Analytical articles for weekend reading
Peter Preston
guardian.co.uk,
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 19 September 2010 19.00 BST
Ece Temelkuran is brilliant and beautiful – but, above all, brave. You have to be brave
Ece Temelkuran is brilliant and beautiful – but, above all, brave. You have to be brave
if you're a Turkish journalist covering Armenia, with genocide, cynicism, and truth shredded
over 95 years. Temelkuran writes about Yerevan and Ankara and mutual incomprehension,
but she could be writing about Cyprus, Kashmir, Korea, Israel; anywhere that is locked in a
timewarp of malign remembrance.
In 1915 Ottoman Turkey systematically killed or deported Armenians; an act of genocide in
which up to a million and a half people died. But why does 1915 matter in 2010? It was the
question that Temelkuran's murdered friend, the Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, asked, and the
question Temelkuran set out to answer. To those who live just over the ludicrously sealed
border from Turkey, it matters because that was when the killing began and Armenians
became another giant diaspora, scattered from Los Angeles to Paris. It matters because
Turkey's still unacknowledged responsibility for those mass murders binds the new, utterly
impoverished Armenian state together. It matters because the French part of the diaspora
has built an entire emotional theory of nationhood on Ankara's refusal to confront its past
and just say "sorry". It matters in LA because genocide means reparations and lawyers and
zillions of dollars.
And it matters to us because understanding this distant but strangely potent fury helps us
understand something far beyond Ararat, the Deep Mountain of Temelkuran's recently
published analysis. She's explaining something that the English in particular can barely
comprehend. History for us is a moribund, inert business. It doesn't bring out boiling
passions. We've "moved on" so comprehensively that we don't quite recall where we came
from.
The world in the shadow of Armenia's deep mountain is different. Sometimes it feels as
though the slaughter was yesterday, not sealed in the tales of grandmothers. Why are the
stories that survive always filled with pain, Temelkuran asks. Because pain and suffering
ndures while happiness fades. Misery is halfway to myth. It unites; and, alas, it deludes.
You see it in Cyprus when Greek Cypriots who weren't born at the time of Turkish
occupation 40 years ago grieve for their lost homes in the north. You feel it when you talk
to Koreans about the cousins they've never met across the 39th parallel. From the Holocaust
museum in Berlin to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the past defines the future of the Middle
East.
"Remembering takes two," Temelkuran writes. "If there's no one to remember with you, the
things you remember never existed, never happened, vanish. A nation can opt to forget en
masse." But equally a land can have a memory, "made up not of the recollections of individuals,
but of the concerted efforts of a people who have decided to remember".
Armenia, a nation that has decided to remember, is important because it is a template for
passion preserved. You can travel the diaspora and dissect its refusal to abandon the causes
of 1915 (even though so many ordinary people, interviewed alone, don't really know what it's
about any longer, or what would end it). But you can also, if you're wise, try to deconstruct this
baffling legacy of leftover pain.
It isn't about what happened in 1915. Nobody alive remembers that. But it's an instant,
irresistible definition of what being Armenian means. It explains, throughout the diaspora,
why things are the way they are. It seeks to conclude that nothing can change. And when, as
last week, I hear two of the wisest Israelis I know say quietly that, against all odds, these peace
talks will succeed, because "we are all so tired, so weary for peace", then the Ararat test is the
one to set. Can Jews and Arabs opt to forget en masse?
See comments on this article by clicking on
WAITING FOR ARMENIA
By GARIN HOVANNISIAN
International Herald Tribune
Sept 21 2010
France
NEW YORK ~W Across an ocean and a continent, on a sliver of land
tucked between two seas, a little republic enters its 20th year of
independence. I know a man there, an American by birth, who quit his
law firm in Los Angeles around this time 20 years ago and decided he
had no further business in the United States.
It was a romantic time. One by one the 15 Soviet satellite republics
were breaking from the Kremlin~Rs orbit and exiled sons were returning
to their homelands to share in the creation of new states.
My father, Raffi K. Hovannisian, once a football star on the Pali
High Dolphins, quit his law firm and moved with wife and children
to Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. After independence was
officially declared on September 21, 1991, my father was told he was
the republic~Rs first minister of foreign affairs and handed a fax
machine and a first month~Rs paycheck of 600 rubles ~W $143.
All across the Soviet plains, the seeds of democracy were being
sown into soil tyrannized for generations, and no one doubted that
they would grow. Certainly my father didn~Rt. Within a year, he had
established diplomatic relations with every major democracy in the
world. He had raised the red, blue and orange Armenian flag at United
Nations headquarters in New York.
That was 20 years ago.
The shadow of history soon closed in on the Armenians. The capital
went dark. Faucets dried up. Grain shipments stopped coming in.
Suddenly, as if for the first time, the Armenians realized where
they were: to the west, a history of horror with Turkey, the memory
of genocide in 1915; to the east, the anticipation of war with
Azerbaijan, occupant of the ancient Armenian enclave of Artsakh,
or Nagorno Karabakh.
It is a dangerous thing, when survival becomes the sole ambition of a
people. But that is what happened to the Armenians in the years after
independence. They lost their hope, their cause, their conviction.
They were not as generous as they used to be. And the old Soviet
symptoms reappeared.
On the streets of Yerevan, a generation of child beggars emerged.
Policemen waved batons for two-dollar bribes. Teachers worked for
bribes, too. The president came to control every judge, prosecutor
and public defendant who wanted to keep his job. There never was
a fair trial in Armenia, and never a free election. The incumbent
never lost a race. The loser never went home without first leading
a mob of a hundred thousand citizens through the capital.
In 1999, during a session of Parliament, all the president~Rs
adversaries were assassinated.
