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On Nagorno-Karabakh 2016
Omar Alansari-Kreger
As the concerned citizens of man, we should be paying attention to the intense shooting
war that is taking place near Nagorno-Karabakh between Azeri and Armenian forces. I think the
writing was on the wall since the truce was signed back in the early 1990s. An armistice is
nothing but the illusion of a peace treaty. Such arrangements of shortsighted diplomacy does
nothing for the long term; once the ice thaws, tensions reawaken and it only becomes a matter of
time until one side starts accusing the other of firing the first shot. Armenian ultra-nationalists
have occupied about 20% of Azeri territory along its Western hinterlands that border Armenia.
Likewise, Azeri ultra-nationalists have turned their side of the border into something that
resembles the DMZ that has demarcated the two Koreas since the end of the Korean War. Too
bad a push for autonomy wont satisfy either side. Azeris want to re-annex Nagorno-Karabakh
with a demand for war reparations from the Armenian government.
Baku accuses Yerevan of dispatching eager ultra-nationalists into Nagorno-Karabakh
with a blatant intention of annexing the territory to Armenia while displacing a wide number of
Azeris in the process. While Armenians demand support for their ethnocentric claims over the
area based on a policy of realpolitik considering it is by and large inhabited by ethnic Armenians.
Nevertheless, after the collapse of the USSR, ultra-nationalists were quick to move into
Nagorno-Karabakh to assert their control over the territory displacing the Azeri minority. We
must appreciate how the current situation resembles the geo-political dynamics of Kosovo on
many levels. Similar to Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo was claimed by Serbia, but
demographically, the Albanians were numerically superior. Yet, I wonder, does the prospect of an
independent Nagorno-Karabakh stand a chance considering that Baku is staunchly aligned with
America and Israel?
On the other hand, Yerevan, represents a nation that has been closely aligned with
Moscow since the breakup of the USSR. To this day, Serbia refuses to recognize the
independence of Kosovo, but the latter has maintained a prominent display of independence
because of support from the United States and the European Union. It is safe to say that an
independent Nagorno-Karabakh will not enjoy the same degree of support simply because the
region is regionally dominated by the geo-political interests of Moscow, not Washington. The
Georgia crisis of 2008 proved that an eager government may be pro-Western, but that does not
mean that Europe or Washington can do anything to stop an invading Russian armies without
risking World War Three. This only proves that Russia is exclusively a REGIONAL and not a
WORLD power. Economically, Nagorno-Karabakh is to Armenia what North Korea is to China;
both are threatened with eternal extinction once their only reservoir to foreign aid comes to an
abrupt halt.
I wonder how the political fraternization of a Greater Armenia will pan out once two
governments are formed adjacently to each other. Could Nagorno-Karabakh change its geopolitical camp in order to stick it to Yerevan out of accusations of neglect, mismanagement, and

corruption? Disputably, if that were to happen, the region in addition to the world community
should brace for another Georgian styled Russian invasion as seen in 2008. If that were to
happen, Nagorno-Karabakh could transform into another South Ossetia or Abkhazia; nations that
exist as virtual military outposts for the projection of Russias regional geo-political power; a
shadow of its former Soviet portrait. Regional conflicts provoke international responses, but the
disparate are always marginalized by the realities of realpolitik. That is described as a world
ruled by the geo-political interests of power; nothing more, nothing less.