By Andrew Bonney
The September 27th skirmish between Armenia and Azerbaijan portended a disruption to the former Soviet order in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Thousands of soldiers’ deaths coincided with deteriorating Russian hegemony in Southern Caucasia and expanding spheres of influence for middle-powers such as Turkey.
Lead-up to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained at odds over their conflicts of interest in the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) region, which differs from Nagorno-Karabakh proper. The former includes both Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave within western Azerbaijan, and the seven surrounding provinces. Although ethnic Armenians maintain a firm grip on Nagorno-Karabakh, they recently lost control of the bordering territories. Armenians did not convincingly control the surrounding provinces until 1993. Before then, the Soviet Union shelved the ethnic conflict by creating the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in 1921. In 1991, Armenians called for the creation of the Republic of Artsakh, a republic that would include the NK region and the seven surrounding provinces.
The independence of former Soviet republics in the 1990s precipitated Caucasian independence movements in the wake of regional nationalist agitation. This nationalism precipitated the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Lasting from 1988 to 1994, the war ended in an unexpected and internationally unpopular Armenian victory. The Armenian grasp on territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh remained tenuous, however, and Azerbaijan considered the lost territories occupied rather than conquered. Prior to the 2020 war, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev declared, “Nagorno-Karabakh is our ancient and historical land, and we will return to these lands.”
Following the 1994 conclusion of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and prior to the 2020 hostilities, Nagorno-Karabakh was a frozen conflict zone. Although general peace prevailed, violent skirmishes did occur on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan as recently as July 2020. However, the border experienced no significant changes. While the border did not shift from 1994-2020, the Azeri-Armenian economic balance did. During this time, Azerbaijan’s economy boomed on account of its Caspian oil fields. The balance of power changed between the two states, and the rhetoric became sharper. In August 2019, a year after Armenia’s successful Velvet Revolution, Armenian president Nikol Pashinyan declared that “Artsakh is Armenia.” Meanwhile, Azerbaijan paraded its new military equipment, never hiding its plans to retake the lost provinces. In addition to its historic concerns in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani government attempted to use military success to bolster its increasingly authoritarian regime. Aliyev cleaned out the parliament in February 2020, and a victory in Nagorno-Karabakh could quiet domestic concerns of tyranny. Turkey took note of the brewing interstate conflict, also recognizing Russia's diminishing diplomatic clout.
In 2020, instability in Russia’s backyard impugned the great power’s perceived hegemony in the region. In Belarus, citizens rejected the fraudulent election results that supported a pro-Russian dictator. The lead opposition leader posed a threat to Russian interests, prompting Russia to add her to the state’s wanted list. In Kyrgyzstan, the pro-Russian president resigned due to claims of election fraud. Simultaneously, Putin had to deal with the failed poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, an assasination attempt that damaged the international community’s opinion of Russia. Thus, Putin had his hands full, so a border dispute between two pugnacious former republics could not demand his full attention. Turkey, however, free from foreign policy constraints, watched attentively as the conflict unfolded.
In Turkey, nationalist sentiment has surged since Turkish rebels failed to depose Turkish president Recep Erdogan in a 2016 coup. Erdogan’s handling of the coup helped him curry domestic favor, and he used the coup as an excuse to further consolidate power. Thousands of judges, military officials, and politicians found themselves in jail following the coup attempt. Erdogan did not waste this nationalist support but fomented it. His shameless conversion of Hagia Sophia (a UNESCO heritage site) into a mosque from a museum showcased his nationalist pandering. Rather than acquiescing to UN pressure, Erdogan exploited the opportunity to bolster nationalist and religious sentiment. With nationalism peaking, a cultural reckoning neared.
Progression and Results of the War
Although Turkey did not directly enter the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, it indirectly supported Azerbaijan to great lengths. Instead of sending large quantities of Turkish weapons to Azerbaijan after the conflict’s inception, Erdogan increased arms sales to Aliyev in the months preceding the war. Instead of sending Turkish soldiers over to the zone of conflict in the NK region, Erdogan sent Syrian mercenaries. This strategy contrasted with the overt Turkish military presence across its southeastern border in Syria, which borders Turkey and holds a large Kurdish population, considered by Erdogan to be one of the nation’s greatest domestic threats. Conversely, the NK region does not border Turkey and holds no serious security threats for Turks. Thus, Erdogan’s’s choice to support Azerbaijan indirectly was due to the Armenian-Azeri conflict’s non-threatening nature rather than its lack of political potential.
Because both Armenia and Azerbaijan are firmly within the Russian sphere of influence, Russia hesitated to pick a side. Russia made repeated calls for a ceasefire but did not involve itself militarily until the conflict’s end. Only after Azerbaijan had conquered Shusha, the de facto capital of the Artsakh Republic, did Putin use his military to enforce a ceasefire. Even then, Russia acted as an arbitrator rather than an Armenian ally. It handily used Azerbaijan’s downing of a Russian jet as justification to indefinitely place thousands of its troops in the buffer territories as a “peacekeeping force.” Russia remained neutral throughout the conflict, but it did not stay complacent during the peacemaking process. Though Turkey undermined Russia by exacerbating the interstate conflict, the Russian-brokered ceasefire shows that Turkey did not totally supplant Russian influence in the South Caucasus.