My father had long resigned from the Yerevan government, but he,
at least, never gave up the dream. In 2001, he gave up his American
passport once and for all. The following year, he founded Heritage,
a national-liberal party, which is now the opposition in the Yerevan
Parliament. To this day, my father is admired by his people ~W in a
recent poll, Gallup pegged his popularity at 82 percent. But not for
the obvious reasons.
~SAchke kusht e,~T the people say of him, ~SHis eye is full.~T In
other words: the man has seen the world, and he~Rs not in politics
for the money. In Armenia, that is enough.
Today the Yerevan government is linked to a group of powerful
businessmen, the ~Soligarchs,~T who control the political game. One of
them has the monopoly on gas, another the monopoly on sugar and flour,
and all of them have nicknames, armies of bodyguards, and fleets of
luxury cars escorting them ostentatiously through the city.
The oligarchs are multimillionaires, the lot of them, though they
have incurred great debts to the original power tycoons surrounding
the Kremlin in Moscow, to whom they have been selling the country~Rs
gold mines and electricity plants. And they are ready to sell much
more than that.
Last month, Armenia hosted a summit of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization, a post-Soviet alliance including Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ~W all republics unclaimed by the
West that are now following an ancient gravity to its source in mother
Russia. During the August meeting of the organization, Russia secured
a 24-year extension of its lease on a key military base in Armenia.
Actually, lease isn~Rt the word; the base is funded and sustained
entirely by the Armenian state.
So you can see why today, in Yerevan, there is not much independence
or democracy left to celebrate. By now my father, too, must see what
his romanticism has long prevented him from seeing: Armenia is not
free, not independent, not united. The Soviet soil has spit out the
seeds of democracy.
Of course we hope ~W we know ~W that the tree of liberty will grow
from that soil one day. But not today, not until it is refreshed
by the blood of patriots and tyrants ~W both of which, I~Rm afraid,
Armenia has plenty of.
Garin Hovannisian is the author of ~SFamily of Shadows: A Century of
Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream.
By GARIN HOVANNISIAN
International Herald Tribune
Sept 21 2010
France
NEW YORK ~W Across an ocean and a continent, on a sliver of land
tucked between two seas, a little republic enters its 20th year of
independence. I know a man there, an American by birth, who quit his
law firm in Los Angeles around this time 20 years ago and decided he
had no further business in the United States.
It was a romantic time. One by one the 15 Soviet satellite republics
were breaking from the Kremlin~Rs orbit and exiled sons were returning
to their homelands to share in the creation of new states.
My father, Raffi K. Hovannisian, once a football star on the Pali
High Dolphins, quit his law firm and moved with wife and children
to Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. After independence was
officially declared on September 21, 1991, my father was told he was
the republic~Rs first minister of foreign affairs and handed a fax
machine and a first month~Rs paycheck of 600 rubles ~W $143.
All across the Soviet plains, the seeds of democracy were being
sown into soil tyrannized for generations, and no one doubted that
they would grow. Certainly my father didn~Rt. Within a year, he had
established diplomatic relations with every major democracy in the
world. He had raised the red, blue and orange Armenian flag at United
Nations headquarters in New York.
That was 20 years ago.
The shadow of history soon closed in on the Armenians. The capital
went dark. Faucets dried up. Grain shipments stopped coming in.
Suddenly, as if for the first time, the Armenians realized where
they were: to the west, a history of horror with Turkey, the memory
of genocide in 1915; to the east, the anticipation of war with
Azerbaijan, occupant of the ancient Armenian enclave of Artsakh,
or Nagorno Karabakh.
It is a dangerous thing, when survival becomes the sole ambition of a
people. But that is what happened to the Armenians in the years after
independence. They lost their hope, their cause, their conviction.
They were not as generous as they used to be. And the old Soviet
symptoms reappeared.
On the streets of Yerevan, a generation of child beggars emerged.
Policemen waved batons for two-dollar bribes. Teachers worked for
bribes, too. The president came to control every judge, prosecutor
and public defendant who wanted to keep his job. There never was
a fair trial in Armenia, and never a free election. The incumbent
never lost a race. The loser never went home without first leading
a mob of a hundred thousand citizens through the capital.
In 1999, during a session of Parliament, all the president~Rs
adversaries were assassinated.
My father had long resigned from the Yerevan government, but he,
at least, never gave up the dream. In 2001, he gave up his American
passport once and for all. The following year, he founded Heritage,
a national-liberal party, which is now the opposition in the Yerevan
Parliament. To this day, my father is admired by his people ~W in a
recent poll, Gallup pegged his popularity at 82 percent. But not for
the obvious reasons.
~SAchke kusht e,~T the people say of him, ~SHis eye is full.~T In
other words: the man has seen the world, and he~Rs not in politics
for the money. In Armenia, that is enough.
Today the Yerevan government is linked to a group of powerful
businessmen, the ~Soligarchs,~T who control the political game. One of
them has the monopoly on gas, another the monopoly on sugar and flour,
and all of them have nicknames, armies of bodyguards, and fleets of
luxury cars escorting them ostentatiously through the city.
The oligarchs are multimillionaires, the lot of them, though they
have incurred great debts to the original power tycoons surrounding
the Kremlin in Moscow, to whom they have been selling the country~Rs
gold mines and electricity plants. And they are ready to sell much
more than that.
Last month, Armenia hosted a summit of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization, a post-Soviet alliance including Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ~W all republics unclaimed by the
West that are now following an ancient gravity to its source in mother
Russia. During the August meeting of the organization, Russia secured
a 24-year extension of its lease on a key military base in Armenia.
Actually, lease isn~Rt the word; the base is funded and sustained
entirely by the Armenian state.
So you can see why today, in Yerevan, there is not much independence
or democracy left to celebrate. By now my father, too, must see what
his romanticism has long prevented him from seeing: Armenia is not
free, not independent, not united. The Soviet soil has spit out the
seeds of democracy.
