Nagorno Karabakh - What it Means to Win a War

Here is a good rule to live by, don’t kill people because they come from a different group than you. Even more simply, maybe we should chill out on identities based on things like geographic place of birth or the place of my great-great-grandfather’s birth.

This is a brief overview of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, why people are currently fighting a war there, who the interested parties are, why this is a legacy of the imperial policies of the USSR, and ends with thoughts as to where things can go from here.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting a very real war on and off for the past 30 years. They are fighting over a piece of land, called Artsakh by the Armenians and Nagorno Karabakh, or Mountainous Karabakh by most everyone else (I will call it NK from now on for brevity). As it is today, the only people who live in NK are Armenian. The area is controlled by a government comprised of Armenians, and the territory operates much like any other place in the world; there is a capital city, administrative buildings, businesses, hotels, shops, and parks. While claiming itself as an independent state, you pay with Armenian Dram, the cars have Armenian numbered plates, people have Armenian phone numbers, the only way to get into the territory is via Armenia, and, if someone who lives in NK wants to go to another country, they must use an Armenian passport.

During the Soviet Union things operated differently, Nagorno Karabakh was part of the Azerbaijani SSR. SSRs were like states, or colonies, within the greater USSR. You could move between them, for work or leisure purposes, and it was not uncommon to live in an SSR which did not necessarily correspond to your actual ethnic heritage. For example, Armenians in Azerbaijan, Georgians in Russia, and Russians everywhere. Not to mention the countless ethnic and self-identifying groups who did not have their own SSR, or even lower level autonomous administrative unit.

The administration of the USSR had a policy which attempted to split up various ethnic or national groups so that no individual group could get too strong and consider thinking about greater autonomy. This is an imperial tactic not unlike what European nations did during the colonial period in Africa. This tactic of division is why, despite having a majority Armenian population, a decision was at one point made in Moscow that NK would be part of the Azerbaijani SSR.

In the late 1980s, Armenians who lived in in NK were agitating for more representation and language rights. While Russian was the lingua franca and allowed for cross cultural communication, because NK was part of Azerbaijani, things like TV broadcasts and schoolbooks were in the Azeri language and Armenian voices were not represented. There were demonstrations supporting the Armenians of NK in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and the cause of the NK Armenians was championed by the elites of the Armenian SSR who both discretely and overtly began campaigning and advocating on their behalf.

By 1990 the tension between the two sides rose to the level of deadly massacres, with pogrom style killings of around 100 Armenians in the Azerbaijani cities of Sumgait and Baku. Those who weren’t killed left out of fear. In some cases, entire villages on each side simply swapped homes starting new lives across a previously insignificant border. In other cases, property and homes were simply stolen from fleeing residents on both sides.

Violence continued to escalate in January of 1990 and the situation devolved into a full-scale war with thousands dead, and tens of thousands wounded on both sides. A cease fire brokered by the OSCE was reached in 1994 and resulted in Armenian forces controlling the territory of NK, and some additional adjacent land in Azerbaijan proper, which was advantageous geographically. Trenches were dug, and both sides bunkered down, waiting.

There has been cross border fighting on various occasions, but nothing at the scale of the current conflict. NK remains de jure Azerbaijani territory, as no internationally recognized state acknowledges its independence, but the self-declared government in NK is de facto in control. It is important to note that Armenia does not claim NK for itself, and negotiations continue as to the long-term goals of Armenia and NK’s relationship.

Since the 1994 cease fire Armenia has used its large diaspora to raise money to rebuild NK, and support the fledgling unrecognized state as best it can. Two of the previous three presidents of Armenia are Karabakhi Armenian, resulting in high importance being laid on the issue within Armenia as and the fate of NK is directly related to the support it receives from the Armenian state.

Azerbaijan, stinging from defeat, has managed to spend the last 25 years becoming fabulously wealthy from oil and gas. It has multiple pipelines that run from its oil fields in the Caspian through Georgia and on to Turkey where it can enter the global market. These pipelines would have been much shorter if they went across Armenia, but of course, that was never an option, as Azerbaijan would never willingly share its natural resources with its enemy.

The issue remains, today Armenians live in NK, and Azerbaijanis don’t. If we are to follow international law, NK should be Azerbaijani land, subject to Azerbaijani law. However, the Azerbaijanis were losing the war in 1994 and that is why they agreed to the terms they did. In subsequent skirmishes they have not been able to decisively, or even remotely gain back any significant amount of the territory they claim. Further, if Azerbaijan did manage to reassert control over an amount of NK which is currently populated, what would happen to the Armenians who live there? It is unlikely they would be allowed to stay and continue their lives undisturbed. How far back do the claims of international law and recognition go, especially considering the number of empires and conquering armies that have previously been there?