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The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan shows a lot: rivals Russia and Turkey are again destabilizing Europe’s neighborhood – and drones decide wars.
By Silvia Stöber, tagesschau.de
“We have shown that there is a military solution,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on 10 November after the Armenian government approved a ceasefire agreement. This solves Azerbaijan’s land gains during a six-week war with thousands of soldiers killed and well over 100 civilian casualties.
Under the agreement, Armenian troops and residents must withdraw from other areas that Armenia occupied in the early 1990s in addition to the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan. These should serve as a protection zone.
Now Russian troops should ensure the safety of the remaining inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh. They started moving just as representatives of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed the deal. As soldiers take up posts in Nagorno-Karabakh, the question remains of how safe the people of Nagorno-Karabakh really are.
The role of Russia and Turkey
Negotiations on the status, guarantees of protection of individuals and the implementation of individual points should now take place rapidly, including with the participation of international organizations. A power struggle can be observed between Russia and Turkey. As an ally of Azerbaijan, it had contributed – unofficially, but covertly – to its victory. Turkey now wants to establish an official military presence with peacekeeping troops.
But the Russian leadership made it clear that Turkey could only participate in a peace monitoring center. There should be no armed Turkish soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh. While both countries are still negotiating the location of the control center, Russian units are already creating facts. They positioned themselves on the main road of Nagorno-Karabakh and therefore also in the only viable access to Shusha. The city took Azerbaijan over the weekend and decided the war on its own. There are now Russian and Azerbaijani checkpoints.
Rivalry at the expense of the people
Russia and Turkey are therefore pursuing a power politics in the South Caucasus that was last seen in the early 20th century – then as now at the expense of the inhabitants and at the risk of jeopardizing political stability in the region. Many Azeris, for example, accuse their president of having Russian troops back in their country. They also address their disappointment to Armenia.
The unclear situation for the remaining Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and further uncertainties intensify the anger and bitterness in Armenia, which is unleashed in the protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Ultra-nationalist and other opposition forces are trying to exploit this phenomenon, which endangers Armenia’s path to democracy.
International intermediaries without influence
At the end of October, Foreign Minister Heiko Maaß declared that the international community would not accept a military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The OSCE is responsible for mediation in this area. But the organization is paralyzed by a leadership crisis, brought about by Azerbaijan, among others. It also no longer has offices in the region.
Although the OSCE Minsk Group had developed basic principles for conflict resolution, relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan have strengthened in recent years. The number and severity of military incidents have increased. Both updated so that, according to calculations by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), they were among the ten most militarized countries in the world.
Drones have decided the war
There would have been potential for pressure: Armenia and Azerbaijan are interested in economic and political relations with Europe and the United States. The most important arms suppliers, however, were Russia for both states and Israel for Azerbaijan, which thus pursued strategic interests. In addition, more and more have come from Turkey this year. The NATO member supported Azerbaijan with training in joint military maneuvers, military advisers and the presence of US-made F16 fighters near the war zone.
Israeli and Turkish drones proved crucial for Azerbaijan’s victory. These are used to track down and shoot the enemy and have proven superior to the classic Russian weapons that the Armenian military has at their disposal. Soldiers in trenches, tanks, guns, and anti-aircraft systems were easy targets for unmanned aerial vehicles. And apparently they have had a huge demoralizing effect.
Arms embargoes have no effect
Arms embargoes were supposed to prevent massive armament in recent decades. However, a voluntary United Nations embargo virtually expired in 2002. An OSCE embargo is still in place and the Federal Republic adheres to it. Turkey, Russia and Israel as OSCE partner states are not.
In any case, the provisions do not take into account current technical developments. Drones contain high-tech components that Turkey buys from Canada, for example. Non-governmental initiatives have drawn attention to this in recent weeks. The government of Canada then revoked an export license to Turkey from an imaging and targeting systems manufacturer. In Israel, activists are also working to ban the sale of drones to Azerbaijan.
Civil society organizations and the media use satellite recordings, data analysis and image evaluation to better uncover the current backgrounds and developments of the war. However, it can only be a small contribution against the power politics of states like Russia and Turkey.
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