Of course we hope ~W we know ~W that the tree of liberty will grow
from that soil one day. But not today, not until it is refreshed
by the blood of patriots and tyrants ~W both of which, I~Rm afraid,
Armenia has plenty of.
Garin Hovannisian is the author of ~SFamily of Shadows: A Century of
Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream.
'SECULAR' DOESN'T MEAN 'LIBERAL'
Hurriyet
Sept 21 2010
Turkey
Contrary to some deep-seated clichés, 'secular' and 'liberal' don't
necessarily go hand in hand in Turkey. Believe it or not, they can
even be strongly at odds.
One of the interesting results of the constitutional amendment
referendum that Turkey held the other Sunday was the demographics of
"yes" and "no." Almost all cities whose majority said "no" were on the
sunny coastlines of the Aegean and Mediterranean. On the other hand,
almost all inland cities opted heavily for "yes." No wonder Turkish
pundits have been discussing the division between "the coasts versus
the rest."
Aslı AydıntaÅ~_baÅ~_, a fellow journalist and a good friend, was
also referring to the same division in her recent piece in the Wall
Street Journal. "It's a familiar story for Americans," she noted, with
reference to Turkey. "A divided map, red states versus blue states,
with the liberal, secular and more affluent coastline pitted against
the conservative heartland."
Red versus blue?
I would beg to differ with Aslı, though - albeit only partly. It
is true that "coastal Turkey," like America's "blue states," is more
secular in lifestyle when compared with the "conservative heartlands"
of both countries. But it would be a mistake to perceive, and present,
this more secular side of Turkey as "liberal." For, contrary to some
deep-seated clichés, "secular" and "liberal" don't necessarily go
hand in hand here.
You can see this right at the outset by looking at our intellectual
wars. In America, the two main sides of those conflicts are
"secular liberals" and "religious conservatives." In Turkey, though,
"secularists" and "liberals" are often at odds with each other.
This is not a mere accident, because the self-styled secularism of
Turkey, all too popular along the coastlines we are speaking about,
is at odds with all the basic principles of liberalism - such as
individual freedom, limited government and tolerance of diversity. A
Turkish liberal, therefore, would support the right to wear both a
miniskirt and a headscarf. The typical secularist, though, would call
on the tyrannical powers of the state to eradicate the latter.
The worse news is that the illiberalism of Turkish secularists goes
beyond matters of religion. Most of them are also staunchly nationalist
- which is, in fact, almost their ersatz religion. That's why the
"secular coastlines" that we are speaking about are also the hotbeds
of anti-Kurdish hype, along with harboring a strong aversion to the
European Union.
Ä°zmir, the Aegean town which is Turkey's third-largest city and which
gave the highest "no" vote in the recent referendum at 63 percent,
is a good case study. The city is famous for being very secular and
"progressive," to the level of being labeled (rudely of course)
"the infidel Ä°zmir" by some conservatives. But Ä°zmir is also
where a peaceful demonstration by a pro-Kurdish political party was
literally stoned last year by girls in tight jeans and boys wearing
Ataturk pins. And when the unabashedly racist "Toplumcu Budun Dernegi"
(Socialist Nation Society), an Ä°zmir-based group, organized a rally
in 2005 titled "The Increase of the Kurdish Population Should be
Stopped!" it found only popular support among the city's residents.
The capital of fascism
Citing such examples, liberal commentator Rasim Ozan Kutahyalı, an
Ä°zmir-born Turk himself, recently wrote that the city has become "the
capital of fascism in Turkey." Prominent Ä°zmiris, in return, declared
him persona non grata. Meanwhile, they keep on electing deputies such
as Canan Arıtman, the parliamentary deputy who condemned President
Abdullah Gul's rapprochement effort with Armenia as high treason and
"accused" the president of being a "crypto-Armenian."
And when the ancient Armenian church in Akdamar, Van was reopened
last Sunday to worship after being empty for 95 years - a move which I
applauded, and found only insufficient - do you know which newspaper
voiced a strong protest? Not the Islamic press, not even the boldly
Islamist Vakit. It was Yenicag - a ferociously nationalist paper whose
motto presents a huge photo of Ataturk. Under a disgusting headline,
"Armenian Mass on the Rape Island," the paper alleged that Akdamar
was a place where Armenian militias raped Muslim women during World
War I and called it the government's betrayal to reopen this place
"to the grandsons of the rapists."
Of course, I am not saying that all secular-minded people in Turkey
are die-hard fascists like this, or even necessarily illiberal. That
would be most untrue and unfair. What is fair to say, though, is that
if we are going to speak about "secularists versus conservatives" in
Turkey, the former group really does not represent a more liberal or
democratic mindset. Quite the contrary: While the conservatives have
shown progress in the past decade, evidenced by their support for EU
reforms, most secularists have grown growingly paranoid and xenophobic.
This might be a big surprise for some. But it shouldn't be. There
is really nothing, after all, which makes a secular mind inherently
more open, civic or tolerant than a religious one - a lesson the world
should have learnt by now after its secular experiences under Hitler,
Stalin, Mao and the like.
WILL GAS HELP RESOLVE THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT?
21 September 2010
21 September 2010
Samuel Lussac Ph.D.
International Relations
Institute of Political Science of Bordeaux
International Relations
Institute of Political Science of Bordeaux
Today.Az
Since August 2010, a rumor is spreading that the Azerbaijani State oil
Since August 2010, a rumor is spreading that the Azerbaijani State oil
company, SOCAR, would be about to bid for the North-South pipeline,
which ships Russian gas from Mozdok to Yerevan through Georgia. Such
a move would give Baku control over 10-15% of the pipeline that delivers
80% of the Armenian gas imports, hence giving it new leverage over Yerevan.
It especially sheds light into the new strategy of Azerbaijan regarding the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. While the shootouts have been increasing lately,
Baku intends to use gas development to exert more pressure over Armenia.