Turkey did indeed succeed in domestically destabilizing Armenia. The abrupt end of the war in NK prompted calls for the resignation of Pashinyan, the leader of the 2018 democratic Velvet Revolution, who had formerly enjoyed widespread popularity. When the war started in September, many Armenians assumed that they would repeat their surprise victory of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Then too the Armenians were outnumbered and hope for victory seemed dim, yet Armenia prevailed against Azerbaijan. Many men who fought in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War found themselves in the same conflict thirty years later. The conflict evoked nostalgia, and optimism was high. Thus, many Armenians interpreted Pashinyan’s announcement of effective Armenian defeat as a betrayal of Armenian destiny. Pashinyan’s democratic and anti-corruption legacy began to fade. Formerly rejected elites organized protests against Pashinyan. Some protestors held legitimate grievances against the prime minister, but others simply wanted a return to the self-serving authoritarianism of the pre-Pashinyan era.
The international community, suffocated by pandemic politics, scarcely noticed the conflict. The UN had previously issued a call for a global ceasefire, but Yemen, Ethiopia, and other states violated it without serious backlash. Turkey’s incitement of the Nagorno-Karabakh War earned little mention. France took several diplomatic measures to censure Erdogan. However, French president Emmanuel Macron assumed a rocky relationship with Erdogan a couple of years ago. Disputes about NATO’s effectiveness as well as Turkish-Franco disagreement in Greece had damaged the two presidents’ relationship. The Nagorno-Karabakh War did not prompt the diplomatic parrying between France and Turkey; rather, French criticism of Turkish involvement seemed part of Macron’s continued dislike of Erdogan. In addition, the October beheading of a local public school teacher distracted French politicians from NK troubles. Thus French opposition to Turkey came and went. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad condemned Erdogan's involvement in Nagorno-Karabakh, claiming that the Turkish president was the direct perpetrator of the conflict. However, Assad––himself a pariah––possesses almost no international legitimacy, so his criticism had negligible political consequences. While a few attentive heads of state reprimanded Erdogan, nobody was persistent or powerful enough to actually deter him.
Future of Russia and Turkey in Southern Caucasia
Following Armenia’s loss of the seven buffer territories around Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan could finally seek to directly occupy the Artsakh Republic. Not only do the ceasefire concessions overlook Turkish participation in the conflict, but they provide a direct link between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhchivan. Nakhchivan holds nearly half a million Azerbaijanis, but Armenia’s geography completely separates the territory from Azerbaijan proper. In the ceasefire agreement, Armenia guaranteed “the safety of transport links between western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.” Increased transportation between Azerbaijan and its exclave will lengthen Baku’s political reach. Such cooperation may eventually encroach upon Armenia’s territorial integrity and perhaps suffocate Armenia’s access to Nagorno-Karabakh. In addition, Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan proper, and Turkey surround Armenia’s western and eastern borders. Without international intervention, the states could overwhelm the slim part of southern Armenia, perhaps going as far north as Kapan. However, the global community would not smile upon Turkey’s eager expansion.
Erdogan can keep engaging in middle-power disputes, but attempts to ape a great power will cost his country international legitimacy. Some scholars view Erdogan’s nationalism as pan-Turkism or a desire to unite all Turkic states under one government. The birth of a pan-Turkic empire would squander Turkey’s legitimacy with neighboring states and the international community. Iran would be especially perturbed. The Islamic Republic enjoys most of its trade with Armenia, so Turkish geographic expansion would affect the Islamic Republic’s economy. In addition, both middle powers compete for influence in Caucasia, and Iran would not let a Turkish victory occur without retaliation. Regarding the international community’s response, Turkey’s expansion into Armenia would reinvigorate genocide alarms, cries which were gaining strength during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Therefore, while Turkey did gain more influence as a middle power during the recent war, other middle powers and the international community would likely resist Erdogan’s larger-scale efforts. Turkish expansion into southern Armenia and eventual unification with Azerbaijan is theoretically possible, but the legitimacy costs would outweigh territorial gains.
Turkey did not usurp Russian influence in southern Caucasia, but it did disturb the traditional post-Soviet order. Former Soviet republics have histories of border disputes, and the border conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems inconsequential at first glance. However, Turkey’s ability to unabashedly fuel the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute evidenced Russia’s receding influence. According to Kenneth Waltz’ realist theory, great powers tend to consolidate power by transforming small, surrounding countries into satellite states. As a great power retracts inward, it liberates smaller states from its influence, and middle powers assert their influence in the vacuum. Similarly, as the vestige of a Russia-centric Eurasian political order fades, small post-Soviet republics will find themselves caught in middle-power disputes, as witnessed during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Andrew Bonney is a junior at Brigham Young University, majoring in Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic, and minoring in diplomacy and economics. He enjoys studying Eurasian languages, running, and reading about world history.
