“Every year, as the spring thaw is awaited in the mountains of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the small coterie of scholars and experts who keep an eye on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict ask, “Will there be war?” This year, Karabakh watchers are especially gloomy. Twenty-sixteen was a bad year, and 2017 could yet be worse,” British journalist and senior fellow of Carnegie Europe, Thomas de Wall, writes.
He recalls that over four days last April, up to 200 Armenians and Azerbaijanis died but the escalation was followed by diplomatic activity. “But in the last six months, the deals provisionally concluded in the summer have slowly unraveled. The Karabakh situation has defaulted to a familiar and depressing mix of mutual accusations of bad faith, Azerbaijani frustration, Armenian inertia, and diplomatic wrestling over tiny details.”
The author recalls the words of Benjamin Franklin on that a bad peace is better than a good war. “A new conflict in the Caucasus could lead to thousands of casualties and economic devastation—without resolving the core issues of the dispute. But there is a danger that the parties could miscalculate and end up fighting anyway, despite their better judgment,” he writes.
De Wall describes the region as “the most militarized zone in Europe, bristling with artillery, long-range missile launchers, attack helicopters, and military drones.” “Azerbaijan has spent billions of dollars of oil revenues on new weaponry. The Armenians have spent less but maintained a credible defensive capability, thanks to buying Russian weapons at discounted prices.”
According to the journalist, now that the latest diplomatic initiative, spearheaded by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has stalled, Baku feels tempted to retry last year’s events—“to launch another operation to recapture territory and put pressure on the Armenian side.”
“The risk is that a small operation would inevitably escalate into something even more serious than last time. The Azerbaijani authorities would be under pressure to capture substantial amounts of territory, rather than the small slivers they took last time. The Armenians would be under pressure from their public to fight more strongly than they did last April and reverse any gains made by the other side,” the expert notes.
In his words, both sides overestimate their military prowess, despite their newly acquired weaponry. The Armenians have obtained Iskander missile, while Azerbaijan purchased Iron Dome missile-defense system.
De Waal stresses that there is also a dangerous political situation besides the military context: the end of oil boom in Azerbaijan and the parliamentary elections in Armenia slated for April 2.
“This is widely perceived as a gambit by Sargsyan, whose second and last presidential term ends in 2018, to find a way of shoring up his own power. The switch is controversial and the opposition will use the election to challenge him in all ways possible,” de Waal writes.
In his words, a final factor of instability is international turbulence is the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. The ongoing crises in the EU countries, which is felt in the South Caucasus, could encourage the parties to behave more irresponsibly and believe they can get away with more.
“If there is fighting, it will be hard to manage. In April 2016, Moscow negotiated a verbal ceasefire between the parties. But it is a misconception that Moscow is pulling the strings in the Karabakh conflict. Moscow has never been in control since the dispute broke out in 1988, having tried variously to back one side or the other or to mediate. Currently, Russia is highly distrusted in both countries and neither Baku nor Yerevan will allow it to impose its own agenda on their number one national issue. In short, the threat of preemptive violence over Karabakh needs to be met with intense preemptive diplomacy. A descent into new conflict in the South Caucasus is the last thing anyone wants—least of all the ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis who will be caught in the middle of it,” the author concludes.