BACKGROUND
At the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan was a weak country that had
BACKGROUND
At the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan was a weak country that had
little except oil to attract the interest of international actors and great powers.
Azerbaijani leaders quickly acknowledged this situation, hence defining oil
development as a foreign policy tool. The composition of the Azerbaijan
International Operating Company, which extracts oil from the
Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oilfields, perfectly fit into this strategy. The United
States (thanks to Amoco, McDermott, Pennzoil, and Unocal) were notably
represented within it, as well as Europe (BP, Statoil, and Ramco) and Russia
(Lukoil).
However, the main hope was to relate oil development to the resolution of the
However, the main hope was to relate oil development to the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Since the ceasefire of May 1994, close to 20%
of Azerbaijan’s territory was occupied, including the Lachin corridor. Following
an idea from the U.S. National Security Council, Unocal pledged in early 1995
to build a “peace pipeline” that would cross Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia
into Turkey. In the meantime, Heydar Aliyev proposed to his Armenian
counterpart Levon Ter-Petrossian to link Azerbaijani oil exports to the Armenian
withdrawal from the occupied territories.
Neither proposal produced any result. While waiting for Yerevan’s answer to
Neither proposal produced any result. While waiting for Yerevan’s answer to
his proposal, Heydar Aliyev committed to a dual export option for Azerbaijani
oil, one pipeline going north through Russia and another going west through
Georgia. Moreover, leading international companies – Amoco and BP – firmly
rejected the possibility that oil export would be tied up to the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both companies considered the instability of this
region to pose a serious risk to the export routes.
This failure caused a reconsideration of the diplomatic impact of oil. Baku then
This failure caused a reconsideration of the diplomatic impact of oil. Baku then
perceived it as a tool for obtaining aid from international financial institutions
and to gain international political support in the resolution of the Nagorno
-Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan hoped that the rising European and U.S.
interests in its hydrocarbon resources would play in its favor on this issue. It
also asked the U.S. companies to lobby in Washington for the suspension of
Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which bans U.S. support to
Azerbaijan. While Section 907 was finally softened in October 2001, this
strategy has so far been a failure. Neither the European Union, nor the United
States have increased their support for Baku in the negotiations on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
IMPLICATIONS
When he came to power in late 2003, Ilham Aliyev decided to reconsider this
IMPLICATIONS
When he came to power in late 2003, Ilham Aliyev decided to reconsider this
energy strategy for the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict. He first decided to unify
the Azerbaijani energy sector so as to further intertwine hydrocarbons
development with foreign policy. He appointed young and reliable people to key
positions, providing him with unambiguous control over the country’s energy
policy. SOCAR progressively became the leading company in this sector,
notably merging with Azerigaz in 2009 and with Azerkimya in 2010. Presently,
it is the strongest actor on the Azerbaijani energy market, controlling the
production, transportation and sale of Azerbaijani hydrocarbons resources.
Once SOCAR had strengthened its position in Azerbaijan, it started investing
Once SOCAR had strengthened its position in Azerbaijan, it started investing
in the neighborhood, mainly in Georgia and Turkey. In the former, it rapidly
turned into the largest foreign investor (having invested around US$ 470 million
so far), controlling the Georgian gas market thanks to SOCAR Energy Georgia.
This helped foster cooperation between Baku and Tbilisi, giving Azerbaijan
more influence over Georgian regional policy. Since the Georgian Parliament
approved the bill in early June, allowing for the privatization of the Georgian
portion of the North-South pipeline, SOCAR has been considered as the favorite
candidate – despite competition from Gazprom and KazMunaiGas – to take
control of the pipeline due to its preferential relationship with the Georgian
government. SOCAR is now the largest energy actor in Georgia and there is no
economic reason not to invest in the Georgian hydrocarbons transportation
sector.
In the meantime, Baku took advantage of the European and Turkish hunger for
In the meantime, Baku took advantage of the European and Turkish hunger for
its gas resources to influence politics in the South Caucasus. First, it has linked
its support for the European-driven Southern Corridor project to the Turkish
-Armenian rapprochement. While the Obama administration was pushing the
negotiations between Ankara and Yerevan forward, Brussels remained relatively
passive. Baku made it clear to the European Commission, especially to
Directorate General for Energy, that explicit support for this initiative would heavily
undermine Azerbaijan’s commitment to the Southern Corridor. The DG Energy
then lobbied the Directorate General for External Relations as well as Javier
Solana’s Cabinet (which was then on the verge of being replaced by Catherine
Ashton) to soften their support for the Turkish-Armenian dialogue. The increasing
gas sales to Russia (up to 2 billion cubic meters a year in 2011) were a reminder
to Brussels that Azerbaijan has alternatives for its gas exports.
Baku also linked the issue of Azerbaijani gas transit through Turkey to the Turkish
Baku also linked the issue of Azerbaijani gas transit through Turkey to the Turkish
-Armenian rapprochement. A political agreement on gas transit was signed only
after the rapprochement collapsed. Now, as technical negotiations are ongoing
between the Turkish pipeline company, BOTAS, and the Shah Deniz consortium
led by SOCAR, Baku has made it clear that no deal can be found if there is a
reset in this rapprochement. The opening of the Turkish-Armenian border is one
of the few leverages Azerbaijan has over Armenia and it is not prepared to give it
up. In addition, the rapid development of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania gas
Interconnector (AGRI) project, for which a political declaration was signed on
September 14 2010, is here to remind Ankara that Baku has other gas transit
alternatives.
CONCLUSIONS
The resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has reached a deadlock. Despite
CONCLUSIONS
The resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has reached a deadlock. Despite
hopes on mediation by the Kazakhstani OSCE presidency, the Almaty conference
in June 2010 was a failure. The situation is even worsening on the ground, with
shootouts increasing at the contact line between the two armies. While a military
solution cannot seriously be considered due to international pressures, Azerbaijan
is looking for alternative strategies to influence Armenia.
