Karabakh: the war that God and Stalin created

For more than a week They have fought Officially, only 244 died, 60 of them civilians, but the real numbers are much higher, because both sides want to keep their own losses low. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is more dangerous now than ever since the 1994 ceasefire agreement. The danger of a major war is real.

We are in the Caucasus the beginning of time for our continent, where the Armenians, the first to embrace Christianity as the state religion, are fighting against the Azerbaijanis, the provincial cousins ​​of the Muslim Turks. We are where Armenian and Georgian Christians have become a Christian paradox, surrounded by a partially aggressive Islam on all sides. Therefore, they perceive that they are waging an eternal existential struggle. And we are at the point where the dictator Joseph Stalin – who was himself from the Caucasus – made one of his evil points in history when he made his ethnic mosaic in the Soviet Union.

The idea was that everyone the nationalities would be held hostage to each other. Thus, Nagorno-Karabakh became a predominantly Armenian ethnic enclave within Azerbaijan. A bit like Nakhichevan is an area in Armenia, but part of Azerbaijan. The Stalinist logic was clear; ethnic groups had to balance themselves because they were held hostage by others. So that Moscow, the center, could more easily have control. Divided and ruled, such is the name.

It was like this Had to go. When the people of the Soviet Union gained their freedom around 1990, the war for Nagorno-Karabakh began, as the first of the limited wars in the settlement of the Soviet Union. 30,000 people died and a million became refugees, most of them Azerbaijanis. They had to flee from the Armenians, who took control of Nagorno-Karabakh and the plains from the mountainous areas to the border with Armenia.

This is the zone It has been under fire from Azerbaijani artillery since September 27, while Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have responded by bombing Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, Ganja. But the balance of power has shifted 25 years ago. Azerbaijan is the oil state ruled with an iron fist by the Aliyev family dynasty, the current dynasty has the given name Ilham. It has used billions of oil to, among other things, buy modern weapons from Russia and build an effective army.

But is not only the economy that has changed in favor of Azerbaijan. Conditions have also changed politically. For his part, Aliyev has the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He gave his full support to the war in Azerbaijan on September 28 and said that there can only be peace in the region when Nagorno-Karabakh is back in Azerbaijani hands. His spokesman added the next day that Turkey is “fully ready” to help.

Now of course War outbursts like this are also a game for the home gallery. Because everyone knows that if Azerbaijan goes too far in its war against the Armenians, Russia will react. For just as Erdogan’s Turkey in recent years has intensified its efforts to defend its fellow believers who are under pressure far away, so Russia has also been, above all, the historical defender of Christian Armenians. Armenia was the Soviet republic that was happier than any other with Soviet rule, because it provided at least security against the Turks after the Turkish genocide of the Armenians from 1915 until the end of the First World War. That role has not changed and the historical patterns found in this conflict help make it more dangerous.

Another thing what makes the war more dangerous are the mercenaries that Erdogan has sent to Azerbaijan from Syria. They are reportedly around 1,000 men and may contribute to further ideologizing the conflict. But in reality, it is mostly about the land, the land of the ancestors. According to international law, and according to the dictates of Stalin, Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. For Aliyev, it will be a great triumph to conquer parts or the whole area again. But is it allowed? By Erdogan, who basically has the best relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin? Both perceive themselves as almost holy advocates for brothers in trouble. Therefore, a great war threatens in this earthquake political zone where Russian, Persian and Ottoman interests collide.

It doesn’t get any easier that both Putin and Erdogan orient themselves in the world as if our time were before the First World War. Your world is a zero-sum game where the triumph of one is the defeat of the other. Where none of them is able to jump a higher sky over their worldview, like the EU in particular, but also the UN, they have achieved in their best moments. This makes the situation in the Caucasus even more dangerous.