russia and the CSTO were failing. Their new government in 2018 was already making moves that were distancing themselves from the Russians. Not hugely so but the Russians noticed and were annoyed. They wanted to pull away from the Russian sphere of influence, like Ukraine or Georgia, without really acknowledging just how dependant they were on the Russians to not get steamrolled.
Is a moot point now. Russia has no longer the capacity to do anything about it in one way or the other, so this, like all parts of the former Soviet bloc that were on their security sphere, are heating up.
Armenians are screwed. Completely screwed. So far, that the only way that they are going to be allowed to continue to exist as a country is to first, shield themselves under international law, which means signing on the ICC, which means cutting relationships with Russia anyways because Putin has an arrest warrant. And second, to cave to Azerbaijan and Turkey. On everything. There's this other chunk of territory on the Western side of Armenia called Nakhchivan, which, well:
Completely landlocked, international law says that is Azerbaijan territory and so on. Azerbaijan just conquered everything on the Eastern side of Armenia now, so they want full access to and from Nakhchivan since that's a border with Iran, up to having Turkish military bases on it with full free access, and that's what's going to happen since Armenia can't do anything about it.
It's the other way around actually. Armenia was already pulling back from the Russians before anything happened with Azerbaijan that involved CSTO.
It's genocide don't use the baby language that isn't a actual crime (by definition)
120000 people displaced and who k ows how many are actually going to be alive since Azerbaijan loves doing war crimes plus crimes against humanity
Didn't the hostilities already cease, after only like 7 hours?
e: Also characterizing the Azerbaijan as the aggressor for throwing out an army substantially funded, supplied, and even manned by Armenia inside their country strikes me as a bit slanted.
Define "pulling back". Putin major problem with Armenia started when protests ousted corrupt pro-Kremlin government, despite this Armenia kept very pro-Russian policy, even when it were getting barely anything in return, to the point where Russia was selling weapons to Azerbaijan. Putin problem with it is ostensibly same he has with Ukraine: he cant accept idea of people overthrowing corrupt strongman in post-Soviet republic and things actually getting better for them.
BTW there are calls for "many Russian expats in Armenia" to join anti-Pashinyan protests to fight "American influence" among propagandists, also they spread photoshoped photo of Pashinyan together with Soros. And I honestly do not know why Russian government is so obsessed with him, most people do not even have any idea who he is here. Also great delusion, why would you think it will even work?
Protest is ongoing, but locals tell it is smaller scale then in 2020, major calming factor is general despair about alternatives.
Side note: among reactions of Russian talking heads, there was one sentence that stuck in my mind, courtesy of Medvedev about Armenian PM: "he should be long gone, but somehow kept power despite losing war". Yeah, I feel a lot of fears projected here.
And that was following from the Armenian genocide*, which stemmed from... you can literally trace this back to the Hellenistic period, before the cultures and religions involved today even existed. And where the line doesn't even end but passes into pre-literate obscurity. These cycles are *very* hard to break.
*-Which is worth remembering that while the US currently recognizes the genocide we still haven't gotten our act together long enough to get rid of binding polices to the contrary, at best we've thrown a tarp over the elephant in the room and at worse we're one questionable election away from returning to denial. Reagan, Obama, and Biden acknowledged the genocide but were not supported by Congress, while Bush II and Trump blocked both times Congress got their act together despite overwhelming bipartisan support. Turkey's involvement makes the conflict a minefield for anyone else to get involved in, even at the thoughts and prayers level.
I'm not sure what this has to do with my wishes for the Armenian people possibly facing yet another genocide to be granted a reprieve from further tragic devastation at the hands of a hostile enemy bent on brutalizing and/or exterminating them.
Yes, this is pulling back from their relationship. Armenia relied on Russia as their backer. The fact that said backing involved pro-Russian policy by corrupt politicians doesn't unfortunately change that. Their rhetoric was writing checks they couldn't cash without Russian backing.
And the important point for this quote chain is that all this happened before the CSTO revealed itself to be worth as much as a used baby wipe. Their moves away from Russia weren't because Russia didn't come to their aid when asked.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Armenia pivoting away from Russia. But you can't do that while still trying to push your much larger and more powerful neighbours around and expect it to work out well for you.
Better to do an exodus on their own terms than having to be under Azerbaijan, specially because the reason why Nagorno-Karabakh has mostly ethnic Armenians is because they got rid of the Azeris that lived there on the 90's. So that's what's going to happen. Russia, of course, as CrazyP mentions, is trying to stir up shit by blaming the West and Pashinyan, but it doesn't seem that anybody is biting:
There's protests because protests are what happens when leaders sign surrenders, but the lack of any options means that they won't amount to much.