The Azerbaijani gas leverage may not last forever.
While unconventional gas is developing in Europe, the European hunger for gas is
The Azerbaijani gas leverage may not last forever.
While unconventional gas is developing in Europe, the European hunger for gas is
less and less stringent, at least before 2020. In the meantime, the Armenian
Diaspora in the United States is still powerful, as the difficult nominating process of
Matthew Bryza for the post of U.S. Ambassador in Azerbaijan illustrates. The
takeover of the Georgian portion of the North-South pipeline would provide Baku
with new leverage over Armenia. The latter would find itself in a very unusual and
unexpected situation, with its enemy sharing the control of a huge share of its gas
imports.
This is likely to increase tensions in the South Caucasus. Firstly, Yerevan could be
This is likely to increase tensions in the South Caucasus. Firstly, Yerevan could be
tempted to aggressive responses to such a predicament. Secondly, the relationship
between Armenia and Georgia may worsen after what Yerevan would consider a
betrayal by the Saakashvili government. Once again, the stability of the South
Caucasus may be at stake. Fear and resentment do not create a positive climate
for peace negotiations. The United States, and above all the EU, must engage
further with the region to decrease tensions and rebuild some confidence, in order to
finally move forward with the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Samuel Lussac Ph.D.
International Relations
Institute of Political Science of Bordeaux
Samuel Lussac Ph.D.
International Relations
Institute of Political Science of Bordeaux
Call Off the Great Game
It's time to stop seeing the South Caucasus as a geopolitical chessboard.
BY THOMAS DE WAAL | SEPTEMBER 13, 2010
Twenty years after the end of the Soviet Union, news from the South
Caucasus is bleak. The region's two longest borders, which stretch
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Georgia and Russia, remain
wholly or partially shut. Corrupt bureaucrats make even the nominally
open borders closed to free trade. Three de facto statelets -
Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh -- exist in a twilight
zone, separate from their Soviet-era "parents," Georgia and
Azerbaijan, but not quite sovereign states either. Hundreds of
thousands of refugees remain displaced by war. Poverty and
unemployment are endemic. Millions work away from home as migrant
workers, mainly in Russia. Both locals and outsiders share the blame
for creating this miserable picture.
More... How do outsiders share responsibility? We are at fault, I
believe, because our faulty perceptions and interpretations have
helped make bad local politics worse. I identify three dangerous
mirages -- misguided approaches to this region that reverberate in
decidedly unhelpful ways.
The first mirage may be the oldest: the notion that the region is a
"Great Chessboard" where the big powers push the locals around like
pawns to serve their own goals. That is not what actually happens. In
actual fact, however the geopolitical weather changes, the locals
always manage to manipulate the outside powers at least as much as the
other way round.
In the 21st century the Caucasus is still the Caucasus, in all its
complexity and variety -- not an assimilated province of Russia,
Turkey, or Iran. The peoples of the Caucasus may be too weak to
prosper, but they remain strong enough to withstand fading into their
bigger neighbors. You could call it a "balance of insecurity." Over
the course of history, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians, as well
as the region's other smaller ethnic groups, have all persistently
survived invasion and resisted assimilation. It's true the price of
survival has come in the form of Faustian pacts with other Great
Powers, in which the Azerbaijanis allied themselves with Turks and
British; Georgians with Germans and British; Armenians, Abkhaz and
Ossetians with Russians.
The outside power that has most determined the fate of the region over
the last century has been Soviet Russia, which for a period of time
did not so much resolve the contradictions of the Caucasus as smother
them. Beginning in 1920, the region was under the Soviets' suffocating
authoritarian rule. When Soviet power waned in the late Gorbachev
period, the pendulum swung again. The years 1919 and 1991 bore many
similarities; Abkhaz and Ossetians sought Russian assistance against
what they saw to be a Georgian nationalist threat, while newly
independent Georgia looked to new Western allies to protect itself
against a perceived Russian threat. Fast forward to August 2008, and
long-simmering tensions helped make South Ossetia the arena of the
worst clash between Russia and the United States since the end of the
Cold War.
Given the complexity of these relationships, it is better to describe
this picture not as a giant chessboard, but as a castle of dominoes,
wherein the whole construction totters if you dislodge one piece.
The second mirage is that of the Russian bear looming over this region
ready to maul the relatively defenseless Caucasian peoples, even
today. I believe this outlook is exaggerated. To be sure, Russia is
still the most powerful outside actor in the region. In the 1990s, the
Russian military indeed meddled disastrously in the conflicts of the
region and still has troops stationed just 30 miles from Tbilisi in
the town of Akhalgori.* Yet Russia's capacity to control events is far
less than most observers assume.
It is geography that firstly limits Russia's role here. Both the
physical barrier of the Greater Caucasus range and the strong
histories of independent statehood in the southern Caucasus forced
tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union to rely on local leaders to
maintain their rule. The number of ethnic Russians present in these
areas has always been small. Even today Russia has very few people and
direct levers to pull here.
Many Western analysts saw the 2008 war as evidence of Russia's
neo-imperialist plans for domination in the South Caucasus and the
"near abroad" in general. In actual fact, Moscow has spent much of the
last two years offering incentives and gifts to Armenia and
Azerbaijan, while President Dmitry Medvedev has personally invested
time and effort in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Russia's recent
consolidation of a military alliance with Armenia cannot disguise a
long-term strategic retreat from the Caucasus where the local players,
including the Armenians, prefer to have multiple partnerships and not
just one. Today the Caucasus is a neighborhood where Russia is one of
several international players and where economic, not military, tools
are the ones that matter.
Even in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which
have both accepted de facto Russian control as a price for their de
facto secession from Georgia, Russia's stake is not as heavy as it
looks. Moscow is investing millions of dollars in the territories,
money that it needs to spend elsewhere. Almost no other country has
followed Russia's example in recognizing the two territories as
independent; Moscow's move has stirred up discontent in the restive
North Caucasus.
