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January 15, 2012
Download (PDF, 450 KB)Azerbaijanis Revisit 2011 and Gaze Ahead Into 2012: A SurveyArmenian Diaspora Increasingly Hurting ArmeniaRussian-Turkish Relations Between the Sovietization of Azerbaijan and the Sovietization of Armenia  |
Stephen BlankDr. Stephen J. Blank has served as the Strategic Studies Institute’s expert on the Soviet bloc and the post-Soviet world since 1989. Prior to that, he was Associate Professor of Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, and taught at the Authors articles:Russia’s War With Georgia: Implications For Azerbaijan
The Russo-Georgian war of August 2008 will have significant repercussions for the entire Caucasus. Moscow’s objectives are already clear. It will annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, thus violating the 1975 Helsinki treaty and ripping apart the post-Cold War settlement based on the indivisibility of European security. It will deprive Georgia of its economic and self-defense capacity and destroy Georgia’s civilian infrastructure and economy... Democracy and Security In Azerbaijan: An American View
Virtually every analysis of security in the South Caucasus links the region’s precarious situation in one way or another to the incompletion or absence of democracy there. While none of the three South Caucasian states is totalitarian, it is clear that they all suffer from quite visible democratic deficits. And these deficits are particularly aggravated during presidential and parliamentary elections. The recent Georgian and Armenian presidential elections underscored the fragility of both democratic practices and of internal security in those states... The Azerbaijani-Turkmen Rapprochement and Its Consequences
One of the most interesting but also most unnoticed trends in the international relations of CIS governments is taking place between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Specifically, the growing rapprochement and increasing cooperation between these two states could have significant geo-economic and thus political consequences. It will be remembered that until the death of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in late 2006 these relations were almost nonexistent due to differences over energy fields in the Caspian, more precisely over the revenues to be obtained from these prospective fields. Since Niyazov’s death and the accession of his successor Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov the drive for a rapprochement, which to be fair was first bruited about at the end of Niyazov’s tenure, has accelerated... Great Power Rivalry in the Caucasus After Bucharest
Tension in the Caucasus has steadily grown since 2005. Russia’s undeclared war against Georgia includes a creeping annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, economic, trade, and energy sanctions, over flights, bombings, and intelligence operations. In 2006, Georgia, not to be undone, contemplated military action to recover South Ossetia. Meanwhile, its leadership is clearly unduly susceptible to using intemperate language and taking provocative risks. Neither has it been fully successful in democratizing Georgia as intended. Nor is this the only conflict in the Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan have regressed regarding efforts to resolve the stalemate in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku has raised defense spending 53% and both sides say that either Nagorno-Karabakh will never again belong to Azerbaijan or that it never will become independent of it. These actions plus endless charges and counter-charges by both sides have only intensified the stalemate there... |
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