Intense fighting broke out in late September between Armenian and Azerbaijani military units over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, an action that did not surprise Schar School Distinguished Visiting Professor Richard Kauzlarich. Kauzlarich, former U.S. Ambassador to the Azerbaijan, said the incipient war is an ethnic conflict playing out. An earlier (but more limited) round of fighting started in July along the state borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia rather than the regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite a Moscow-engineered ceasefire that halted earlier combat, more serious fighting resumed throughout the contested region. “We are no longer dealing with a dispute about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, Kauzlarich said. It has morphed into an ethnic conflict without borders that has nothing to do with Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Who started it? Lots of finger-pointing is going on, with denials from both Yerevan and Baku, about who was responsible for heavy weapons exchanges near Tovruz in July. There was speculation then among the cognoscenti that the Russians—and the Turks and the Iranians—started the July round because of developments in Syria and Libya. Now commentators say Russia and Turkey actually planned and are cooperating with Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively in this current, more intense military conflict. Russia's interest—and leverage—is best served by a no-peace, no-war situation in the region. Fighting that the Russians do not and cannot control is not to Moscow's advantage. Turkey has ample reasons to support Azerbaijan but look no further than Baku and Yerevan for the initiators of the recent fighting.
Why military conflict now? A flip answer about why now is that with winter fast approaching in the Caucasus, territorial gains would be more difficult to achieve after the snows and cold set in. More to the point, political leadership in Yerevan and Baku needed a distraction from regime-failure to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis and corruption.
The political opposition had gained traction from these regime-failures. In Azerbaijan, the regime uses the pandemic and the conflict to arrest opposition figures. This military exchange—with the upsurge in nationalist sentiments—takes the public mind off current problems and freezes the remaining political opposition who cannot criticize their political leadership without risking being called traitors.
Earlier in the summer, Ilham Aliyev telegraphed the possibility of military action. Earlier in 2020, Azerbaijan had been moving forces around on the border of Nakhichevan with Armenia. This is particularly troubling. The Armenians may still seek revenge for losses suffered in the "Four Day War" in 2016. Turkish-Azerbaijan and Russia-Armenia military exercises added to the tensions, as did Russian arms supplies to Armenia, and Azerbaijani arms purchases from Russia, Turkey, and Israel.
What are the U.S. interests? As long as the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan was about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, there was a role for U.S. mediation within the Minsk Group framework. Now the only grounds for U.S. engagement is ending the military engagement along their state borders. The U.S. has no strategic interest in the region that would justify deeper involvement, given the changing basis for the conflict. In the past, energy might have been such an interest.
Does this conflict threaten energy security in Europe? Caspian energy—Azerbaijan energy in particular—is not as important today as it was two decades ago. Global energy demand has collapsed, oil and gas markets are oversupplied, and the world is moving to a low/no-carbon future. Azerbaijan oil production has been declining since 2010, and major U.S. energy companies are pulling out. Global energy markets have moved on from the 20th Century "great game" for limited supplies of oil.
Azerbaijani oil is not that significant, and gas does not reach Europe until the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) is completed. Given sagging European energy demand, shutting off Azerbaijani oil would have little impact on European energy security. Oil markets have not reacted to the fighting. Even if the gas pipeline to Europe was working, the contracted gas represents only about 10 percent of total European demand. Russia is not anxious to lose even 10 percent of the European gas market, but not enough to start a conflict that they cannot control.
What's the bottom line? Azerbaijan and Armenia have dug themselves into a familiar position. For domestic political reasons, military engagement reaps more domestic benefits than finding (1) a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem; and (2) more normal but complicated relations with their neighbors. But the status of Karabakh is not why this round of fighting began. Now it's about unbridled ethnic hatred. They will find it hard to stop.
Russia pressured Baku and Yerevan to return to a cease-fire in July, hoping to maintain maximum leverage with a frozen conflict. What is most disturbing is the weaponization of diaspora communities to engage in public—and sometimes violent—demonstrations that inflame ethnic hatred beyond the South Caucasus.
We haven't hit bottom yet.
If there is no ceasefire in the coming weeks, the U.S. and its Western allies should consider applying sanctions—travel and financial—against the political leadership in Baku and Yerevan, and suspend economic and other assistance until both parties agree to a ceasefire and begin serious face-to-face diplomatic negotiations to resolve this conflict.
More on the current condition. And on NPR.