In the long-term a truce over these frozen conflicts may be possible,
primarily because international deadlock over these two territories
reduces Moscow's ability to deal with an even more urgent security
problem: its own turbulent North Caucasus. Russia cannot stabilize
Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia on its own, but eventually needs
the help of Georgians, Abkhaz, Ossetians and the West to do so. A deal
over South Ossetia, which was always economically part of Georgia and
is linked to Russia by just one tunnel through the mountains, is
certainly achievable in the next decade.
So the all-powerful Russian bear is something of an illusion; Moscow
remains a prickly and unpredictable beast certainly, but not an
omnipotent one.
A third mirage is the perception of the South Caucasus as an area of
great Western strategic interest -- an approach, paradoxically, that
actually does more harm than good.
Two factors have led to the point of view that the South Caucasus is
of such global import: first, the desire to see the region as a new
essential energy corridor for the West; second, the desire to see it
as a zone for NATO enlargement.
In energy terms, the South Caucasus is indeed an important transport
corridor for Caspian Sea oil and gas; there were good reasons why
Azerbaijan needed pipeline routes independent of Russia and Iran. Oil
pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has also brought
billions of dollars of much-needed revenue to Azerbaijan -- and rather
less to Georgia. Caspian Sea gas has lessened the reliance of both
countries on Russian gas. But many Western policymakers have
incorrectly treated pipeline policy as a zero-sum strategic game. In
the 1990s, several new Caspian enthusiasts allowed themselves to
believe extravagant claims about the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea,
comparing them to those of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. These claims later
turned out to be highly exaggerated. A pair of unhelpful metaphors
made things worse. The image of a "new Silk Road" stretching from
Central Asia across to the Black Sea, pretty though it sounds,
unfortunately conjured up a medieval era of pre-modern principalities.
And the idea of a "Great Game" comparing the new interest in the South
Caucasus with the struggle for influence between tsarist Russia and
Great Britain in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the 19th century cast
the locals as passive objects and Moscow in the role of a deadly
rival. These metaphors unduly raised the hopes of small nations that
they were essential to the West, while antagonizing Russia. In
retrospect, strategic ambitions to establish a position in the region
ran ahead of a more sober assessment of its place on the European
energy map and its economic needs.
The second grand strategic vision imposed on the Caucasus the West was
that of NATO expansion into Georgia. The issue on the table was not
really Georgia's right to join NATO -- something that the Georgian
public voted for by a good majority in a referendum. The issue was
whether active pursuit of this was a good policy for either Georgia or
NATO - it is now clear that it was not. The effort did not improve
Georgia's security, and NATO was not ready for a country with
undeveloped armed forces and weak state institutions, as well as two
unresolved conflicts on its territory. As became clear in August 2008,
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili believed he had far more
support in Washington for his actions over South Ossetia than he
actually did. When that conflict had played itself out, Georgia was
left with neither Abkhazia and South Ossetia, nor a Membership Action
Plan for joining NATO.
Far better than this kind of rhetorical and selective strategic
engagement would have been more focused lower-level investment in
institution-building. That would at least have allowed the locals to
make sober assessments of their own capacities and what they
themselves should ask from Western patrons with limited attention
spans. This leads me to the paradoxical thought that a healthy dose of
strategic insignificance would be very positive for the South
Caucasus. Viewing the region in this light would allow outsiders and
locals alike to concentrate on solving essential everyday problems.
I believe the South Caucasus would benefit from a truce between the
latter-day Great Powers, in which they accept the interests of the
others, so long as their intentions are not hostile. The outsiders
should agree not to provide offensive weapons to the region and to
work together to halt any slide to conflict. That vision only makes
sense if the region belongs to no security organization-its in-between
status making it a zone of neutrality rather than conflict.
At the moment that vision is clearly utopian, given the heavy Russian
presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the smoldering volcano of
the Karabakh dispute. Still, outsiders have the freedom to imagine a
different future and frame their policies accordingly.
Hand in hand with this goal goes an economic vision: Imagine the South
Caucasus region as a free trade zone and communications hub, radiating
out to five points of a star: to Russia, the Caspian Sea, Iran, Turkey
and the Black Sea. The day the railway line is reopened through
Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of
Nakhichevan to Iran -- with a sideways connection to the Black Sea,
Turkey and Europe -- is the day the South Caucasus regains its role as
a region with real prospects for the future.
Few locals and outsiders think in these terms. Narrow bilateralism is
an abiding problem in Caucasus policy -- a problem complicated by the
multiple policy agendas of a country such as Russia or the United
States. For instance, Washington has an Armenia policy driven mostly
by Congress and the more than a million Armenian Americans who make up
a powerful domestic lobby. Meanwhile, it has an Azerbaijan policy,
whose advocates in the energy companies and in the military are
focused on that country as a source of oil and gas and as an
over-flight station for troops and supplies headed to Afghanistan. And
there is Washington's Georgia policy, which for a time was the prize
exhibit in President Bush's "democratization agenda." The point is
that with few exceptions, almost no one in Washington is thinking of
how to approach the South Caucasus as a region, whose economic needs
and security problems are inter-connected and best resolved by a
holistic regional approach.
Meanwhile, the most promising agents of change in the Caucasus receive
far too little recognition. They are small businessmen and traders
born in the region. Often today they are working as entrepreneurs
outside the Caucasus, not working to enrich the region itself. Small
traders are no respecters of borders or ethnic difference and the
mythical "ancient hatreds" that politicians sometimes conjure up to
mobilize loyalty and hatred. International organizations have spent
millions over the past two decades on peace-building projects in the
South Caucasus, but the most effective catalysts for cross-border
cooperation were two wholesale markets that were entirely spontaneous.
