A South Caucasus alliance or friendship with ‘big countries’ – a choice for Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia

Countries of the South Caucasus

Among all the terrible news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one, oddly enough, made me jealous. It was a BBC report about Baltic countries preparing for a military conflict with Russia.

When looking at Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from the South Caucasus, the contrast becomes even more apparent. These three countries have united in the face of the Russian threat. In the meantime, the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the blessing of the majority of their respective peoples, would be happy to finish each other off while Russia is distracted by Ukraine.

In times of crisis, such as now, it has become especially clear how vulnerable the South Caucasian region is – precisely because of its disunity and conflicts. In particular, it is vulnerable to the Russian Federation, which very skillfully uses our contradictions, stubbornness and complexes for its own purposes.

Today it is obvious that the restrained position of the states of the South Caucasus on Ukraine is directly related to their economic and political dependence on Russia.

Georgia stands apart in this respect – it has its own history with Russia. And in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, everything rests on the Karabakh conflict. Without it, Russia (meaning Putin) would lose its main lever of pressure not only on both our countries but also on the region as a whole. The results of the second Karabakh war, which were supposed to put an end to this, in fact, did not change anything.

The South Caucasus is located at the intersection of the zone of interests of too many major geopolitical players: in addition to the US and Russia, it is also Turkey. And each of them is trying to pull over the blanket of the state course and public mood in our countries.

Can this completely remove responsibility from governments and societies themselves? Or do we just need to admit our own immaturity and inability to have a mind of our own?

Another important question is how ready are the societies themselves for the unification of the region if such an opportunity arises? To what extent are they able to refuse to sacralize their historical wounds and stop arguing about who is ‘cooler’ and who lived here longer? 

To what extent would the inhabitants of the three countries of the region be able to push their national ideas into the background and instead discuss the prospects for joint development – both economic and political?

Before the arrival of the Red Army in the Caucasus, there was a utopian territorial alliance: at first, it was the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When Sovietization had already begun, its analog was created: the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

No, I do not mean that our countries could unite into another federation. I’m talking about allied relations of independent republics.

I had an Italian acquaintance who thought that the complete independence of small states was unnatural: they had to stick to big powers in order to survive. I jokingly called it his ‘Roman-Imperial manners’.

However, probably, small states from the same region (even though, with a population of 10 million, Azerbaijan can hardly be called small) should stick together in order to maintain their real, and not formal, independence from the major powers.

Trajectories is a media project that tells stories of people whose lives have been impacted by conflicts in the South Caucasus. We work with authors and editors from across the South Caucasus and do not support any one side in any conflict. The publications on this page are solely the responsibility of the authors. In the majority of cases, toponyms are those used in the author’s society. The project is implemented by GoGroup Media and International Alert and is funded by the European Union

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