EDIT: Today there's Twitter reports of the first refugees reaching Armenia.
What really sucks about that is the the few okayish options are effective dead because of various failures on both sides. Like a better run Armenia probably could have wrangled a deal where if Azurbaijan sovereignty would be recognized over Nagorno-Karabakh, but the region would be allowed some self autonomy. In exchange for that, they would allow a better setup for travel between Nakhchivan and the rest of Azurbaijan. Idea would have been to prevent another genocide, since some autonomy would probably curtail the worst impulses that a Azurbaijan government might have (mind you this would fall apart if the current Azurbaijan government is run by racist authoritarian assholes looking for a scapegoat, but a Azurbaijan government run by semi-reasonable people would have less leeway to outright genocidal policies, since they wouldn't want to trample on things. Ideally, a reasonable government would find the idea of genocide appalling). The access to Nakhchivan would be about trying to blunt any desire that Azurbaijan would have for land grabbing a corridor.
We'll have to see how things play out but I'm worried, that we'll see a push from Azurbaijan that they should get a land corridor to Nakhchivan; especially, since Armenia will have plenty of reasons to want to restrict the flow of traffic between Nakhchivan and the rest of Azurbaijan. Kind of can't fault a nation for cutting off the flow of traffic from a nation they just had to surrender, that is currently committing genocide against the ethnic majority of your nation.
Off course, Turkey makes this a god damn nightmare because they have clear goals in what they want and as far as they are concerned Armenia can get fucked. They are also a partner in a number of international organizations that other influential nations care about. So it really limits the chances of someone stepping up to the plate and offering Armenia a deal that would ensures their territorial integrity in a way that would discourage Azurbaijan from making a land grab. Given that such a deal would likely piss off Turkey because that would limit some of their goals.
I'd agree with the assessment that the main interest for Tukey is having access to bases so close to Iran. Granted, this also shows how shitty Turkey is because they could have easily supported Azurbaijan's sovereignty claims over Nagorno-Karabakh, but make it clear they will not support a landgrab to establish a corridor to Nakhchivan. After all, if they played nice with Armenia to an extent, they might be able to get their bases near Iran in Armenia as well, if the exchange is that "Okay, keep Azurbaijan from carving us up and you can have those bases."
Sure, Russia is for it likely because that's more forces that they can throw to Ukraine, and if they stay they are going to get eliminated by Turkish drone strikes (which is what got the 24 hour surrender), but still. And, overall, the main issue is that, without Russia, the situation is incredibly lopsided in favor of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan had 3-4 times the economy and the population, and they have been using oil to get deals since they lost those territories on the 90's after the post-Soviet collapse mad scramble. Meanwhile, Armenia has only gotten poorer, less educated (massive brain drain) and more corrupt since then. And that's without the religious issue.
Dunno man, my hunch is that sending Power, one of the hawkiest hawks who ever hawked, to a border with Iran, says that everybody is already setting up plans for how many new military bases are going to be part of the new arrangement.
Yep certainly no other reason to send her...
Like I know dangerous counter revolutionaries the US imperial boogy man is always under the bed, but Jesus
Yeah, the internet has this really weird discourse about Samantha Power that is wholely disconnected from her actual political positions. Probably her most defining position in foreign policy is her support for intervention to prevent genocide. It is not a mystery why she would be interested in the situation in the Armenia-Azerbaijan or why the US government would send her there.
Turkey has always wanted a land connection to Azerbaijan proper, so I feel like it is inevitable at this point that Turkey and Azerbaijan seize a corridor along the Iranian border. Only question is what justification they use and when, honestly surprised they haven’t done it already. I guess N-K was the lower hanging fruit here.
No, they don't. They just can involve the military. She's connected pretty strongly to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which grew out of a reaction to several genocides in the 90s and I'd say most specifically in Rwanda. And how the international community just kinda stood around and did almost nothing while it happened. And R2P basically asserts that the international community should has a responsibility to take action to prevent genocide.
Also, you know, NATO and Western interests also want Turkey to have that corridor since they are opposed to Iran, so.
The thing is there are few routes through that space which is sparsely populated mountains for the most part, one apparently hugs the Iranian border (which would probably not be ideal as a sole means of traffic.). The other runs through Sisian, which happens to be a hundred km north of the biggest Armenian population center in the area.
To make the thing work they’d need to expel 60,000 or more Armenians from those areas at least, in an area that has a lot less Azerbaijani population or historical Azerbaijani history than N-K. Its a genocide waiting to happen. I don’t think the west would be willing to look the other way on that just because “fuck Iran lol”, but it may not matter what the west thinks in the long run.
Which is likely what the US is helping to negotiate, besides coordinating the reception of refugees.