One was outside the village of Ergneti on the administrative border
between South Ossetia and Georgia. Georgians and Ossetians traded
almost everything, from cars to matches, and the profits of the market
sustained South Ossetia for a decade. The second market was in the
village of Sadakhlo inside Georgia but near the borders with both
Armenia and Azerbaijan and an entreport for traders from both those
countries - even as they were in a virtual state of war. The lesson of
the two markets, both now sadly closed down, is this: the region is
still a place of dynamic individuals, not only warring group
identities.
As for Western policy-makers, I believe they should ask themselves two
questions every time they contemplate an intervention in the South
Caucasus: "Is my action helping to open borders and free up a blocked
region?" and "Does it empower ordinary people and not just
governments?"
It's time to stop seeing the South Caucasus as a geopolitical chessboard.
BY THOMAS DE WAAL | SEPTEMBER 13, 2010
Twenty years after the end of the Soviet Union, news from the South
Caucasus is bleak. The region's two longest borders, which stretch
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Georgia and Russia, remain
wholly or partially shut. Corrupt bureaucrats make even the nominally
open borders closed to free trade. Three de facto statelets -
Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh -- exist in a twilight
zone, separate from their Soviet-era "parents," Georgia and
Azerbaijan, but not quite sovereign states either. Hundreds of
thousands of refugees remain displaced by war. Poverty and
unemployment are endemic. Millions work away from home as migrant
workers, mainly in Russia. Both locals and outsiders share the blame
for creating this miserable picture.
More... How do outsiders share responsibility? We are at fault, I
believe, because our faulty perceptions and interpretations have
helped make bad local politics worse. I identify three dangerous
mirages -- misguided approaches to this region that reverberate in
decidedly unhelpful ways.
The first mirage may be the oldest: the notion that the region is a
"Great Chessboard" where the big powers push the locals around like
pawns to serve their own goals. That is not what actually happens. In
actual fact, however the geopolitical weather changes, the locals
always manage to manipulate the outside powers at least as much as the
other way round.
In the 21st century the Caucasus is still the Caucasus, in all its
complexity and variety -- not an assimilated province of Russia,
Turkey, or Iran. The peoples of the Caucasus may be too weak to
prosper, but they remain strong enough to withstand fading into their
bigger neighbors. You could call it a "balance of insecurity." Over
the course of history, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians, as well
as the region's other smaller ethnic groups, have all persistently
survived invasion and resisted assimilation. It's true the price of
survival has come in the form of Faustian pacts with other Great
Powers, in which the Azerbaijanis allied themselves with Turks and
British; Georgians with Germans and British; Armenians, Abkhaz and
Ossetians with Russians.
The outside power that has most determined the fate of the region over
the last century has been Soviet Russia, which for a period of time
did not so much resolve the contradictions of the Caucasus as smother
them. Beginning in 1920, the region was under the Soviets' suffocating
authoritarian rule. When Soviet power waned in the late Gorbachev
period, the pendulum swung again. The years 1919 and 1991 bore many
similarities; Abkhaz and Ossetians sought Russian assistance against
what they saw to be a Georgian nationalist threat, while newly
independent Georgia looked to new Western allies to protect itself
against a perceived Russian threat. Fast forward to August 2008, and
long-simmering tensions helped make South Ossetia the arena of the
worst clash between Russia and the United States since the end of the
Cold War.
Given the complexity of these relationships, it is better to describe
this picture not as a giant chessboard, but as a castle of dominoes,
wherein the whole construction totters if you dislodge one piece.
The second mirage is that of the Russian bear looming over this region
ready to maul the relatively defenseless Caucasian peoples, even
today. I believe this outlook is exaggerated. To be sure, Russia is
still the most powerful outside actor in the region. In the 1990s, the
Russian military indeed meddled disastrously in the conflicts of the
region and still has troops stationed just 30 miles from Tbilisi in
the town of Akhalgori.* Yet Russia's capacity to control events is far
less than most observers assume.
It is geography that firstly limits Russia's role here. Both the
physical barrier of the Greater Caucasus range and the strong
histories of independent statehood in the southern Caucasus forced
tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union to rely on local leaders to
maintain their rule. The number of ethnic Russians present in these
areas has always been small. Even today Russia has very few people and
direct levers to pull here.
Many Western analysts saw the 2008 war as evidence of Russia's
neo-imperialist plans for domination in the South Caucasus and the
"near abroad" in general. In actual fact, Moscow has spent much of the
last two years offering incentives and gifts to Armenia and
Azerbaijan, while President Dmitry Medvedev has personally invested
time and effort in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Russia's recent
consolidation of a military alliance with Armenia cannot disguise a
long-term strategic retreat from the Caucasus where the local players,
including the Armenians, prefer to have multiple partnerships and not
just one. Today the Caucasus is a neighborhood where Russia is one of
several international players and where economic, not military, tools
are the ones that matter.
Even in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which
have both accepted de facto Russian control as a price for their de
facto secession from Georgia, Russia's stake is not as heavy as it
looks. Moscow is investing millions of dollars in the territories,
money that it needs to spend elsewhere. Almost no other country has
followed Russia's example in recognizing the two territories as
independent; Moscow's move has stirred up discontent in the restive
North Caucasus.
In the long-term a truce over these frozen conflicts may be possible,
primarily because international deadlock over these two territories
reduces Moscow's ability to deal with an even more urgent security
problem: its own turbulent North Caucasus. Russia cannot stabilize
Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia on its own, but eventually needs
the help of Georgians, Abkhaz, Ossetians and the West to do so. A deal
over South Ossetia, which was always economically part of Georgia and
is linked to Russia by just one tunnel through the mountains, is
certainly achievable in the next decade.
So the all-powerful Russian bear is something of an illusion; Moscow
remains a prickly and unpredictable beast certainly, but not an
omnipotent one.
A third mirage is the perception of the South Caucasus as an area of
great Western strategic interest -- an approach, paradoxically, that
actually does more harm than good.
Two factors have led to the point of view that the South Caucasus is
of such global import: first, the desire to see the region as a new
essential energy corridor for the West; second, the desire to see it
as a zone for NATO enlargement.
In energy terms, the South Caucasus is indeed an important transport
corridor for Caspian Sea oil and gas; there were good reasons why
Azerbaijan needed pipeline routes independent of Russia and Iran. Oil
pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has also brought
billions of dollars of much-needed revenue to Azerbaijan -- and rather
less to Georgia. Caspian Sea gas has lessened the reliance of both
countries on Russian gas. But many Western policymakers have
incorrectly treated pipeline policy as a zero-sum strategic game. In
the 1990s, several new Caspian enthusiasts allowed themselves to
believe extravagant claims about the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea,
comparing them to those of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. These claims later
turned out to be highly exaggerated. A pair of unhelpful metaphors
made things worse. The image of a "new Silk Road" stretching from
Central Asia across to the Black Sea, pretty though it sounds,
unfortunately conjured up a medieval era of pre-modern principalities.
And the idea of a "Great Game" comparing the new interest in the South
Caucasus with the struggle for influence between tsarist Russia and
Great Britain in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the 19th century cast
the locals as passive objects and Moscow in the role of a deadly
rival. These metaphors unduly raised the hopes of small nations that
they were essential to the West, while antagonizing Russia. In
retrospect, strategic ambitions to establish a position in the region
ran ahead of a more sober assessment of its place on the European
energy map and its economic needs.
The second grand strategic vision imposed on the Caucasus the West was
that of NATO expansion into Georgia. The issue on the table was not
really Georgia's right to join NATO -- something that the Georgian
public voted for by a good majority in a referendum. The issue was
whether active pursuit of this was a good policy for either Georgia or
NATO - it is now clear that it was not. The effort did not improve
Georgia's security, and NATO was not ready for a country with
undeveloped armed forces and weak state institutions, as well as two
unresolved conflicts on its territory. As became clear in August 2008,
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili believed he had far more
support in Washington for his actions over South Ossetia than he
actually did. When that conflict had played itself out, Georgia was
left with neither Abkhazia and South Ossetia, nor a Membership Action
Plan for joining NATO.
Far better than this kind of rhetorical and selective strategic
engagement would have been more focused lower-level investment in
institution-building. That would at least have allowed the locals to
make sober assessments of their own capacities and what they
themselves should ask from Western patrons with limited attention
spans. This leads me to the paradoxical thought that a healthy dose of
strategic insignificance would be very positive for the South
Caucasus. Viewing the region in this light would allow outsiders and
locals alike to concentrate on solving essential everyday problems.
I believe the South Caucasus would benefit from a truce between the
latter-day Great Powers, in which they accept the interests of the
others, so long as their intentions are not hostile. The outsiders
should agree not to provide offensive weapons to the region and to
work together to halt any slide to conflict. That vision only makes
sense if the region belongs to no security organization-its in-between
status making it a zone of neutrality rather than conflict.
At the moment that vision is clearly utopian, given the heavy Russian
presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the smoldering volcano of
the Karabakh dispute. Still, outsiders have the freedom to imagine a
different future and frame their policies accordingly.
Hand in hand with this goal goes an economic vision: Imagine the South
Caucasus region as a free trade zone and communications hub, radiating
out to five points of a star: to Russia, the Caspian Sea, Iran, Turkey
and the Black Sea. The day the railway line is reopened through
Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of
Nakhichevan to Iran -- with a sideways connection to the Black Sea,
Turkey and Europe -- is the day the South Caucasus regains its role as
a region with real prospects for the future.
Few locals and outsiders think in these terms. Narrow bilateralism is
an abiding problem in Caucasus policy -- a problem complicated by the
multiple policy agendas of a country such as Russia or the United
States. For instance, Washington has an Armenia policy driven mostly
by Congress and the more than a million Armenian Americans who make up
a powerful domestic lobby. Meanwhile, it has an Azerbaijan policy,
whose advocates in the energy companies and in the military are
focused on that country as a source of oil and gas and as an
over-flight station for troops and supplies headed to Afghanistan. And
there is Washington's Georgia policy, which for a time was the prize
exhibit in President Bush's "democratization agenda." The point is
that with few exceptions, almost no one in Washington is thinking of
how to approach the South Caucasus as a region, whose economic needs
and security problems are inter-connected and best resolved by a
holistic regional approach.
Meanwhile, the most promising agents of change in the Caucasus receive
far too little recognition. They are small businessmen and traders
born in the region. Often today they are working as entrepreneurs
outside the Caucasus, not working to enrich the region itself. Small
traders are no respecters of borders or ethnic difference and the
mythical "ancient hatreds" that politicians sometimes conjure up to
mobilize loyalty and hatred. International organizations have spent
millions over the past two decades on peace-building projects in the
South Caucasus, but the most effective catalysts for cross-border
cooperation were two wholesale markets that were entirely spontaneous.
One was outside the village of Ergneti on the administrative border
between South Ossetia and Georgia. Georgians and Ossetians traded
almost everything, from cars to matches, and the profits of the market
sustained South Ossetia for a decade. The second market was in the
village of Sadakhlo inside Georgia but near the borders with both
Armenia and Azerbaijan and an entreport for traders from both those
countries - even as they were in a virtual state of war. The lesson of
the two markets, both now sadly closed down, is this: the region is
still a place of dynamic individuals, not only warring group
identities.
As for Western policy-makers, I believe they should ask themselves two
questions every time they contemplate an intervention in the South
Caucasus: "Is my action helping to open borders and free up a blocked
region?" and "Does it empower ordinary people and not just
governments?"
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